---
title: "Which came first, Harry Potter or the iPhone?"
description: "Harry Potter vs the iPhone: Harry Potter came first, by 10 years — 1997 against 2007. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/harry-potter-vs-iphone/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Harry Potter or the iPhone?

**Which came first, Harry Potter or the iPhone?: Harry Potter**

1997 — 10 years before the iPhone

Harry Potter came first, by 10 years. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK.

## Side by side

|  | Harry Potter | the iPhone |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1997 | 2007 |
| Date | 1997-06-26 | 2007-06-29 |
| Category | media | technology |
| What happened | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK. | The first iPhone went on sale after a January announcement. |

## Harry Potter

Bloomsbury published the first book in June 1997 with a print run of 500 copies, most of which went to libraries, after twelve other publishers had rejected the manuscript. The company's chairman gave the first chapter to his eight-year-old daughter, who demanded the rest. It came out the same year as Netflix was founded and a year before Google.

## the iPhone

Announced on 9 January 2007 and on sale from 29 June, the first iPhone had no app store, no copy and paste, no 3G and no video recording. The App Store arrived over a year later in July 2008. Android Inc. had been founded in 2003, four years before the iPhone, but the first Android phone shipped fifteen months after it.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Harry Potter or the iPhone?

Harry Potter, by 10 years — 1997 against 2007.

### When did Harry Potter start?

1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK.

### When did the iPhone start?

2007. The first iPhone went on sale after a January announcement.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]