---
title: "Which came first, the iPhone or Twitter?"
description: "the iPhone vs Twitter: Twitter came first, by one year — 2006 against 2007. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/iphone-vs-twitter/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the iPhone or Twitter?

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

2006 — one year before the iPhone

Twitter came first, by one year. Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet.

## Side by side

|  | the iPhone | Twitter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2007 | 2006 |
| Date | 2007-06-29 | 2006-03-21 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | The first iPhone went on sale after a January announcement. | Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet. |

## 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.

## Twitter

The first tweet — "just setting up my twttr" — went out on 21 March 2006, and the service opened publicly that July. The 140-character limit came from SMS: a text message allows 160 characters and 20 were reserved for the username. When the limit doubled to 280 in 2017 the SMS constraint had been irrelevant for years.

## Common questions

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

Twitter, by one year — 2006 against 2007.

### When did the iPhone start?

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

### When did Twitter start?

2006. Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet.

## Related pages

- [the Great Pyramid of Giza or the iPhone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/great-pyramid-vs-iphone/)
- [the internet (ARPANET) or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-twitter/)
- [the internet (ARPANET) or the iPhone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-iphone/)
- [email or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-twitter/)
- [email or the iPhone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-iphone/)
- [the Macintosh or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-twitter/)
- [Python or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/python-vs-twitter/)
- [Java or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-twitter/)
- [JavaScript or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/javascript-vs-twitter/)
- [Amazon or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-twitter/)
- [Amazon or the iPhone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-iphone/)
- [Netflix or Twitter?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/netflix-vs-twitter/)

## Sources

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