Origin of the iPhone

rambilly brings us a story from Wired about the origin and development of the iPhone. From the article: "Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple's top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple's boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn't just buggy, it flat-out didn't work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, 'We don't have a product yet.' The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. 'It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,' says someone who was in the meeting."

Comments

Mobile Development

[wombatmobile]

TFA describes how Jobs and co. designed a great device, and makes the point that traditional mobile phone handset businesses has been stifled and denied the opportunity to innovate by network operators.

It is nice that Apple is innovating, and computing on telephone platforms is advancing.

But progress may still be limited by network operators for the time being because to deploy software or services, providers have to go through the network operators.

And to consume services, consumers must first access the networks through the network operators.

Round 1 to Apple with the iphone. Round 2 is software and services.

Can innovation in software and services flourish despite network operators trying to gatekeep and tax all revenue opportunities whether they understand them or not?

Re:Mobile Development

[Joe Tie.]

That excuse always got me as well. While I have my beefs with windows mobile, it's been around for ages and is far more open than the iphone. Not only can I write for it in pretty much any language I want, I can even use most of the same toolkits I'd use for desktop development. Heck, I can use most of the toolkits and libraries that I use for desktop development on linux. And yet somehow satellites haven't been falling from the sky as a result.

Re:Mobile Development

[msdschris]

A real sybian phone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybian
How exciting.

Re:dupe

[jonpublic]

its hilarious slashdot has a script to tag when a reply is a duplicate, but no script to stop duplicate stories on the front page.

I hate bosses like that

[syousef]

The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. 'It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,' says someone who was in the meeting."

The only reason to fear your boss is that your boss can effectively end your livelihood or career. Lauding power over people like that, throwing tantrums, and scaring your employees by staring them down or through false calm just makes me very happy I've never worked for such people. I've had some excellent bosses who've produced some excellent results and none of them have ruled by fear. There's one I remember who got accolades on retiring this year and all anyone could ever say about him was that he was calm and an absolute gentleman under pressure. In contrast when I read about Jobs and Gates I just think "goes to show money won't buy manners".

As for the iPhone can't say I understand what the fuss about this product is. Last time I participated in a discussion about it someone was rabbiting on about hacks to do video, as if video were an advanced feature for a modern phone. Please!

Re:I hate bosses like that

[FireFury03]

Lauding power over people like that, throwing tantrums, and scaring your employees by staring them down or through false calm just makes me very happy I've never worked for such people.

This was about the first thing that struck me when I read the article - it really doesn't sound like a good working environment to me.

Also, I suspect working under that kind of pressure is going to significantly increase the number of silly mistakes being made - not great for the stability of the product.

As for the iPhone can't say I understand what the fuss about this product is. Last time I participated in a discussion about it someone was rabbiting on about hacks to do video, as if video were an advanced feature for a modern phone. Please!

I have still to work out what the iPhone's target market is. It isn't a smartphone - it's lacking in too many features that smartphone users expect from their phones (such as being able to run third party software, using the phone to connect their notebook to the internet, etc), yet it is priced up there with the smartphones (more expensive than many too, and most of the smartphones can do 3G).

Sure, the iPhone's UI is supposed to be excellent, but what's the good in a nice UI if the phone is lacking the the features the target market needs?

Re:I hate bosses like that

[FireFury03]

first, it's NOT targeting the smart-phone market, it's targeting the consumer market. BIG DIFFERENCE.

I'm sorry, I can't believe that you can consider an iPhone to be targetting what you call the "consumer" market (as if smart-phones weren't aimed at consumers too). Let's see: It is pretty bulky and is really expensive - kind of like a smartphone. Certainly not the same market as "consumer" phones such as the Razr, etc.

not that it matters now anyway. last I heard it had a 30% of the smartphones sold in the US in the last few months, and has out sold ALL win-mobile based phones combined in that time frame. aparantly it's not doing too bad.

But you just said it wasn't targetting the smartphone market, so why are you comparing iPhone sales with smartphone sales? It would seem to be more sensible to compare iPhone sales with "consumer" phone sales (I'm pretty sure you'll find that "consumer" phones massively outsell smartphones too).

it is an open ended device in that it's easly upgradable by apple, at the moment. What's going to happen when the API is released (this february)?

If you buy something based on what a company says they will do in the future you are crazy - businesses make huge U-turns all the time, and I've lost count of the number of devices I've got where the manufacturer has said "oh, and it's upgradable so bugs will get fixed over the life of the product", only to find out that the life of the product is about a year and they made 1 firmware release (which didn't address most of the serious bugs) before end-of-lifeing it.

let me give you a clue: it will be the the mobile platform with the most developers. by far. from the get go - all indy mac devs will be on that API as soon as it is released. Others will follow.

