This week marks the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, and what better way to celebrate than by taking a look back at how the hardware in Apple’s iconic smartphone has changed and evolved over time?
We’ve gone back and tabulated the specs on all 10 generations of iPhones (plus a couple of spinoffs) for your viewing pleasure. Obviously, the modern iPhone 7 and 7 Plus win out across the board when it comes to almost any metric, but this is less of a competition and more a retrospective — one that highlights what’s become one of the key components of Apple’s success.
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The fact of the matter is that none of the iPhone models have ever been the best smartphone when it comes to pure hardware. And even looking at raw numbers, it’s oftentimes hard to pinpoint differences between successive generations. Apple’s strength has always depended on the company’s ability to optimize its hardware and software together for incredible performance. This allows each iPhone version to keep up with — if not surpass — their contemporaries, despite lacking the base firepower of competitors on paper.
It’s hard to say for sure what the next 10 years of iPhones will bring, but if the incredible gap in hardware from the original iPhone and the iPhone 7 is anything to go by, the iPhone of 2027 could be surprisingly similar and yet dramatically more capable.