Image by bizmac via FlickrIt’s been a year since Apple unveiled it’s iPhone, which is considered by many to be a revolutionary device. While that may be true, the greater revolution came from the manner in which the phone was developed and the equation altering manufacturer – carrier relationship that it left in it’s wake. Wired has done an excellent write up on the process, it’s challenges, and the underlying gamble that Steve Jobs took with the iPhone. The article starts out appropriately enough:
It was a late morning in the fall of 2006. Almost a year earlier, 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.”
It’s hard to imagine many corporations today that would have a boardroom full of people that would tolerate that bit of news from their CEO. But then again, this is Apple that we are talking about. Very interesting read, and well written as well.
Read the rest of the story here: The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry
nitin badjatia 