Fact #1
We are bring to you how Apple and Steve Jobs invented this totally new product through 2001 to 2007. For this new report we pull out instances and events from the biography of Steve Jobs written by Walter Issacson.
The threat to existing products led to the idea of a New Iphone
In 1997 Apple went ahead with the big product strategy session, where Steve Jobs thought about consumer and Pro devices- that is desktop and portable devices. He thought of iPods, MacBooks by iPhones were still not conceived.
In 2005 there was no threat to sale of iPods, they were expected to be skyrocketing. But Jobs was worried much before 2005, about the cell phones that could “eat” Apple’s launch.
He explained to the Apple board that the digital camera market was being decimating now that phones are equipped with cameras. The same could happen to the iPod, if manufacturers started to built music players into them.
Soon the idea of a new iPhone was conceptualized. In the next page read how one failure of Apple in making a phone lead to an iPhone.
Fact #2
A failed attempt when Apple was asked “You call this the phone of the future?”
In 2004/2005 Jobs was talking to the new Motorola CEO Ed Zander about “making a companion to the RAZR” popular phone from Motorola. The idea was to pack a camera and iPod into one device. Thus, ROKR phones were launched in 2005.
Wired asked “You call this the phone of the future?” in its November 2005 cover.
Result – Jobs was furious as he said “I’m sick of dealing with these stupid companies like Motorola”. Later at a review meeting he announced “Let’s do it ourselves”. This was the beginning the conception of a newIphone.
Fact #3
"Let’s do it ourselves" said Jobs and tried to modify iPod
Jobs called phones (the then existing phones) ‘Brain-Dead’ and started planning about a phone they (the team at Apple) would themselves want to use.
The first thing they did was to modify the iPod. They tried to use the trackwheel of the iPod to dial numbers and perform tasks. But input part was “cumbersome” said Tony Fadell who was in the team.
At this time in 2002 to 2005 Apple was also trying to make new and secret device called a tablet, an iPad. The ideas flowed in from the iPad development and helped shape the Iphone.
This was the time when Microsoft was also making a tablet PC software for a device with stylus, and Jobs realized that Apple has a competitor in tablet segment. But Jobs was furious as he thought the device with a stylus was all wrong” [Jobs came to know about the device when he met the person making software forMicrosoft in a dinner party in 2002]
He came back and asked the team “So could you guys come up with a multi-touch, touch sensitive display for me?” His team made a workable prototype in six months time.
Fact #4
“This is the future”
Jony Ive (Jonathan Ive) was working with team to make multi-touch touch-sensitive display for Appledevices. He did not discuss the plans of integrating the multi-touch technology for computer screens with Jobs because “Steve is so quick to give an opinion, I don’t show his stuff in front of other people”.
Ive thought the team working the project might get discouraged of Jobs would react saying “This is shit”. So he demonstrated this in front of Jobs privately. Jobs loved it and said “This is the future”.
The iPad project was put on hold after this so that the multi-touch screen could be adopted for phone sized display. Apple started concentrating its efforts on the Iphone.
Fact #5
FingerWorks- Apple’s first acquisition for Iphone
A company called FingerWorks based in Delaware was making touch-sensitive products (tablets) and trackpads at that time. His company has figured out using finger gestures like pinches, swipe on a display and translating them into actions.
In early 2005 Apple quietly acquired FingerWorks, all its patents and services, after which the small company quit making products for the market.
“Apple was very interested in it. They wanted to use it for their trackpad on their Macs. Once they accepted they were going to use it, [our technology] got lots of visibility inside of Apple. They realized that was what they wanted for the iPhone. It turned from a licensing deal to an acquisition deal pretty quickly. The whole process took about eight months” a report in Technical.ly said in 2005 January.
Fact #6
The Blackberry competition
In a meeting where Jobs announced making a full touch display for the new phone, it was perceived riskier since it was new and Apple had not completely figured out how to ‘execute the engineering.
A couple of members also argued in favour of keeping a physical keyboard like the BlackBerry handsets in the new Apple phone. This Jobs clearly vetoed out saying this will occupy unnecessary space on the phone.
“Let’s bet on it, and then we’will find a way to work on it”, he said in the meeting.
Fact #7
The ‘swipe to open’ option
When the team was working on the new phone was thinking about how to prevent the phone from making calls or playing songs accidently. Jobs was “averse” to on/off switches and hence the idea of “swipe to open” figured in as an on-screen slider
Another addition was a sensor which could figure out how to prevent calling on any number when the phone touched the ear lobe. Then they added rounded cornered square icons, buttons to lace calls on hold, making conference calls, found a way to navigate through emails on the phone.
Did you know who was manufacturer of the first Apple Iphone? It was Foxconn who continues to be partner of Apple in manufacturing iPad and iPhones.
Fact #8
The next step was ‘the Glass’
Apple used plastic sheets on the display in the iPods. But Jobs wanted it to be a glass display as this would look more “elegant and substantive”.
