Former Apple Engineer Gives Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Original iPhone Introduction

[TheMacBookPro]

I doubt that 100% touchscreen phones would have been so popular so quickly. Most phones would still have physical keyboards - Apple was the first to have the guts to go 100% touchscreen. I remember all the articles for the next year how business people would 'never' use a phone without a physical keyboard. Look where we are now.

Without Apple, it's hard to say any executives would have the balls to put their jobs on the lines to come out with a 100% touchscreen phone.

Really? LG Prada, Palm Pilot, Motorola MING, and that's not even touching on the huge number of Windows Mobile devices.

Again, I don't doubt that Apple sped up the process, but even without the iPhone I'd think capacitive touchscreen smartphones would be widely available today.

2006-2007 was about when manufacturers started realizing the potential of media-centric smartphones, and how touchscreens (which had only been previously used on devices aimed at business users) would allow larger displays without compromising on device size. To say that we'd still all be using flip phones or bulky smartphones with lots of physical keys 7 years later is silly. Technological advancement wouldn't stop just because Apple didn't launch the iPhone.

 

[Tones2]

Yeah, it wasn't a "propriety carrier OS phon," it was a device running Symbian, one of the "premiere" phone OSes at the time. I later bought another Symbian device, marketed by AT&T, which had numerous AT&T bloatware apps and settings that could not be changed (also, surprise, the color scheme!)

Was Symbian an SMARTPHONE OS? Meaning true smartphones with touch screens and 3rd party app availability. I don;t know that answer, but if not that is not what I'm talking about. If so, then you are 100% right about that OS. But there were OTHER OSs that this did not apply to that were options, like Microsoft mobile. The point being that bloatware didn't alays affect phones that significantly even pre-iPhone, and some apps were really beneficially espcially since 3rd party apps were obviously a lot fewer at the time.

 

[hstewart]

It funny back then every one wanted one then and now almost every phone looks like.

I would say one thing good about Windows phones, at least they didn't copy the interface.

Personally I have had the iPhone 3, 4 and now using iPhone 5. Probably wait to next year for 6

 

[za9ra22]

There are no specifics there, just generalizations.

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Well, HTC was a major smartphone players pre-iphone, and they still exist. They chose a different route of changing their phones based on changing market conditions instead of just keeping to one-phone-fits-all mentality. Both sides have merits.

I didn't even begin to say that HTC (and others) weren't major players pre-iPhone. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine that not being the case since the iPhone only arrived in 2007. However, their products are significantly different now than they were pre-iPhone. That's the point.

As to all the other comments, your opinions are noted - however, opinions are not facts however they are represented.

 

[Tones2]

I didn't even begin to say that HTC (and others) weren't major players pre-iPhone. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine that not being the case since the iPhone only arrived in 2007. However, their products are significantly different now than they were pre-iPhone. That's the point.

As to all the other comments, your opinions are noted - however, opinions are not facts however they are represented.

My point is that they would have changed with or without Apple. Apple is the only company that keeps consistency in it's hardware / appearance in it's one phone model. Other company's continually change things around both pre-and post iPhone.

And of course, everything anyone says is opinion, including you. I never said otherwise.

 

[pure3d2]

Why couldn't they just wait a few months until it was more polished?

Until today, none of us had an idea that it wasn't polished so why does it matter? It would have been outed by the FCC filing had they not announced it ahead of time.

 

[840quadra]

Reading that reminds me quite a bit of the early Mac days, and the stories I have read on folklore.org regarding the original Macintosh Launch.

Sometimes the best creations, inventions, or products are based on dreams pieced together at the last minute. So many startup prototypes are like this, as well as concept cars by multi billion dollar manufacturers.

Yes there are flops, but sometimes there are wins.

 

[hansonjohn590]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2MOwQ089eQ&t=86m13s

Until today, none of us had an idea that it wasn't polished so why does it matter? It would have been outed by the FCC filing had they not announced it ahead of time.

I meant why did they take the huge risk if waiting a few months would have mitigated them?

Context clues.

 

[fark]

Do you not know what a rendering engine is in a web browser? Or the kernel of an OS?

You're wasting your time arguing. There's always at least one person in a thread like this who takes a contrary position, like a 2 year old throwing a tantrum, just to get attention.

