iPhone Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
49 free IPhone trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
The iPhone arrived in January 2007 as a stage demo that barely held together and has sold more than a billion units since. Every generation has added a first — a sharper screen, a faster chip, a new way to unlock — and every few years something has gone wrong enough to earn a nickname ending in '-gate'. These 49 questions stick to the settled record rather than this year's spec sheet: the keynote and the launch-day prices, what each model introduced, the iOS releases that changed how the phone worked, the App Store's early days, Siri's origins, the carriers and factories behind it, the famous ads, and the lawsuits and scandals that followed. Each answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds the detail the headline left out. Play it to see how well you know the phone in your pocket, or print it for a pub round where everyone has an opinion.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which coffee chain did Steve Jobs prank-call on stage at the 2007 unveiling, ordering 4,000 lattes to go?
Starbucks
Starbucks was what Jobs searched for in Google Maps, and he rang a store straight from its listing, then said 'just kidding, wrong number'.
Q 02Which Apple marketing chief was mocked for saying it took 'courage' to drop the headphone jack in 2016?
Phil Schiller
Phil Schiller's 'courage' still came with a free headphone-jack adapter in the box, an extra Apple quietly stopped including with new iPhones in 2018.
Q 03Apple's first iPhone TV ad, aired during the 2007 Oscars, was a montage of movie and TV stars saying which word?
Hello
Hello echoed Christian Marclay's 1995 film Telephones: Marclay had refused Apple permission to recreate it, yet Apple ran its own montage during the Oscars anyway.
Q 04What did Apple give every iPhone 4 owner free in 2010 after the 'Antennagate' complaints about lost signal?
A bumper case
A bumper case covered the steel antenna band that lost signal when gripped, and Apple refunded anyone who had already bought one.
Q 05The lower-case 'c' in the polycarbonate iPhone 5c of 2013 is widely taken to stand for what?
Color
Color was the pitch, with the 5c sold in five bright shades, yet at launch it was the pricier iPhone 5s that sold out.
Q 06Siri's iPhone 4S debut was overshadowed by Steve Jobs's death, which came how soon after the October 2011 unveiling?
The next day
The next day, October 5, 2011, Jobs died, and Apple's homepage became a black-and-white portrait of him captioned 'Steve Jobs, 1955-2011'.
Q 07What did the notorious 2008 App Store app 'I Am Rich', priced at $999.99, actually display when opened?
A glowing red gem
A glowing red gem was all it showed, yet eight people paid $999.99 for it before Apple removed the app from the store.
Q 08Which tech blog paid $5,000 in 2010 for a prototype iPhone 4 that an Apple engineer had lost in Redwood City?
Gizmodo
Gizmodo tore the prototype down and published it, and a police task force later raided the home of the editor who reviewed it, seizing his computers.
Q 09Which glassmaker's Gorilla Glass replaced the plastic screen Jobs had held up on stage in January 2007?
Corning
Corning revived a 1960s 'muscled glass' called Chemcor after Jobs complained that the prototype had scratched in his pocket.
Q 10Which 2017 anniversary iPhone dropped the home button and introduced Face ID at a then-record $999?
iPhone X
The iPhone X is why there was never an iPhone 9: Apple jumped from 8 to X, the Roman numeral for ten, to mark the iPhone's tenth anniversary.
Q 11What did Apple call the 326-pixel-per-inch screen that debuted on the iPhone 4 in 2010?
Retina display
The Retina display was named for Jobs's claim that eyes can't pick out pixels at about 300 per inch from 10 to 12 inches away, a claim one display expert disputed.
Q 12Which reversible connector, announced with the iPhone 5 in 2012, replaced the 30-pin dock plug that iPods had used?
Lightning
Lightning was smaller than the 30-pin plug, so owners of older docks and speakers needed Apple's Lightning-to-30-pin Adapter to keep using them.
Q 13Whose common-charger mandate pushed Apple to give the iPhone 15 a USB-C port in 2023, its first port change since 2012?
The European Union
Q 21Which video-calling service launched alongside the iPhone 4's first front-facing camera in June 2010?
