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The Story of the Original iPhone's Development
jds91md writes "Today's NY Times delivers a great story of the development of the iPhone by Apple. It focuses on the events during the leadup to Steve Jobs taking the stage with shockingly buggy prototypes and pulling off the show that is now history. 'Only about a hundred iPhones even existed, all of them of varying quality. Some had noticeable gaps between the screen and the plastic edge; others had scuff marks on the screen. And the software that ran the phone was full of bugs. The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn’t play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an e-mail and then surfed the Web. If you did those things in reverse, however, it might not. Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called “the golden path,” a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked.' One of the big problems was the phone's connectivity. The man in charge of the iPhone's radios, Andy Grignon, had to deal with Jobs's anger when rehearsals didn't go well. Grignon said, 'Very rarely did I see him become completely unglued — it happened, but mostly he just looked at you and very directly said in a very loud and stern voice, "You are [expletive] up my company," or, "If we fail, it will be because of you." He was just very intense. And you would always feel an inch tall.'"
First!
The whole story is a great testament to engineers, in that (a) it's incredible they could have made the demo work that well, and (b) Apple actually shipped the thing described in that story just six months later - and it was basically pretty functional and solid.
Even for you Apple Haters out there that have zero interest in reading something like this - well anyone who is an engineer should read it, and if you can't bring yourself to do that at least read the very last paragraph which is fun for everyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"The 55 miles from Campbell to San Francisco make for one of the nicest commutes anywhere. The journey mostly zips along the Junipero Serra Freeway, a grand and remarkably empty highway" Spend some time commuting on I-280 (the Junipero Serra Freeway) and you'll soon realize that it's clogged with people doing 5 mph under the speed limit in the fast lane...
copy and paste
The original iphone was made by Cisco.
...perhaps you shouldn't be demoing it to the public yet.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Except they weren't really "Apple innovations". Apple did a great job with the design and engineering of the iPhone, and they popularized these ideas and interfaces. But the innovations themselves largely came from Palm, Nokia, and a whole bunch of startups.
Every engineering failiure starts with an managment failiure
I have been skeptical of Windows Phone over the years. As a former iPhone user, I was afraid of vendor lock-in that happens with all of Apple's products, and I wanted something robust that was more than a toy. I switched to Android phones but I am getting tired of the fragmentation and slow interface. I am currently dealing with tons of spyware on my Android phone. The phone was top of the line with my carrier just eighteen months ago, but it no longer receives updates. Worse, it is littered with malware and spyware, a common occurrence in the Android world per the testimony of my acquaintances. Now it looks like GMail is spying on my email through what Google calls "targeted advertising." Enough!
Luckily I am due for an upgrade soon. I have been to a local phone store to try out all of the phones, and the ones that really impressed me were the Microsoft Lumia Windows Phones. Not only were they built with the highest quality materials, but the interface is phenominally clean and quick. There are live tiles which allow information to flow to my home screen without wasting space or causing clutter. Sure, the Microsoft Application Store is young and may not have 500,000 apps, but it's quality, not quantity that I'm worried about. I just need about a dozen or so well written programs to conduct my daily business. Windows Phone is the fastest growing smartphone percentage wise, so the app store will only get better. Plus, I look forward to being able to edit my documents on the fly with Microsoft Office on the way in to work. With a trusted name like Microsoft and Outlook.com, I also don't have to worry about being "Scroogled" and having my personal email targeted for advertisements.
I can't wait to join the growing number of smartphone users who are making the switch to Windows Phone. Windows Phone 8 is a great OS that provides excellent value for money. I would recommend this phone to everyone. If you value privacy and quality, Windows Phone is the way of the future!
The word "innovation" does not mean "invention." What you're describing, however, does fit the definition of innovation.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
...cunt. I don't know why people revere this workplace bully so much.
I don't know why this surprises anyone. EVERYTHING I have ever designed had to be demoed before it was ready, sometimes a year or more before it was ready. Usually we could arrange to have the actual engineers (me or someone on my team) do the demo, and we always tred to practice to insure we could demo only things that worked. When the boss had to do the demo we always had extensive rehearsals, and emphasized that he must perform the steps exactly as we practiced or bad things would likely happen. On some projects hardware was so late we had to build simulators and hide them under the table so the software would have something to control/monitor. I believe this sort of demo is very common in any sort of R&D environment including big name companies demoing new products/technologies for the first time. Every demo of an early prototype will crash or show unexpected behavior at some point during the demo, the key to the impression it makes is how well the demonstrator handles the issue - getting mad in a public demo is never a good idea. Usually you just tell someone else to file a bug report, and move on - explaining that there is, of course, still some polishing to do; or use it as an opportunity to explain the way you work with customers to resolve such issues - leaving the impression that you engineered the failure in order to fit that topic in to the presentation. My ex boss was a master of that technique. Even in my current job where my products are for internal use I am frequently asked for demos before products are ready, the difference being I don't have to offer smooth explanations when things go wrong, usually I just have to offer an estimate of when it might be done.