I won't hold my breath - Symbian, PalmOS, etc. may be crap platforms, but they do have a hell of a lot of developers. And they have embraced third party developers from the start rather than giving them the finger and then deciding later on that maybe they should allow third party development after all.

I'm afraid I won't be buying an iPhone - it's far too expensive, massively lacks most of the features I need from a phone and Apple have repeatedly shown that they are more interested in locking devices down and trying to control the whole market rather than allowing their customers to fully utilise what they have spent their money on. Just because they have decided that they need to produce an open API *now* doesn't negate their actions in the past and doesn't promise a great future.

Re:I hate bosses like that

[coolGuyZak]

I'm sorry, I can't believe that you can consider an iPhone to be targetting what you call the "consumer" market (as if smart-phones weren't aimed at consumers too). Let's see: It is pretty bulky and is really expensive - kind of like a smartphone. Certainly not the same market as "consumer" phones such as the Razr, etc

Smart-phones are marketed to the consumer market, but they're designed for a technical or professional market. The iPhone, on the other hand, is both marketed and designed as a high-end consumer device. Note, this doesn't prevent an owner or developer from treating it like a smartphone.

As an aside concerning the bulk, it's not a big deal in my experience. The iPhone is comfortable enough to hold up to your head for short periods of time. After 10 minutes or so, you should either be finished your call or put on the headphones (for hands-free use).

But you just said it wasn't targetting the smartphone market, so why are you comparing...

So wait,... You argue in the first paragraph that smartphones are, in fact, consumer devices, but bemoan his argument concerning smartphone market. Maybe you guys should agree to agree here. ;)

Re:I hate bosses like that

[FireFury03]

Note, this doesn't prevent an owner or developer from treating it like a smartphone.

Sure it does - it is missing many of the features that makes a smartphone a smartphone (no, having to apply un supported 3rd party hacks, or having to wait while Apple decides to allow access to *some* of the features does not count).

As an aside concerning the bulk, it's not a big deal in my experience. The iPhone is comfortable enough to hold up to your head for short periods of time.

Notice I said "bulk" not "weight" - the iphone is much much bigger to carry around than any other "consumer" phone. It's size is on-par with smartphones, not "consumer" phones.

After 10 minutes or so, you should either be finished your call or put on the headphones (for hands-free use).

You seriously expect people to carry headphones around with them _as well_ as the bulky phone?

So wait,... You argue in the first paragraph that smartphones are, in fact, consumer devices, but bemoan his argument concerning smartphone market. Maybe you guys should agree to agree here. ;)

No, I said the use of the word "consumer" was a bad one. There are two markets - the smartphone market and the non-smartphone market. Both markets have consumers - the original poster used the word "consumer" to describe only the latter. And yes, I have used the same word (but quoted) to describe this market because I didn't really want to get bogged down in a language-war.

My complaint here is that the poster stated the the iPhone wasn't targetting the smartphone market and then stated it must be doing well because it has outsold Windows smartphones. Making comparisons between two markets like this is completely meaningless - it's like me declaring that a car manufacturer must be doing well because they've sold more cars than Airbus have sold planes this year. If you're going to make comparisons about how well something is doing you need to compare with other products _in the same market_.

Re:I hate bosses like that

[firewood]

I've worked for bosses like that. Their track record has been such that the fear isn't over one's career, since one can often get another job that will pay just as well, but that one will not live up to those bosses standards of creating products that sometimes achieve great and sustained market acceptance, as well as being a business success. The employee stock from companies with the nice bosses hasn't done nearly as well over the long haul in my small statistical sampling. YMMV.

Re:06-12-17 status of mobile os market share

[SpectreBlofeld]

Which is all fine and good, but the iPhone is NOT A SMARTPHONE. At ALL.

It has NONE of the hallmarks of a traditional smartphone.

"Most devices considered smartphones today use an identifiable operating system, often with the ability to add applications (e.g. for enhanced data processing, connectivity or entertainment) - in contrast to regular phones which only support sandboxed applications[citation needed]. These smartphone applications may be developed by the manufacturer of the device, by the network operator or by any other third-party software developer[citation needed]."

  Yes, I left the 'citation needed' remarks, in respect of Wikipedia's information model.

  The iPhone is a really fancy phone, perhaps a decent pocket-sized multimedia device, but smartphone/PDA it ain't - without hacking it, of course, until Apple decides to 'update' it for you.

  Therefore it's futile to compare it to Blackberry/Windows Mobile/Palm devices.

