# iPhone
The iPhone is Apple's smartphone line first shown by Steve Jobs in January 2007, and one of the most reliable meme engines in tech. From #bendgate and #hairgate on the iPhone 6 Plus to Phil Schiller's 'courage' quote and the Face ID jokes that followed the iPhone X notch, each new launch handed Twitter and Reddit a fresh scandal to riff on.
## Origin
Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone on January 9, 2007 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. He pitched it in three parts: 'a widescreen iPod with touch controls,' 'a revolutionary mobile phone,' and 'a breakthrough Internet communications device,' before revealing that all three descriptions pointed to one product[1]. The device shipped that June and helped set off the smartphone era.
The iPhone itself was not a meme at launch. What turned it into one was the launch ritual, an annual keynote with a huge online audience watching in real time, ready to screenshot any awkward quote or design choice[6]. That feedback loop is what later produced #bendgate, #hairgate, the 'courage' bit, and the notch discourse[2][7].
- **Platform:** Apple keynote / Twitter (meme spread)
- **Creator:** Apple
- **Date:** 2007
## Overview
The iPhone works less like one meme and more like a rolling supply of them. Every September launch delivers a hardware quirk, quote, or design choice that gets flipped into hashtags, screenshots, and image macros within hours[1]. The '-gate' suffix became the standard tag for whatever problem users found first, starting with #bendgate on the iPhone 6 Plus in 2014[2]. Days later, #hairgate followed for beard and hair getting caught in the aluminum seam[3][4]. Even a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 defect got the same treatment as #gapgate around the same week[5].
Face ID on the iPhone X pulled the same reflex, with jokes casting the screen notch as Bert from Sesame Street's unibrow and wrestler John Cena riffing on not being able to be seen[8]. Phil Schiller's line that removing the headphone jack took 'courage' spawned an r/apple shitpost of users replying with the single word 'courage,' and the joke is still trotted out whenever an Apple product drops a port[7]. Tech reporters cover the meme cycle almost as closely as the products themselves[6].
## How It Spread
Enthusiast communities formed quickly around the device. Cydia, an open-source alternative to the official iOS Installer.app for jailbroken devices, was released in February 2008[9], and the r/iphone subreddit was launched on January 25 of that year[8]. The jailbreak scene gave the iPhone its first sustained online subculture before the meme cycle kicked in.
The first meme wave that reached mainstream news was #bendgate in September 2014. MacRumors forum user hanzoh posted a thread titled 'iPhone 6 Plus slightly bent after 2 days' on September 21, and Twitter user SeanPincombe coined the #bendgate hashtag in reply to a Wario64 tweet linking the thread[8]. Within a week, the tag was tweeted over 37,000 times, and an Unbox Therapy video demonstrating the bend hit more than 7.4 million views in under a day[2]. Complaints about hair getting pinched in the seam between glass and aluminum then produced #hairgate, following a 9to5Mac community post titled 'My iPhone 6 Plus is yanking out my hair,' with Twitter user Peter Phillips credited for coining the tag[4][3].
The iPhone 7 event on September 7, 2016 removed the 3.5mm headphone jack, and Apple's Phil Schiller framed the decision as 'courage,' a word the r/apple crowd immediately turned into a one-word reply format[6][7]. The iPhone X keynote on September 13, 2017 unveiled Face ID and the screen notch, drawing a John Cena 'you can't see me' tweet that pulled more than 330,000 retweets and 560,000 likes in its first days[8]. Each September launch since kept the pattern going.
## How to Use
There is no single template. iPhone memes track Apple's launch calendar. When the company holds an event in September, users watch for a hardware flaw, an awkward marketing quote, or a design choice worth mocking, then attach it to a '-gate' hashtag or a one-word reply format[2][7]. The joke usually peaks on Twitter and Reddit's r/apple within a day before tech sites write it up[3][6].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is iPhone?
The iPhone is Apple's smartphone line, first introduced by Steve Jobs in January 2007, and the source of a rolling series of internet memes tied to its annual launches[1].
### Where did iPhone come from?
Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone on January 9, 2007 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, describing it as an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator in one[1].
### What does iPhone mean?
It is Apple's marketing name for the device Jobs revealed at Macworld 2007 by combining a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet communicator into a single product[1].
### How do you use iPhone as a meme?
Each September keynote produces a hardware quirk or Apple quote that gets turned into a '-gate' hashtag or a short reply format on Twitter and r/apple[2][7].
### Is iPhone still popular as a meme?
Yes. New launches still generate viral reactions, and the 'courage' bit is still cited any time Apple drops a legacy port[7].
### What was #bendgate?
It was the viral 2014 hashtag started by Twitter user SeanPincombe after complaints that the iPhone 6 Plus could bend in a pocket, boosted by an Unbox Therapy video with more than 7.4 million views in a day[2].
### What was #hairgate?
It was a follow-up joke tag in October 2014 for hair and beard getting caught in the seam between the iPhone 6 Plus glass and aluminum body[3][4].
### What did Phil Schiller mean by 'courage'?
At the iPhone 7 event in 2016, marketing chief Phil Schiller said it took 'courage' to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack, a line that r/apple turned into a one-word shitpost[7].
### What was the iPhone X notch controversy?
The iPhone X screen had a small camera cutout at the top, and users mocked it with wallpapers casting the notch as Bert from Sesame Street's unibrow after the September 13, 2017 keynote[8].
### What is Cydia?
Cydia is a software distribution platform for jailbroken iOS devices, released in February 2008 as an open-source alternative to Apple's Installer.app[9].
## References
1. [https://www.cnet.com/news/when-iphone-met-world-7-years-ago-today/]()
2. [https://mashable.com/2014/09/24/apple-iphone-6-plus-bendgate/]()
3. [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/forget-bendgate-now-hairgate-is-apples-latest-problem-with-the-iphone-6-9777301.html]()
4. [https://9to5mac.com/community/my-iphone-6-plus-is-yanking-out-my-hair/]()
5. [https://techcrunch.com/2014/09/30/samsung-galaxy-note-4-suffering-from-gapgate/]()
6. [https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12813622/apple-keynote-2016-iphone-7-event-news-recap]()
7. [https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12838024/apple-iphone-7-plus-headphone-jack-removal-courage]()
8. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/iphone]()
9. [https://cydia-app.com/]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/iphone
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library