The Most Important iPhone Apple Ever Made (And The One Everyone Forgot)

With nearly 20 years of iPhone history behind us, it might be hard to remember all the iPhone innovations that have turned Apple's smartphone into a powerful portable computer. Not every new generation delivered massive breakthroughs, but each new iPhone release paved the way for the more significant Apple innovations developed for the iPhone. With that in mind, I'm about to tell you why the 2017 iPhone X is the most important iPhone Apple ever made, and remind you of the 2013 iPhone 5c, a fallen hero few people remember fondly.

The iPhone X and iPhone 5c are not the best and worst iPhones of all time. "Best" and "worst" are subjective descriptors that can quickly lose their meaning. Somewhat more objective, the best iPhone is always the newest model available in stores. It offers the best hardware options and supports the newest iOS features. Put differently, the best new iPhone launches every September.

But the iPhone X and iPhone 5c are phones that cast long shadows. The two devices influenced Apple's iPhone roadmap in more meaningful ways than other versions. The iPhone 5c marked the arrival of cheaper iPhones. These are iPhones that still maintain the high-end quality and performance of their more expensive siblings. The iPhone X spawned the iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max lines that offer Apple's best possible tech for mobile devices every year. Although some recent iterations have offered minimal upgrades, making it harder to choose the right iPhone Pro models. Importantly, the iPhone X also stands out for its effect on Apple's biggest rivals, which rushed to embrace the changes the iPhone X introduced.

The iPhone X is the first all-screen iPhone, featuring an edge-to-edge and corner-to-corner OLED display, aside from the Face ID cutout (the notch). It's the first iPhone to drop the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in favor of 3D face recognition technology (Face ID), and the first iPhone to feature ultra-slim, symmetrical bezels. The iPhone X also came with 64GB of storage as a minimum, a stainless steel mid-frame, a vertical camera setup, and wireless battery charging. Finally, the iPhone X introduced the $999 price tier that signaled premium smartphone experiences.

Apple has been using the iPhone X as the first building block for every iPhone released since 2017. The notch shrank and then turned into the Dynamic Island. The bezels became even thinner, the camera modules larger and more powerful, and Apple soon introduced magnetic wireless chargers. Face ID has been a staple since the iPhone X and may even trickle down to the rumored foldable iPhone, despite its unusual design. 

Importantly, the competition followed Apple's lead closely. A myriad of 2018 Android phones came with notches, but lacked Face ID-like support. The bottom bezels were much larger on those phones. Android vendors needed more time to replicate the iPhone X ultra-thin bezel symmetry.

A few Android vendors tried to create their own 3D face-scanning authentication systems, including Google and Huawei. Most of them could not compete, choosing under-display fingerprint sensors instead. Apple's rivals could create iPhone X-grade camera experiences, and they did. Also, they quickly adopted Apple's strategy of selling premium phones alongside standard models.

The $549 iPhone 5c was a variation of the 2012 iPhone 5 packed in a plastic body. It was the almost-as-good-as iPhone 5s handset of late 2013. But some criticized it for being too expensive compared to the $649 iPhone 5s. Also, the plastic shell, available in multiple exciting colors, wasn't seen as a showcase of high-end Apple design. But the iPhone 5c was appealing. It was a good-enough, more affordable, brand-new iPhone.

While Apple never made another iPhone "C" model after that, the iPhone 5c was the experiment that told Apple that giving buyers more price points wasn't a bad idea. Every iPhone series that followed featured at least two models.

Apple kept making cheaper iPhones after the iPhone 5c. The $749 iPhone XR (2018) is a good example. Its successors include all the standard iPhone models since the iPhone 11. These phones featured lower price tags than the iPhone Pros (the successors of the iPhone X), colorful options, and high-end build quality and performance. The iPhone XR and iPhone 11 also sold incredibly well.

The 2016 iPhone SE introduced the "Special Edition" iPhone that Apple would launch in the spring every few years. The first three iPhone SE generations were even more affordable iPhone options than the standard iPhones. The iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini are other examples of cheaper iPhones that Apple tested. Even the more modern iPhone 16e is an iPhone SE successor. None of them would have been possible without the iPhone 5c.