<P> On June 28, 2007, during an address to Apple employees, Steve Jobs announced that all full - time Apple employees and those part - time employees who had been with the company for at least one year would receive a free iPhone . Employees received their phones in July after the initial demand for iPhones subsided . </P> <P> Initially priced at US $499 and US $599 for the 4GB models and 8GB models respectively, the iPhone went on sale on June 29, 2007 . Apple closed its stores at 2: 00pm local time to prepare for the 6: 00pm iPhone launch, while hundreds of customers lined up at stores nationwide . </P> <P> In the US and some other countries, iPhones could only be acquired with a credit card, preventing completely anonymous purchases of iPhones . At the time, there was no way to opt out of the bundled AT&T data plan . At first, iPhones could not be added to an AT&T Business account, and any existing business account discounts could not be applied to an iPhone AT&T account . AT&T changed these restrictions in late January 2008 . </P> <P> The Associated Press also reported in 2007 that some users were unable to activate their phones because, according to AT&T, "(a) high volume of activation requests (was) taxing the company's computer servers ." On Oct 29, 2007, the Usenet newsgroup misc. phone. mobile. iphone was created . </P>

Where did the idea of the iphone come from