Apple started looking or partners in Asia. He talked about this to his friend John Seeley Brown who was on the board of Corning Glass in Upstate New York and requested to talk to Wendell Weeks, CEO of Corning Glass. He dialled the main Corning switchboard number (epbax nowadays) and asked to be put through to Week. An assistant offered to pass on the message, but Jobs insisted “No, I’m Steve jobs. Put me through.” He was refused
Jobs called up Brown and said he was give a “Typical East Coast Bullshit”.
Later when Weeks came to know about this, he called up the main Apple switchboard and asked for Jobs. He was asked to put the request in writing and send it via fax.
Jobs was told about this thing after which Jobs invited Weeks to Cupertino.
Fact #9
“Can you shut up?” asked Weeks to Jobs
When Jobs met Weeks he explained what he wanted for the Iphone. Weeks explained that Corning developed the chemical exchange process for such a glass called “Gorilla Glass” in 1960, which never came into the market as there were no takers.
Jobs doubted that the glass was not enough strong and he started explain how a glass is made to Weeks. “Can you shut up?” reacted Weeks and said “And Let me teach you some science”. A surprised Jobs went silent.
After a detailed lecture in chemistry Jobs told Weeks that he wanted as much Gorilla Glass as Corning could produce in 6 months. Since Corning was not producing Gorilla Glass, Weeks informed they “Don’t have the capacity”.
Jobs motivated him and said “Get your mind around it, you can do it.” Weeks came back and he diverterd all the best resources for this Apple project. In six months time Corning actually started manufacturing and supplying Gorilla Glass.
When iPhone was launched in 2007, Week got a message from Jobs saying “we couldn’t have done it without you.”
Fact #10
Jobs changed the design of Iphone just when major part of iPhone making was already done.
After a major part of the iPhone making (with a glass screen set into an aluminium case) was done, one day Jobs went to Jony Ive and said “I realized that I just don’t love it”. Ive agreed.
iPhone should have been all about display, but the aluminium case gave it a very masculine look, as the metal casing competed against the glass.
When the whole team under the leadership of Ive met Jobs told them, “Guys you have killed yourself over this design for the last nine months, but we’re going to change it.” He asked team to work day and night an over weekends to make the perfect design.
The new design had thin bezel that extended the Gorilla Glass for an edge-to-edge look in full glory. For this they re-did the antenna, circuit board and all other parts.
This design matched Jobs idea of perfectionism and control, that is the back case will not open, making the battery replaceable by Apple only. Not having a replaceable battery made the New Iphone thinner.
Image: A still from the Steve Jobs Keynote video at the launch event of the first iPhone. On the first iPhoneJobs called Jonathan Ive on his phone; Image source: Steve Jobs first iPhone call to Jony Ive 2007,iDeviceTubeCam, YouTube
Fact #11
And then there was the launch TIME
Jobs, as he always did was ready to grant a sneek preview of the new Iphone to a magazine. He called John Huey and told him that he wanted to give the preview of iPhone to TIME Inc. But “there’s nobody smart enough at Time to write it, so I’m going to give it to someone else,” Jobs said to Huey.
Huey introduced him to Lev Grossman, a technology writer at Time.
In his piece Grossman noted that the iPhone did not invent anything, but it made these features lot more useful. “But that’s important “ he explained.
Read Grossman’s article ‘Invention Of the Year: The iPhone’.
Fact #12
Introducing the first Iphone
The first iPhone was launched on January 9 2007, where Apple founder Steve Jobs announced the firstiPhone. At the launch event he introduced iPhone like this –
“Today we are introducing three revolutionary products in this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third one is a breakthrough Internet communications device”.
He said “these are not three separate device, this is one device and we are calling it iPhone.”
The phone went on sale on June 29 that year. This was included in the best inventions of the year by Time that year. It was dubbed “the Jesus phone” by many bloggers.
Jobs announced that all full-time Apple employees and those part-time employees that have been with the company at least one year would receive a free iPhone. Employees received their phones in July after the initial demand subsided
What the “i” in the Apple products like iPhone stands for?
According to Jobs, the “i” was used to emphasize that the devices would be seamlessly integrated with the Internet.
Fact #13
And then there was Android
In January 2010 in a townhall meeting (meeting where all the employees of a company meet) instead of talking about new products Jobs talked about Android operating system.
He was furious that Google wanted to enter the phone business. “We did not enter search business,” Jobs said. “Make no mistake. They want to kill Iphone”, he announced at he meeting as he predicted that Android would go forward and dominate the world Smartphone business.
His fear was genuine as Google CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple boar when iPhone and iPad was being developed and Larry Page and Sergey Brin treated him as mentor. Jobs felt betrayed and in 2008 he went to Palo Alto campus of Google to meet Google’s team. He asked them not to use Apple iPhone like feature in Android phone and threatened to sue.
In 2010 HTC launched an Android phone that showed off iPhone like features. Apple sued HTC for infringing on 20 patents. The week the lawsuit was filed Jobs declared a thermonuclear war against Android and said “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.”
The fight continues even today. At the launch of the iOS 8 this year, 2014 Tim Cook, Apple CEO mocked Android saying it dominates ‘mobile malware market’, Apple’. It is easy to understand that the Cupertino company will aim to de-rail the hold of Android in the Smartphone market.
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