At the Yerba Buena Center, Apple executives unveiled the iPhone 5, featuring a larger 4-inch display, an aluminum unibody design, and 4G LTE connectivity, alongside a new compact Lightning charging port that replaced the decade-old 30-pin connector. It was the first major iPhone reveal without Steve Jobs, who had died the previous October, and helped cement Tim Cook's stewardship of the company.
The iPhone 5 launch mattered less for any single innovation than for signaling continuity after Jobs's death. Cook and marketing chief Phil Schiller walked through incremental but consequential upgrades: a screen stretched to 4 inches to accommodate an extra row of icons without widening the phone, a body milled from aluminum and glass that made it 20 percent thinner than its predecessor, and internal A6 chip promising twice the processing speed.
The switch to the Lightning connector proved controversial, rendering millions of existing docks, speakers, and cables obsolete overnight, though Apple sold adapters to ease the transition. Reviewers noted the smaller, reversible connector was more durable and convenient, foreshadowing an industry-wide move toward compact ports.
Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 topped two million within 24 hours, then a record, and the device sold five million units in its opening weekend. It marked the beginning of a slow annual cadence of iPhone releases that would define smartphone industry rhythms for the following decade.
Key people: Tim Cook, Phil Schiller