The original iPhone was announced by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007 in an event which Jobs rightly deemed "historic." The device was later released on June 29, 2007.
After five years of product releases, many consumers have expected Apple to release one new smartphone hardware revision every year. For the first four years of the iPhone's lifespan, new hardware was always announced during the company's Worldwide Developers Conferences and subsequently released in the June - July timeframe. With the launch of the fifth-generation device, however, Apple faced some unforseen manufacturing setbacks and was forced to delay the launch cycle of the iPhone into the October timeframe. The iPhone 4S launched on October 14, 2011 and topped nearly 4 million sales in its first weekend of release.
Many Apple enthusiasts, critics and analysts of the company expect that the iPhone's success will only continue to grow linearly over the next few years, citing reasons of "unparalled fresh creativity on old ideas" and "simplistic user experience execution." We very much expect these characteristics will hold true for the fifth-generation iPhone when it launches in the second half of this year.