iPhone: How Apple developed what became a smash hit

“Saint Peter offers a choice of hells to a recently dematerialized high-tech tycoon (pick your favorite sinner) with a long list of transgressions. The basic one, fire, floggings, and the premium one, plenty of music, drink, food and other pleasures of the flesh. Said tycoon picks the fun venue, Saint Peter pulls a lever, the industrialist falls to the one and only fiery hell. Agitated, feeling cheated, the sinner demands to know about the other hell, the eternal party,” Jean-Louis Gassée and Frederic Filloux write for CBSNews.com. “Saint Peter: It’s a demo!”

MacDailyNews Note: Yes, that Jean-Louis Gassée.

“The joke comes to mind as [we] watch Steve Jobs introduce the iPhone on stage at San Francisco’s MacWorld Expo, on January 9th, 2007. It is too good to be true, especially the part about running OS X. The demo looks magical, as with most of Steve’s acts. The iPhone looks like one shocking product,” Gassée and Filloux write. “But is it real? Nothing specifically aimed at the demonstrator, [we’ve] seen – and given – too many demos, it’s a sinner speaking.”

“Six months later, [we’re] relieved. The first iPhones ship, enterprising programmers manage to inspect the firmware’s insides and, yes, it is OS X. A trimmed-down version, of course, but the core of the iPhone’s software engine is the genuine article,” Gassée and Filloux write.

Much more in the full article here.