I just rewatched Steve's iPhone demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_m2F_ph_uU
When he clicks on The Office and says, "Let's watch a TV show", Pirates of the Caribbean plays.
The next chapter in the The Time Traveling Adventures of Reginald Smitherington, Klutz: In Reginald's previous episode he dropped in on Preston Tucker and helped him with the debut of his revolutionary car, mistakenly connecting the fuel line to the distributor and starting a fire.
This time Reginald helps Steve Jobs improve upon his perfectly assembled and functioning mobile phone, by introducing some last minute code, to make the presentation even more spiffy...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Only about a hundred iPhones even existed, all of them of varying quality. Some had noticeable gaps between the screen and the plastic edge; others had scuff marks on the screen. And the software that ran the phone was full of bugs. The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn't play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an e-mail and then surfed the Web. If you did those things in reverse,
never flaming disasters carefully masked.
It wasn't a flaming disaster though, just a lot of components that all worked pretty well already, but very very unstable - especially in combination.
That is very, very far in the live demo world from a "flaming disaster". Flaming disaster would have been a browser that could only parse simple HTML, mail client that ate emails, phone that failed to dial ever, etc.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But considering how inflexible the first version of the OS was, not impossible.
If you look at the jailbreaking stuff from launch time though, the platform itself was not really inflexible at all. Many of the classes iOS developers know and use today were there at launch. The device itself have a limited set of applications but underneath it really was running a scaled down OSX and using ObjectiveC for applications just as the desktop did...
I totally agree with you on the need for groups to be able to work together being a reason why the announced it so far ahead of launch (comparatively). They got it as far as they could (really farther) with the left hand not being able to know what the right was doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People who are dicks are dicks no matter what you are doing.
People with intense focus are only dicks if you are getting something wrong.
There is a big difference - and the reason why people were willing to work so hard for jobs where no-one would ever work that hard for a real dick.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Gee, the demo's still better than the real thing 6 years later.
Table-ized A.I.
And it all lead to that moment Steve Jobs announced the iPhone to the world, and started the downward fall of Blackberry.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside-story-of-why-blackberry-is-failing/article14563602/?page=all
I know I've written versions of software which were more like slideshows, so that a salesman could demonstraite the look and feel of something before it was complete.
Jobs got through a long and involved demo without a crash nor even a glitch. Compare this to so many Microsoft presentations, where you know good and damned well they put every bit as much effort into finding a "golden path" for the demo, but it crashes ANYWAY!
What disappoints me about all the stories of Jobs's excellence is it's apparent that, because I'm unable (and unwilling) to work 80 hours per week, I'll never be part of something amazing. Seems like no one has ever taken their kids to soccer practice *and* changed the world.
Being an asshole gets you dead - early. Good riddance.
Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s top hardware executive at the time, says there were even long discussions about how big the phone would be. “I was actually pushing to do two sizes — to have a regular iPhone and an iPhone mini like we had with the iPod. I thought one could be a smartphone and one could be a dumber phone. But we never got any traction on the small one, and in order to do one of these projects, you really need to put all your wood behind one arrow.”
Wow, they really need to revisit this idea now. The world has changed since 2007, and Apple now has a lot more money, resources and competition from a range of Android phones, big and small. I personally prefer the "small" 4 inch screens, but I know that most of the market wants gigantic phablets. It made sense back in 2007 to have all the wood behind one arrow, but now they've just got all their eggs in one basket.
I blame them for the smartphone-fueled dumbing of the world, and I blame them for the tablet fueled dumbing of PCs. Both are 'innovations' by apple.
I know one of the engineers who worked on that. He was a quiet, competent guy, and didn't like being screamed at by Jobs. He quit right after the iPhone shipped.
I pick up all my toys and go home. I never have and never will need a job that bad.
""You are [expletive] up my company," or, "If we fail, it will be because of you." He was just very intense. And you would always feel an inch tall.'""
Seriously, anyone continuing to work for a boss like this has no self respect and/or has sold their soul to the devil for stock options.
From the article:
"The story was that Steve wanted a device that he could use to read e-mail while on the toilet — that was the extent of the product spec".
I had no idea I was taking part in such an important use case.
If you're making anything more than a quick, throwaway prototype it shouldn't be riddled with so many bugs that it'll cause months of additional work
If you're making anything of any complexity it WILL be riddled with lots of bugs well before release. As it was, it didn't seem to cause "months of additional work" because the work that was done after was the work that was simply required to finish.
You are living in a dream if you think you can develop a product without at some stages having a lot of bugs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley