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Things you never knew about the iPhone

Saturday, August 4, 2012 · 2:02 pm · 18 Comments

“Thanks to the testimony of top Apple executives this week, we know more about how the iPhone came to be. However, the revelation of these details means that even if Apple ends up winning this case, it’s still lost something: a little bit of mystery,” Erica Ogg reports for GigaOM.

“When Scott Forstall, SVP of iOS software, started hiring what would become the iPhone team, he was told by Steve Jobs he couldn’t bring in anyone from outside Apple,” Ogg reports. “Because it lost a bid to keep a customer survey secret, we know more about iPhone owners’ buying habits. Like that they are a cautious bunch: 78 percent of them buy a case for their device.”

Ogg reports, “Before deciding to build the iPhone and iPad, Apple considered other product categories, including “crazy stuff” like a car or a camera.”

Read more in the full article here.

Categories: News

Tags: Apple v. Samsung, ios, iphone, iPhone knockoffs, iPhone Purple, iPhone wannabes, Scott Forstall

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Comment Feed

18 Comments

abcd

Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 2:13 pm · Reply

A car I can understand but how is a camera “crazy stuff.”
- really
  
  Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 2:24 pm · Reply
  
  Agreed.
  
  To me a phone sounds like a crazier idea than a camera for Apple back then.
  - Old George
    
    Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 8:38 pm · Reply
    
    Unless, of course, you’re an Apple V.P. and you want to use a bit of Jobsian misdirection.
  - aaAttendee
    
    Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 10:38 pm · Reply
    
    An Apple superzoom with essentially iPod Touch built-in would be great! Kodak dropped the ball so badly, it just kills me.
- aka Christian
  
  Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 2:26 pm · Reply
  
  Agreed. The last couple of consumer digital cameras I’ve owned, both Panasonic Lumixes, have fallen apart much too quickly and lacked common-sense design and user-frinedliness that Apple is known for. Apple could make a simple, reliable camera that, coupled with their great software, could be “different.” BTW, I recently shelled out for an Olympus OM-D, which is taking phenomenal photos and which, hopefully, will last more than eighteen months.
  - Rorschach
    
    Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 2:49 pm · Reply
    
    My 2007 Lumix TZ-3 still works perfectly, and it’s recently been superceded by a TZ-30.
    Other than batteries finally dying, I’ve never had an issue with them. Excellent cameras.
    Although an Apple designed UI would be nice…
  - Weekend
    
    Sunday, August 5, 2012 - 1:46 am · Reply
    
    Maybe Apple could make a better camera and maybe not. I have been very happy with my Canon’s over the years. Although Steve did mention cameras before he died. So who knows? Right now I’d much rather see the Apple I TV myself.
rdiddlyrdoust

Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 2:28 pm · Reply

All of these innocuous commentaries about these legal proceedings are really beginning to grate on my nerves. The mystique is gone, Apple actually discussed their product plans amongst themselves! Who would have thought it?
- Derek Currie
  
  Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 11:34 pm · Reply
  
  Exactly. BFD all the ‘secret’ testimony given so far. BFD having to make this customer survey public. I don’t see any Apple production or marketing edge being given away here. I’m actually happy to see much of this testimony being made public as the demonstrates how a quality company makes and sells great products while keeping customer benefit foremost in their mind. This flies in the face of the buffoonery of our modern biznizz age where most companies have lost all touch with respect oriented REAL capitalism. Thus they parasitize, self-destruct and FAIL.
  
  I want business students pouring over this stuff and contrasting it with the usual garbage philosophy and methods handed to them by second-rate biznizz schools. I want a full blown business revolution, burning self-destructive status quo biznizziz at the stake. It’s time for the pitchforks and torches!
althegeo

Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 2:52 pm · Reply

I wish I had a $1 for every time I’ve seen a tourist take a snap shot or a movie of some attraction or animal/bird with their iPad/iPhone while on my travels.

I think Apple has made more than one camera model lately.
- Applepostle
  
  Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 3:58 pm · Reply
  
  No kidding! I’m at the Grand Canyon, and I’ve never seen such a large number of iPhones being used as cameras. Crazy idea or not, Apple is a camera company too.
  - silverhawk1
    
    Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 6:00 pm · Reply
    
    We were at Disney World in May. This is the first trip that I didn’t bring my Canon, too big. Took lots of photos, some good and some bad. We also did Disney’s snap pass. Let someone with the big camera take your photos.
- Seamus
  
  Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 4:14 pm · Reply
  
  And wasn’t Apple’s Quicktime 100 the first consumer digital camera? Certainly it was the first digital camera that worked with a home computer.
Johnny Appleseed

Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 4:22 pm · Reply

Apple had already made the first digital camera, the QuickTake, so it’d been crazy before.

For me, the really interesting background not mentioned in all of this is that the iPad concept came first, and was inspired by Microsoft’s obsession with tablets. So we actually have MS to thank for the iPhone and iPad!
- Currentinterest
  
  Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 5:06 pm · Reply
  
  I believe I read in the Steve Jobs biography that it was a bragging Microsoft employee at a dinner that included Bill Gates that inspired Steve Jobs to build a useable tablet.
- Marty
  
  Sunday, August 5, 2012 - 3:10 pm · Reply
  
  I couldn’t agree more… Whenever I get into discussion about the iPad & iPhone, I always bring this point up.
  
  I remember reading all the rumor sites years ago, and there is a paper trail that leads to the iPad being done first – without getting it from the biography. Safari Pad I believe it was called (I don’t recall if it’s referred to as that in the book or not).
  
  The TRULY amazing part is the patience and discipline it took Apple to actually miniaturize the technology before releasing it as the iPhone. They actually ran the usual process backwards.
  
  Just imagine if they had released the iPad first. We’d be living in a different world today. It probably would have been a very niche product, no real incentive for developers, etc. – Basically the world was not ready for an iPad, and it would have given away the iPhone UI ahead of time.
  
  Hats off to the Apple team for doing everything backwards, keeping it so secret, sticking to their guns, and dropping such advanced products on us that half the time we don’t even fully understand what we’re looking at.
MacRaven

Sunday, August 5, 2012 - 4:46 pm · Reply

A car sounds damn good to me! Go for it Apple!
- RocketScientist
  
  Sunday, August 5, 2012 - 5:28 pm · Reply
  
  How about Apple taking a position in, and possibly an eventual purchase of, Tesla Motors? The Tesla Model S and Model X look applelike to me, and would benefit tremendously from input from Apple.