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How Apple Kept the iPhone Secret

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-don't-tell-me dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk — all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune's Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year's biggest tech launches. One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo and Google."

5 of 539 comments (clear)

  1. Secret? by slughead · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think most of us who tool around the macrumor sites had a pretty good idea of what they were going to release. The only 'secret' was when. I wasn't surprised by any feature the phone had.

    --
    Latewire
  2. Re:Not Kept For Very Long by jaiyen · · Score: 3, Informative

    Keeping something a secret until six months before release is much, much easier than keeping it a secret until release day.

    Looks like that wasn't an option this time. If you read the TFA it says:

    In the end, Apple decided to reveal the iPhone several months ahead of its official June launch because it could not keep the secret any more. Apple has to file with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the permits needed to operate the iPhone, and once those public filings are made, Apple has no control over the release of that information. So, Jobs said, he made the decision to have Apple tell the world about its new phone, rather than the FCC.

  3. Re:Agreed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Um, $500 and $600. Still a lot, but not $700.

  4. Re:Not all that's secret by S3D · · Score: 3, Informative
    Can users install their own software? Rumor is that you cannot - you have to buy it from Apple or Cingular.
    Legally most probably no. Consider how paranoid apple about iPod games - developers had to send their sources to apple and can't even run binaries on the real device, not speaking about on-device debugging. About underground hacking - hassle with versions, danger of bricking the device, voiding warranty - most users probably wouldn't bother.
  5. Re:Not all that's secret by danigiri · · Score: 3, Informative

    "You'll also notice that the Japanese have almost universally shunned any form factor other than the clamshell... just as we have"

    Yeah, but not in Europe, no.

    While I personally prefer clamshell style phones, in Europe candy-bar is either king or head-to-head (around 17/28 offers on Spanish Vodafone-subsidized consumer phones are clamshell http://tienda.vodafone.es/do/catalogo/moviles/todo s ), hell, not so long ago Nokia candy-bars were nearly universal around here...

    Do not underestimate the phone market, it is HUGE, and there are many massive markets besides the US and Japan, Europe is no small fry (GSM / GPRS is truly universal in Europe and it was spearheaded here). On the other hand, UMTS and beyond is yet to gain a significant foothold in the mass-market consumer phone european market, no matter where the markedroids would like UMTS (and others) to be, it is nowhere as ubiquitous as GPRS/GSM.

    3G is still to become what it's meant to become, no true killer-apps, no user critical-mass, expensive provider fees, expensive provider fees perception, sub-par network coverage (heck, my GPRS phone sound quality and coverage runs rings around my CIO's 3G exec phone), FUD about the VoIP and other data services, etc.

    Don't discount other markets in the phone business, don't discount legacy, don't discount 2G, don't discount 2.5G...