 

[macs4nw]

…..Just ahead of the second anniversary of Steve Jobs' death, Fred Vogelstein has published a piece in The New York Times that gives a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the work that went into both the first iPhone and its January 9, 2007 announcement, featuring information from key iPhone developers like Andy Grignon, Tony Fadell, and Scott Forstall.

Article Link: Former Apple Engineer Gives Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Original iPhone Introduction

A fascinating read; will this ever stop being fascinating?

 

[Rogifan]

I think you're right. Jon Ive and others have talked about how much more collaboration is going on now, and how it was one of his goals after Forestall... who was almost as much a control freak as Jobs was... left the company.

In the USA Today article he also talked about how much he's learned working with software engineers. As great as Jobs was I don't think people management was his best skill. Pigeonholing people in to one thing rather than allowing them to get exposure to a broad range of skills isn't a good idea IMO.

 

[dojoman]

Don't make me laugh with Palm Treo. It was cool back then but it's no smart phone. Palm couldn't even figured out how to put antenna inside the phone, let alone GPS.
Apple made the smartphone a lot better, 10 folds. They didn't invent smartphone but set the standard for what it should be.
Show me a device prior to iPhone when you put a phone next to your ear screen turns off. Now every smart phone has this...

 

[Rogifan]

I often wonder what the iPhone market would be like had it not been an AT&T exclusive for 3 years. What if iPhone had launched on AT&T and Verizon at the same time.

 

[kdarling]

Until today, none of us had an idea that it wasn't polished so why does it matter?

Some of us knew it wasn't done yet. After all, Jobs announced it a half year before it was going on sale.

To people experienced in giving dog and pony shows, it was also obvious that Jobs had carefully rehearsed what to show and not show.

For example, he cleverly skipped over the Apple website bookmark, because it would've looked pretty bad and been almost unusable. It had too many frames, and I think it even used some Flash. (As I predicted back then, the website was totally revamped before the iPhone came out.)

He also showed a fake NY Times website with its Flash section blanked out.

Mind you, it was a _great_ dog and pony show. Jobs was one of the best at them. He worded things so that listeners thought he said more than he really did. You could give a detailed presentation class just studying that one demo.

It would have been outed by the FCC filing had they not announced it ahead of time.

The FCC thing was just an excuse. Among other secrecy options, Apple could've asked for approval to be delayed until the week before it went on sale, like they often do with later models, none of which are announced six months early.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

I often wonder what the iPhone market would be like had it not been an AT&T exclusive for 3 years. What if iPhone had launched on AT&T and Verizon at the same time.

Probably the same.

When the iPhone originally launched, it wasn't hard to get the phone imported into other countries for which it was not designed to operate in. Me and several friends all bought our units from the 'States (originally AT&T phones, carrier locked!), jailbroke them with that tool the iPhone-dev guys released (the one with the pineapple) and unlocked the baseband with that swanky application that literally said "slide to unlock". Good times.

Anyways, if you could get the hardware, it wasn't hard to bend it to your will. The original units were surprisingly lax at security and modifications in general. Back then almost everyone I knew was jailbreaking and/or unlocking. It was just a way of life if you wanted an iPhone, especially in Canada.

-SC

 

[Chatter]

for one, when you closed the web browser it closed. i used to have an ipaq and you had to reboot the thing to get IE closed out

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i've had every iphone since the 3g, the five bar thing was there until ios 5 or 6. lots of stories of people saying they had 5 bars and nothing on the phone worked because it really didn't have any signal

There is fact and then there is your "stories". See the difference?

 

[munakib]

If it weren't for Original iPhone we'd still be carrying flip phones. Say what you will but iPhone is the one that started.

So true, Only in the US though! Rest of the world moved on to bar phones, Sony Ericsson T610/Nokia N-series. US still loved their LG and Motorola Razrs.

 

[Millah]

Now that's vision and leadership. Steve made that team do the impossible: make a product that, well, didn't work right appear to be nearly flawless.

And after release, his team delivered on that vision (ok, eventually).

This is something that is often underestimated. Just because a team has the skills and abilities to do something does not mean it will get done. That's where great leadership and vision comes in. Painful, yes. But great. The results speak for themselves.

Steve was, and still is, considered amazing in this regard. Alas, leaders and visionaries like that don't come often.

Those saying "stop with the worship", etc, etc, just don't get it. It's not about "religious" rhetoric, it's about appreciation, and recognizing skills that are hard to come by and thus incorporate them so as to make us better.

