Release

On June 28, 2007, during an address to Apple employees, Steve Jobs announced that all full-time Apple employees and those part-time employees that have been with the company at least one year would receive a free iPhone. Employees received their phones in July after the initial demand subsided.

On June 29, Apple closed its stores during the hours between 2:00 and 6:00 PM local time to prepare for the iPhone launch. Meanwhile, hundreds of customers lined up at stores nationwide until each stores re-opened their doors to sell the first devices.

There were some concerns with service and plans provided by AT&T. The iPhone is only available for those who subscribe to a two-year AT&T service plan unless they have poor credit, in which case they can use a pre-paid plan. There is no way to opt out of the data plan and thus people who do not want to use the iPhone's web capability may find the fee superfluous.The iPhone cannot be added to an AT&T Business account, and any existing business account discounts cannot be applied to an iPhone AT&T account.One report also indicated that iPhone could not be added to an existing AT&T consumer account if it had been ported from Cingular at the time of the BellSouth-AT&T merger.

The AP reported also that some users were unable to activate their phones due to what AT&T reported was "high volume of activation requests were taxing the company's computer servers."

Early estimates by technology analysts estimated sales of between 250,000 to 700,000 units in the first weekend alone, with strong sales continuing after the initial weekend.^[90][91] As part of their quarterly earnings announcement, AT&T reported that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first weekend. Though this figure does not include units that were purchased for resale on eBay or otherwise not activated until after the opening weekend, it is still less than most initial estimates. It is also estimated that 95% of the units sold are the 8 GB model. The iPhone could be released in the Asia-Pacific region sometime in 2008.