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.Initially priced at US$599 and US$499 for the 8 GB and 4 GB models, the iPhone went on sale on June 29, 2007. Apple closed its stores at 2:00 PM local time to prepare for the 6:00 PM iPhone launch, while hundreds of customers lined up at stores nationwide.
The iPhone is only available for those who subscribe to a two-year AT&T service plan. In addition, in the U.S. and some other countries it can only be acquired with a credit card precluding a completely anonymous purchase. There is no way to opt out of the data plan. The iPhone at first could not be added to an AT&T Business account, and any existing business account discounts cannot be applied to an iPhone AT&T account, which AT&T changed in late January 2008.The Associated Press reported also that some users were unable to activate their phones because, according to AT&T, "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.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.
Stories of unexpected billing issues began to circulate in blogs and the technical press a little more than a month after the iPhone's heavily advertised and anticipated release. The 300-page iPhone bill in a box received by Justine Ezarik on Saturday August 11, 2007 became the subject of her viral video, posted by the following Monday, which quickly became an Internet meme. This video clip brought the voluminous bills to the attention of the mass media. Ten days later, after the video had been viewed more than 3 million times on the Internet, and had received international news coverage, AT&T sent iPhone users a text message outlining changes in its billing practices
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