It really is the CEO

[heroine]

The article makes it sound like it really is the CEO who drives everything and everything else is automatic. It's pretty accurate to how Silicon Valley works. The CEO drives it and everything else is mostly automatic.

Consider that Jobless made a few hundred million dollars and adoration from legions of fans while the engineers probably got a few tens of thous in bonuses and increased rent on their dumpy Sunnyvale apartments.

Re:It really is the CEO

[arcite]

But its true. Consider...if the iphone had tanked, there is a good chance that not only Jobs would be out of a Job but that Apple could be out of luck as well. The CEO can take all the glory but they also take all the blame.

News?

[MikeRR]

Is this news?

Some boss has a tantrum in the past when a product is behind schedule.

Might have been news if it was reported AT THE TIME, before the iphone was released,
but now?

Nope..

Re:06-12-17 status of mobile os market share

[CaptainZapp]

* Symbian is huge everywhere besides North America, but obviously has the most to lose with the iPhone being released around the world next year. Don't expect Symbian to post these numbers on their website as they have in the past.

The reception of the IPhone in the European key markets (UK, Germany, France) has been lukewarm at best. I'm not saying that Apple may not be a threat to Symbian in Europe in the future, but for the time being they're far from it.

* Apple is poised to be the number one US Smartphone vendor next year if trends keep up.

I'd wager that this is due to a fact of the abyssimal state of the US handset market. It isn't helped by the carriers who bolt down and cripple the handsets to borderline useless.

Apple will have a much more difficult time in Europe (let alone Japan) with the iPhone for a variety of reasons.

iPhone is just another word for vendor lock-in

[davide marney]

Jobs and his crew have given us a beautiful device but an ugly product. It is completely locked into its two vendors, and is not a good value.

I hate vendor lock-in. I hate being told how I can use something I bought. It's mine. I paid for it. I've earned the right to control it.

If a vendor wants my business, he needs to EARN it.

Jobs isn't a boss

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a cult leader. He rules by sheer force of personality not by any great people skills.

*Your* MP3 player is crippled.

[LKM]

Wait, wait, the iPhone is a phone with the computing power close to my current PC (an old VIA, I can bet the iPhone has a better GPU than my on-board one). Almost its full size is one big screen. Doesn't all this imply that it should be able to run videos easily?

Yes. And?

If I would want a phone with less features, I would bloody not spend 900 euros on it

That's you. I moved from a new P990i to an iPhone. It has a lot less features, but I actually use the features it has, and I'm a lot happier with it.

For example, if I want an MP3 player, I want to be able to mount it like a flash drive and copy music to and from it.

Why?

Okay, I get copying from. That's useful. Fortunately, the iPod actually does allow for this. All your music is stored in an invisible directory which can easily be accessed.

I just don't get the "copy to" thing, though. I hate those dumb players which force you to use the OS to put music on them when I actually use software to manage my MP3s, and then take a few minutes after I turn them on to read all the ID3 tags into a database, or even worse, just display the music in the hierarchy it is on the device. Not to mention that it leads to all kinds of cumbersome idiocies if I add new music to my library and then want to add only the new music to my player. Also, I use smart playlists extensively. For example, my music collection does not fix on my iPhone, so I use a smart playlists which puts a bunch of random new songs on the iPhone each time I connect it to the Mac, as well as the most recent episode of my favourite podcasts, and new episodes of TV shows I like. Why in the world would I ever trade this to an MP3 player which makes me do all of that by hand?

I really have no clue why anyone could possibly think that less features could possibly be better, especially after all the other things you've said.

You want crippled? Your crappy MP3 player which forces you to put music on it using the Windows Explorer, that's crippled.

I'm afraid I don't get the point of the rest of your rambling about subnotebooks and Apple.

bullshit

[nguy]

hey might not be carrier exclusives [...] but both are ALSO tied to their own exclusive programs

You're bullshitting. Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile have been available unlocked and have not been tied to any carrier for years.

and both at first where also non-programmable (yes they where and anyone who says otherwise is a liar), and only opened up a year or two later.

Again, totally wrong. All three of those systems developed out of programmable PDA platforms. Even if they had been non-programmable a decade ago, it's 2008, and the standard is that smartphones are user-programmable today, both via native APIs and via Java. Apple's iPhone is neither, and it's carrier locked, and it is tied to Apple's desktop.

It has not even been a year for Apples product and they have already promised to open up their programing before the year mark.

Apple has been vague on the specifics; just because Jobs calls it "programmable" doesn't mean it is. iPods are "programmable" as well, that doesn't mean that ISVs can create software and offer it for download. Furthermore, iPhones remain locked and tied to Apple's desktop.

So your argument is basically null and void.

You are an Apple apologist, and you don't even know your facts.