If you’re the type of person who likes to keep old phones, you might be able to cash in on them – especially if you bought the first iPhone model back in 2007, when they went for around $399-$599.
One of those debut models – with its original box – recently sold at auction for more than $190,370.
According to LCG Auctions, the “Original 2007 Apple iPhone Factory Sealed (First Release, 4GB)” had a starting bid of $10,000 when the auction opened June 30. There were 28 bids by the time the auction closed Sunday.
“Presented is the preeminent example of an original Apple iPhone: the elusive 4GB model released on June 29, 2007,” said the auction house of the lot. “LCG Auctions is incredibly thrilled to bring this extraordinary collectible to auction for the very first time.”
Although the iPhone has been available for under two decades, it has already made a mark on the world. In the U.S. alone, 49% of smartphone users (90% of the population) used iPhones as of 2022, according to Statista. It also became Apple’s most successful product and was named the Time Magazine Invention of the Year in 2007.
Per LCG Auctions, it is “one of the most important and ubiquitous inventions of our lifetime.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone at the MacWorld event in January 2007 and it was released to the public five months later. This first iPhone included 4/8 GB of storage, an “innovative” touchscreen, a 2-megapixel camera, and a web browser. Its box “featured a life-size image of the iPhone with 12 icons on the screen,” said the auction house.
“Over the last 9 months, a pair of 8GB versions of the 2007 factory sealed first-edition iPhone realized record prices,” said LCG Auctions. “The October sale established a record price of$39,339, and then a February sale of $63,356 established a new record price. These sales received widespread media coverage from major outlets including CNN, NPR, BBC, and others.”
While early iPhones have sold for considerable sums at auction before, this original 4GB model snagged the highest price. It is considered the “Holy Grail” among iPhone collectors.
“Debuting on June 29, 2007, alongside the 8GB model, the 4GB model was hampered by slow sales,” LCG Auctions explained. “Buyers chose to pay the $100 upcharge in exchange for double the storage space. The lagging sales resulted in Apple making the decision to discontinue the 4GB model on September 5, 2007, just over two months after it was first released.”
The device sold at auction was factory-sealed and never activated.
“The phone’s provenance is pristine as the consignor was part of the original engineering team at Apple when the iPhone first launched,” per the auction house.
If the phone were powered up, it would have what CNET called in its 2007 review “a stunning display,” along with its “sleek design and an innovative multitouch user interface.”
Back then, the outlet did lament that the phone had “variable call quality” and that it lacked “some basic features found in many cellphones, including stereo Bluetooth support and a faster data network,” but it praised its “generous” 3.5-inch touchscreen, which is smaller than today’s models.
Another major difference between the 2007 iPhone and current models of the smartphone is the graphic design approach. When the devices debuted, they featured something called skeuomorphism.
“Once you’re in, the homepage is a collection of richly textured, highly detailed rounded tiles – glossy and almost-real looking – hovering on the screen: you see the unblinking shutter of the Camera app, the pine bookshelf of the Books app, and the unforgettable vintage yellow notepad with leather binding of the Notes app,” explained an article last year in Editor X.
“Originally this was to help us Neanderthals make sense of the dazzling new technology before us, as in: ‘Oh, I get it. That looks like a button, so I’m meant to push it.’ But Apple got skeuomorphism-drunk, plastering the screens of its futuristically minimal devices with incongruous faux wood, leather and green baize,” said The Guardian in 2013, around the time when Apple decided to drop the skeuomorphism designs.
It explained that, while Jobs and iOS designer Scott Forstall liked skeuomorphism, Apple design chief Jony Ive didn’t. After Jobs passed away in 2011 and Forstall left Apple in 2012, new “flat” icons were introduced in iOS 7.
However, the original skeuomorphism look has gained a fandom, according to Editor X.
“If picturing the original skeuomorphic iOS UI design made you nostalgic for the magic surrounding the early days of the iPhone, you’re not the only one,” said reporter Sneha Mehta. “Even though it’s nearly a decade and a half since the iPhone launched in 2007, the UI Archive, a new digital archive on Twitter, is celebrating the wonders of Apple’s skeuomorphism that defined the late 2000s – and ushering in a renewed attention to the delightful details we lost in the transition to flat design.”
Jordan Singer is a New York-based product designer and founder of UI Archive.
“I grew up having an iPhone and using that original skeuomorphic era iOS and Mac OS, so I have a lot of nostalgia that brings me back to my younger years,” he said, per Editor X. “I think the same is true for a lot of people who love to look back at the incredible attention to detail in effects, styles, and textures in user interface design from that time. It’s such a stark contrast compared to today.”
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