---
title: "Which came first, the iPhone or Netflix?"
description: "the iPhone vs Netflix: Netflix 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/iphone-vs-netflix/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the iPhone or Netflix?

**Which came first, the iPhone or Netflix?: Netflix**

1997 — 10 years before the iPhone

Netflix came first, by 10 years. Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded a DVD rental-by-post company.

## Side by side

|  | the iPhone | Netflix |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2007 | 1997 |
| Date | 2007-06-29 | 1997-08-29 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | The first iPhone went on sale after a January announcement. | Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded a DVD rental-by-post company. |

## 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.

## Netflix

Netflix was founded in August 1997, a year before Google, and posted DVDs for a decade before streaming launched in January 2007. The famous origin story — Hastings founding it after a $40 late fee on Apollo 13 — has been called a useful myth by co-founder Marc Randolph. Blockbuster declined to buy the company for $50 million in 2000.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the iPhone or Netflix?

Netflix, by 10 years — 1997 against 2007.

### When did the iPhone start?

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

### When did Netflix start?

1997. Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded a DVD rental-by-post company.

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## Sources

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