Well because, just as difficult as it is to come across these skills that Jobs mastered, it is also difficult for people to understand. That's why those who don't understand the skills and the appreciation for these talents, resort to saying silly things like "stop the worship" etc.

Jobs was a once in a century type of character. People who have never worked in large teams of absolutely brilliant people, really just don't have a clue how difficult it is to LEAD these kinds of people. They are very opinionated, passionate, bright, and some might say arrogant. That's because they're used to always being right. But when you stick them in teams of other similar people, you end up with chaos. Jobs managed to control that chaos to his advantage in an absolutely masterful way. It's such a difficult thing to do. And you HAVE to be a prick. Strong minded people don't respect, much less listen to pushovers.

So that leads me to believe Tim Cook is equally as strong as Jobs in his own way. iOS 7 wouldn't have happened in the shocking timeframe it did happen in if he wasn't a strong leader. Besides, we already know this about him from people who have worked under him.

 

[kdarling]

If it weren't for Original iPhone we'd still be carrying flip phones. Say what you will but iPhone is the one that started.

80 million of us bought smartphones in 2006. The number was increasing by 40% to 50% each year.

The iPhone helped increase that speed of adoption, for sure. However, adoption was happening anyway. This was because consumer hardware was getting better and cheaper all the time, and people were becoming more aware of the devices.

(By the time the iPhone went on sale in mid 2007, you could buy a Windows Mobile touch phone with a WVGA screen with "retina" density, and a fingerprint sensor for unlocking and scrolling.)

Like many people, my touchscreen smartphone in 2006 had 3G, Google Maps, Opera browser, email, Slingplayer TV viewer, custom homescreen, and thousands of apps available from online app stores like Handango, with whom I had an account. Mine even had stereo surround sound.

Heck, the original iPhone had no MMS, no videocam, no GPS, no 3G, no third party apps.

So I was glad when the iPhone finally got those things. That's when it became a viable replacement option for a lot of us.

 

[Beautyspin]

It still is a product that is flawed

Now that's vision and leadership. Steve made that team do the impossible: make a product that, well, didn't work right appear to be nearly flawless.

And after release, his team delivered on that vision (ok, eventually).

This is something that is often underestimated. Just because a team has the skills and abilities to do something does not mean it will get done. That's where great leadership and vision comes in. Painful, yes. But great. The results speak for themselves.

Steve was, and still is, considered amazing in this regard. Alas, leaders and visionaries like that don't come often.

Those saying "stop with the worship", etc, etc, just don't get it. It's not about "religious" rhetoric, it's about appreciation, and recognizing skills that are hard to come by and thus incorporate them so as to make us better.

It still is a product that is flawed but they are managing to sell it as a premium product.

 

[GSPice]

A fascinating read; will this ever stop being fascinating?

Agreed. Simply amazing.

 

[kahkityoong]

There were 100% touchscreen before the iPhone. I am almost positive. I'm going to look it up now.

Maybe you should have looked it up before making such a lame comment?

 

[ThunderSkunk]

In a couple of our industries, we produce hundreds, sometimes thousands of prototypes before a final product is complete. Any time we've had to take protos to a show or event, everyone pulls their hair out the whole time.

On the way to the World Championship mountain bike finals in '89 or '90, we had the most visible rider in the world set up on an experimental frame we'd assembled out of entirely untested materials and processes, banking our entire brand on maximize our Co's exposure right then & there. We drove all the way across the southwest US with our Co's owner in the truck, sweating bullets and praying non-stop to every god he could think of that our amazing frame wouldn't fail and kill the greatest rider in the world in front of the entire sport. At least two nervous breakdowns later, he was ready to peel our logos off it at the start line. But, we delayed him, the bike held together, our rider won (the last time an indie won on that level) the frame was inspected, ...and found to be cracked all over, barely holding together. When we got home, the glue holding it all together had thoroughly failed and the frame completely fell apart just lifting it out of the box.

That was our make or break moment. I can still feel the rock that sat in the bottom of the stomach of everyone there for 2 straight hours while we held our breath.

Good times.

 

[tl01]

Greatest line ever.

That was the greatest line ever! I could watch that part of the keynote over and over!

 

[captain kaos]

It probably shows how much of a ramp up and learning curve they hit making the first iphone, and how far its come in only 6 years!