The iPhone's secret history: How Steve Jobs went from rejecting to embracing > the future > > Home | Day 6 | CBC Radio > > Former Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs shows off the first generation iPhone on > January 9, 2007. (Kimberly White/Reuters) > > The iPhone's secret history: How Steve Jobs went from rejecting to embracing > the future > > Riffed from the Headlines, June 24, 2017. > by Brent Bambury > > In the hours before Apple released its first iteration of the iPhone on June > 29, 2007, fans were already lining up to buy one. > > They'd not yet held an iPhone, but they'd seen the commercials. They loved > the blank slate of the touch screen and the uncluttered interface. > > Many of them already owned an iPod and that had changed the way they > consumed music. > > They sensed the iPhone was transformative. > > They liked the style and ergonomics of Apple's stuff, and they'd listened to > Steve Jobs who, six months earlier, boasted to the world, "we're going to > reinvent the phone." > > Apple employees greet the first customers in line at the Apple Store for the > launch and sale of the new iPhone 6 on Friday, Sept 19, 2014, in Palo Alto, > Calif. (Tony Avelar/The Associated Press) > > Today, a billion iPhones have made their way into the world and those > devices transformed people's relationship with data, communications, music > and navigation. > > The iPhone changed Apple too. > > In 2007, the company was sitting on $6.39 billion in cash. By 2016, that > number > was $237.59 billion. > > The iPhone is arguably the most popular product of all time, and one of the > most successful. But Apple engineers had to work hard to make it successful, > and they had to convince a lot of sceptics that it was a good move. > > One of the most sceptical was Steve Jobs. > > Steve Jobs didn't want to make a phone > > "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone" by Brian Merchant was > released June 2017. (Hachette Book Group) > > Jobs never wanted his company to be a phone maker. "Jobs was really, really > against the idea of trying to bring Apple into this market," Brian Merchant > told me on Day 6. > > Merchant is an editor at Motherboard and the author of the new book The One > Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. He says Jobs was scornful of the > regulatory obligations attached to making mobile phones. > > "It's notoriously difficult to work with companies like Verizon," Merchant > says. "At the time, they had an immense amount of control over the handsets > that manufacturers could make. They would deliver these giant manuals that > said, 'you > have to have this, you have to have that.'" > > "And it was totally anathema to the style that Jobs had adopted designing > products at Apple, where every single thing had to fit his window and cater > to his ideas." > > "Jobs said 'Meh!" And just kind of, you know, wrote it off." > - Brian Merchant > > Courting Steve Jobs > > Introducing Steve Jobs to new ideas, and getting him to buy into initiatives > that weren't his own, required careful management and timing. > > He was exacting and mercurial and prone to being dismissive. > > But a group of Apple engineers working independently were prototyping a > technology they thought may be useful enough to eventually present to Jobs. > > It was a form of direct manipulation: touchscreens. > > "They had hacked together this rig to make this sort of prototype of > touchscreen technology work," Merchant says. "It was really the size of a > table. They were just really kind of trying to experiment with this whole > brand new paradigm." > > "And the fear was that if Jobs stumbled into it too early before it looked > like something Apple could physically do, he would say, 'What the heck are > you guys doing?' and shut the whole thing down." > > "They knew there was a right way to approach Jobs with this stuff and there > was a wrong way, and you had to, sort of very strategically roll it out and > give it to the right person to give it to him on the right day when he was > in the right > mood." > > An Apple iPhone 7 and the company logo are seen in this illustration > picture. (Regis Duvignau/Reuters) > > They found their intermediary in Apple's design chief, Jonathan Ive. > > Ive loved the touchscreen technology. > > "He thought it was the future," says Merchant. > > "And he said, 'Let me bring it to Jobs when he is in a good mood, when, you > know, the time is right.'" > > Ive was one of Jobs' closest collaborators and the two were intimate > friends. > But when he unveiled the project, Jobs wasn't impressed. > > "Jobs said 'Meh!" And just kind of, you know, wrote it off," Merchant says. > > Ive was surprised and disappointed. But Jobs kept thinking about what he'd > seen until he wheeled back, embraced the technology and put his mark on the > project. > > "Sure enough, Jobs came around," says Merchant "He thought about it some > more. He asked to see the demo again and he said, 