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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.'"
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 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."
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.
Ford didn't invent the car either, but the Model T was certainly innovative and redefined the automotive industry. The same can be said for the iPhone.
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
No, the original iphone was made by the Brazilian telephone company. Apple just ripped off the name without doing any research.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
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
Exactly what I was thinking. Had I been there, my reaction, after the initial shock and horror, would have been, "No, if we fail, it will be because you demanded we demo a product before it was ready." There's pushing people to deliver amazing products in an amazing timeframe, and there's pushing people to deliver a product, finished or not, in an unrealistic timeframe. There's a very fine line between the two, and had they failed, it would have been entirely because Steve crossed that line. Fortunately for everyone involved, he didn't. He knew exactly how far and how hard to push, and he pushed that hard, but no harder.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
No. They had low resolution displays and was pretty much an upgraded Palm Pilot with a cell phone built-in and a blackberry like keyboard that made life easier since graffiti required a stylus to input well. I had one. I also had to work with Nokia's offerings. There were absolutely no comparisons between these devices and the very first iPhone. The windows mobile version of the treo was a little nicer, but still had a low resolution display and had very little in common with the iPhone.
There is a reason the smart phone market didn't take off until the introduction of the iPhone.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
IOS 7 is just NOW getting the palm card-style interface as a task manager. My wife saw it and even said 'o it works like my Palm does'. When iphone came out i had a palm Pre as well, and it wasnt until Iphone 4s that i thought Apple had a worthy replacement for my Palm.
Good-bye
I'm sure what Nokia and Palm feel real good right at the moment, now that you've finally given them the credit they deserve.
Yes, you are right, what the hell were they thinking? It's too bad they didn't listen to your advice, otherwise they might have been successful. :(
Hey dumbass. They've been dominating the market BY REVENUE for YEARS now.
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.
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.
In theory, yes, Palm and Nokia could have come up with an iPhone before Apple, but the fact was they didn't.
I have used the Palm V since 2001, and I have been waiting for them to come up with a good PDA phone for years until I finally gave up on them and bought an iPhone instead.
You could have all the great ingredients on your hand, but if you cannot cook up a good dish, you can't say you are a great cook because you "could have" made a great dish, and that other cook who did just copied your ingredients.
I don't know whether to dismiss that as a fantasy, or point out maybe it's part of why you weren't there.
Not my experience. Are you just typing in the garbage you're paid to type in?
Yes, they are.
Social Media Marketing companies like Burson Marsteller, Waggener Edstrom and others have teams posting FUD and moderating in all tech sites on behalf of Apple, Microsoift, Facebook etc.
And you're right:
"Contrary to what you’ve heard, Android is almost impenetrable to malware
Until now, Google hasn’t talked about malware on Android because it did not have the data or analytic platform to back its security claims. But that changed dramatically today when Google’s Android Security chief Adrian Ludwig reported data showing that less than an estimated 0.001% of app installations on Android are able to evade the system’s multi-layered defenses and cause harm to users. Android, built on an open innovation model, has quietly resisted the locked down, total control model spawned by decades of Windows malware. "
http://qz.com/131436/contrary-to-what-youve-heard-android-is-almost-impenetrable-to-malware/
Of course, Slashdot doen't consider this news bcause it's sponsors haven't paid it to.
"No, if we fail, it will be because you demanded we demo a product before it was ready." And I can totally see Steve Jobs going "Oh, you're right. Sorry!"
...cunt. I don't know why people revere this workplace bully so much.
He isn't "revered" for his being a "workplace bully", he is revered because of the change he affected -- which is probably more than almost all the other "workplace bullies" combined. There are millions of workplace bullies, but only one of them pulled off the -- in all likelihood -- greatest commercial comeback of the last 50 years, and initiated several breakthrough products in the process. All those attributes make the "workplace bully" attribute proportionally less relevant.
Steve Jobs pushed his employees hard. He knew they could give him more. They also hardly ever left.
It's too easy to sensationalise the pushy side of the man, but the fact was that he was honest enough to tell them when he thought what they were doing wasn't good enough, maybe too forcefully at times, but honest nonetheless.
Maybe Blackberry would be different if they took the same approach. Could Steve Jobs have been nicer? Yes, but sometimes the CEO needs to be the CEO and not your friend.
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.