FaceTime
FaceTime first worked only over Wi-Fi, and when Apple allowed cellular calls, AT&T limited them to certain plans, drawing complaints to the FCC.
Q 22Which service, the root of the 'green bubble' divide, arrived with iOS 5 in October 2011?
iMessage
iMessage shows blue bubbles, and in December 2023 Apple cut off Beeper Mini, an Android app that had cracked iMessage, less than a week after it launched.
Q 23Which basic text-editing feature did iPhone owners wait two years for, until iPhone OS 3 added it in June 2009?
Copy and paste
Cut, copy and paste appeared as a bubble when you press and hold text, in the same update that brought MMS and Spotlight search.
The European Union's rule made the iPhone 15 the first to switch ports since the iPhone 5, after Apple had warned the mandate would 'harm consumers'.
Q 14What does 'SE' stand for in the name of the 4-inch iPhone that Apple launched at $399 in March 2016?
Special Edition
Special Edition was Apple's answer to the 30 million 4-inch iPhones it said it had sold in 2015, proof that many buyers still wanted compact phones.
Q 15When Apple's App Store opened in 2008, what share of each paid app's sales did Apple keep?
30%
30% went to Apple and 70% to developers, a standard rate that stayed even after a 2020 program cut the commission to 15% for developers earning up to $1 million.
Q 16Which game vanished from the App Store in August 2020 after its maker added a way to dodge Apple's payment system?
Fortnite
Fortnite was gone within hours of Epic Games' hotfix, and Epic sued the same day with a video parodying Apple's famous '1984' commercial.
Q 17Which US agency did Apple publicly defy in 2016 over an order to unlock a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 5C?
The FBI
The FBI got the hearing postponed less than a day before it was due, then dropped the case a week later after a third party unlocked the phone.
Q 18Which Taiwanese iPhone assembler is formally named Hon Hai Precision Industry?
Foxconn
Foxconn put up large nets outside factory buildings and hired counsellors after a spate of worker suicides at its Chinese plant in 2010.
Q 19Which carrier ended AT&T's exclusive US hold on the iPhone by selling a CDMA model from February 2011?
Verizon
Verizon's iPhone 4 added a Personal Hotspot for up to five devices, and pre-orders opened on February 3, 2011.
Q 20Which service launched in 2014 with the iPhone 6, Apple's first iPhone with an NFC chip?
Apple Pay
Apple Pay went live in October 2014, and within days CVS and Rite Aid switched off contactless payments at their tills to back a rival system, CurrentC.
Q 24Which magazine named the original iPhone its Invention of the Year for 2007, months after the June launch?
Time
Time's award came as Walt Mossberg called the iPhone 'a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer' despite 'some flaws and feature omissions'.
Q 25Which Microsoft chief dismissed the iPhone in 2007 as the world's most expensive phone, one with no keyboard?
Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer said there was 'no chance' of significant market share, and in 2016 blamed his miss on carriers subsidising the iPhone's price.
Q 26Which Apple design chief, until then known for hardware, led the flat redesign that arrived with iOS 7 in 2013?
Jony Ive
Jony Ive's iOS 7 zooming animations made some users feel sick, so iOS 7.0.3 let a Reduce Motion setting stop those transitions.
Q 27Which head of iOS software did Apple say was leaving, weeks after the troubled 2012 launch of Apple Maps?
Scott Forstall
Scott Forstall's exit followed Apple's apology for Maps, and his duties were split, with Craig Federighi taking over iOS software engineering.
Q 28Which desktop operating system did Steve Jobs claim the first iPhone simply 'runs' at the 2007 unveiling?
OS X
OS X was the claim, yet Jobs first steered outside developers to web apps for Safari, only promising a native-app SDK that October.
Q 29Which 2009 model, whose 'S' Apple said stood for speed, was the first Apple handset that could record video?
iPhone 3GS
The iPhone 3GS also added voice control and a digital compass, and it sold more than a million units in its first weekend.
Q 30Which 2016 model was Apple's first with two rear cameras, gaining an exclusive Portrait mode in iOS 10.1?
iPhone 7 Plus
The iPhone 7 Plus's Portrait mode used its wide-angle and telephoto cameras together to judge depth, blurring the background behind a sharp subject.