'OK, this is pretty cool.' > And then fast forward a couple weeks, couple months and he loves it. And now > he is like, > 'Oh, you know what? Multi-touch? Yeah, I invented that.'" > > The touch screen team didn't know it yet, but they'd begun the work that > would be a key component to the device that changed the course of > smartphones. > > Protecting the iPod > > By 2004, some of the regulatory issues around mobile phones that had earlier > vexed Jobs were easing. The other huge incentive for Apple to produce a > phone was the threat that other companies might offer a mobile phone that > played > music, cutting into the sales of the iPod. > > "Once you could put music on a cell phone, even if the cell phone was lame, > consumers would start thinking, 'Well do I really want to have two things in > my pocket?'" > > "The iPod was, at the time, Apple's biggest marquee product. It was their > cash cow," says Merchant. > > That brought urgency to the project. > > An Apple employee grabs an iPhone 6 for a customer at the Apple Store during > the launch and sale of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones, in Palo > Alto, Calif. (Tony Avelar/The Associated Press) > > Engineers were recruited from other parts of the company to find ways to > shrink and fine-tune the touchscreen technology, meld it with an operating > system and gild it onto a sleek device. > > It was an expensive, paranoid and secretive project, and no one who was > approached to work on it was completely sure what they were being asked to > do. > > "They knew almost nothing," says Merchant. "Their boss was knocking on > their door and saying, 'Excuse me, do you have a second? I have an exciting > opportunity for you.'" > > "'This project is going to demand all of your time. You're going to have to > work around the clock, you're going to work harder than you've ever worked > before. > And I cannot tell you what it is and you have to tell me whether or not > you're on board today.'" > > A brilliant, anonymous team > > It took two-and-a-half years and an enormous toll on the team. > > "[Those years] were brutal," says Merchant. > > "They were really stressful times and people were working around the clock, > sometimes sleeping in this so-called purple dorm. Dirty laundry was piling > up, trash was piling up. It stunk." > > "Tensions were running high. People were missing holidays, missing their > children's birthdays. And it got so intense that I've had some of these > engineers tell me that the iPhone is the reason that I'm divorced." > > "So it really created this sort of vortex; 'a soup of misery' is how one of > the engineers described it, just non-stop craziness." > > Jobs was the face of Apple Inc. especially during product launches. In this > 2008 photo, he's unveiling the iPhone 3G. (Kimberly White/Reuters) > > In the end, hundreds of designers and engineers navigated the emotional > stress and corporate pressure to help produce the device that revolutionized > the > smartphone. > > Fans loved it. Not all the reviews were raves, and the full potential of the > > iPhone, the billions of possibilities unleashed when Apple launched the App > Store, was yet to be seen. But the iPhone was an instant success. > > When Apple was awarded a patent for the original device, there were only 14 > people listed as designers. How did the others feel about their anonymity > given > the demands of the project? > > "I think they were OK with it at the time," says Merchant. > > "Now, 10 years later, I think a lot of people are coming around to the idea > that > maybe it would be nice if this achievement could be recognized as sort of > the > fuller, more complex undertaking that it was, if only because that's just > the > truth about how innovation and invention happens. It takes teams, it takes > cooperation, it takes a lot of people, more people than we can even perhaps > comprehend." > > But Merchant says most were aware of what they were getting into. They > understood Steve Jobs. > > "You knew, by signing on to work there, that that was a possibility, that > you would just, sort of, be working under Jobs' shadow, and [that] he wasn't > going > to divulge any of the details or the names or the teams that really made > this > possible." > > "It was just his nature." > > > end of informative article. > > > > _______________________________________________ > * Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/blindcanadians > * Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blindcanadians > * Check out the web site: http://www.BlindCanadians.ca > > The AEBC is not responsible for material posted on this list and the views > expressed are solely those of their respective authors. Messages are posted > as they were intended by the author! > > To unsubscribe or change your subscription options, visit: > > > http://lists.blindcanadians.ca/mailman/listinfo/members_lists.blindcanadians.ca >
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