The iPhone is a line of smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc. that uses Apple's iOS mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, Apple has annually released new iPhone models and iOS updates. iPhone naming has followed various patterns throughout its history.
iPhones are named with "iPhone" followed by a number, which denotes the iPhone generation, and sometimes a suffix (such as C, S, Plus, Pro, Pro Max). The current naming pattern is that "Plus" or "Max" indicates a physically larger iPhone model of the same generation (iPhone XS Max, 11 Pro Max, 12 Pro Max, 13 Pro Max, 14 Plus, 14 Pro Max, 15 Plus, 15 Pro Max). "Pro" indicates the higher end model (iPhone 11 Pro, 12 Pro, 13 Pro, 14 Pro, 15 Pro). Currently, models with just a number (i.e. without a suffix) indicate the lower-priced iPhones (iPhone 11, 12, 13, 14, 15). The "SE" used in the entry-level iPhone SE line stands for "Special Edition".[1] [2]
"S" was used to denote a slight upgrade (iPhone 3GS, 4S, 5S, 6S & 6S Plus, XS & XS Max), but it has since been dropped; iPhone XS and XS Max were the last models to feature the "S". "C" was used to denote the lower-priced iPhone 5C, which is the only iPhone with "C" in its name. iPhone X (pronounced "10"), iPhone XR (pronounced "10R") and iPhone XS and XS Max (pronounced "10S") are currently the only iPhones to have been branded with Roman numerals (X).
42 different iPhone models have been produced:
No models called the iPhone 2, iPhone 7S, iPhone 8S or iPhone 9 were ever produced; however, iPhone 9 was the rumored name for the iPhone SE (2020).[3] [4]
The 1st-generation iPhone was colloquially known, retronymically, as the iPhone 2G, as the 2nd generation iPhone was the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 4 did not support 4G; the iPhone 5 was the first with LTE support,[5] while the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro were the first with 5G support.[6] [7]