The iPhone is an internet and multimedia enabled smartphone line developed and produced by computer and electronics giant,Apple Inc.
The line was first introduced in January 2007 and presents several functions of several domains,as it can be used as a multimedia file manager,which can be used to store,manage,and play files like music,videos and see photos,an internet and browser-based device,equipped with Wi-Fi Internet connection technology,or as a mobile phone,which after all is its main purpose,and it can be used for audio and video calling as well as texting.
The iPhone executes a very extended collection of applications(commonly known as iPhone Apps,Apple iPhone Apps,or just Apps).These apps can be found and obtained only from the official Apple Webstore,which currently has over 20.000 applications stored,from a huge variety of domains,such as games,social-networking,orientation(which includes different maps and compass utilities)among others that are more or less useful to an individual.
Although there are currently four generations of the iPhone device available,named iPhone,the iPhone 3G,the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4,and every model picked up some improvements or new features and updates/upgrades like the 3G video calling feature in the case of the iPhone 3G,every iPhone has some basic characteristics that remained untouched since the first introduction of an Apple iPhone,such as the screen size (although maximum screen resolutions have been improved over the years)or the alignment and positioning of the machine's buttons.The iPhone has few physical buttons,as the rest are part of the multi-touch 3.5 inch screen.The physical buttons are the Home button,called so because pressing it closes every opened app and redirects you towards the home screen,the sleep/awake button located on the top of the phone,and newer revisions include volume keys on the side,that include two buttons(for high and low) that can be situated under two or a single peace of plastic,depending on the phone's model.
The multimedia and internet features of the device can only be used if the iPhone was first registered as a mobile phone with a proper carrier,otherwise,the access to these functions are restricted.However,on July 3,2007 a man named Jon Lech Johnson succeeded in bypassing this requirement and using the described features anyway,with the help of some software and editing of the iTunes binary.This means he unlocked the phone.He later posted the recipe of his success on his personal blog,including indications and the necessary software.
Then came the second model of the iPhone family,named iPhone 3G due to its new feature,the possibility of video 3G calling.This iPhone turned out tougher as hackers could not unlock it as simple as it was with the first installment because this one required an in-store activation.The iPhone also presented a SIM Lock that it was sold with,that restricted access to the device to a particular carrier you would have to register.
The iPhones were original registered for AT&T on the U.S soil.However,hackers succeeded in getting past these obstacles and unlocking the iPhone 3G as well as the original model.Statistics show that only a quarter of the sold phones were actually registered to AT&T as people found ways to register the phones from other networks.Apple speculates that they did so after shipping the iPhones over the sea.