10 years may seem like a short time, but considering how almost nobody even owned a cell phone let alone a smartphone 25 years ago let alone 30 it's quite long, almost ancient history.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jewel Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 12:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: The iPhone's secret history: How Steve Jobs went from rejecting to embracing the future That was great! I didn't realise that the iPhone had been around for such a, relatively, short time! Jewel -------------------------------------------------- From: "Simon" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 5:40 PM To: <[email protected]> Subject: The iPhone's secret history: How Steve Jobs went from rejecting to embracing the future 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. 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