Andy Grignon was a senior engineer at Apple. “His morning drive typically covered seven miles and took exactly 15 minutes. But today was different. He was going to watch his boss, Steve Jobs, make history at the Macworld trade show in San Francisco,” Fred Vogelstein reports for The New York Times. “Apple fans had for years begged Jobs to put a cellphone inside their iPods so they could stop carrying two devices in their pockets. Jobs was about to fulfill that wish. Grignon and some colleagues would spend the night at a nearby hotel, and around 10 a.m. the following day they — along with the rest of the world — would watch Jobs unveil the first iPhone.”
“But as Grignon drove north, he didn’t feel excited. He felt terrified,” Vogelstein reports. “Most onstage product demonstrations in Silicon Valley are canned. The thinking goes, why let bad Internet or cellphone connections ruin an otherwise good presentation? But Jobs insisted on live presentations. It was one of the things that made them so captivating. Part of his legend was that noticeable product-demo glitches almost never happened. But for those in the background, like Grignon, few parts of the job caused more stress. Grignon was the senior manager in charge of all the radios in the iPhone… As one of the iPhone’s earliest engineers, he’d dedicated two and a half years of his life — often seven days a week — to the project.”
“Grignon had been part of the iPhone rehearsal team at Apple and later at the presentation site in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. He had rarely seen Jobs make it all the way through his 90-minute show without a glitch. Jobs had been practicing for five days, yet even on the last day of rehearsals the iPhone was still randomly dropping calls, losing its Internet connection, freezing or simply shutting down,” Vogelstein reports. “‘At first it was just really cool to be at rehearsals at all — kind of like a cred badge,’ Grignon says. Only a chosen few were allowed to attend. ‘But it quickly got really uncomfortable. 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.’ Grignon, like everyone else at rehearsals, knew that if those glitches showed up during the real presentation, Jobs would not be blaming himself for the problems. ‘It felt like we’d gone through the demo a hundred times, and each time something went wrong,’ Grignon says. ‘It wasn’t a good feeling.'”
“It’s hard to overstate the gamble Jobs took when he decided to unveil the iPhone back in January 2007. Not only was he introducing a new kind of phone — something Apple had never made before — he was doing so with a prototype that barely worked,” Vogelstein reports. “Even though the iPhone wouldn’t go on sale for another six months, he wanted the world to want one right then. In truth, the list of things that still needed to be done was enormous.”
Tons more in the full article – highly recommended (even though Vogelstein, like so many others, attends the Church of Marketshare) – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Dan K.,” and “Dale S.” for the heads up.]
Envious! What an amazing time that must have been…
In the knowledge he was part of something groundbreaking must have been amazing, however being at the sharp end of Jobs tongue would not have been.
Enjoyable article. I’m surprised there were so many invisible workaround a going on, like the “golden path”, but then again, within 6 months they really did have millions of the revolutionary device to sell in working order.
“You’re [expletive] up my company!” –SJ
Lol
When I watched the iPhone being unveiled on stage at MacWorld through the podcast, I was knocked over and amazed by the beauty and fluidity of the software. It seemed so much ahead of its time. It seemed to me that Steve Jobs held a miniature marvel in his hands.
In the 6 years since then Android through fast prototyping and copying the look and feel of iOS has caught up and surpassed the iPhone in market share. This must have panicked Cook & Co. into copying Android for iOS 7 to trick consumers into thinking that iOS is an imitation pseudo Android in an attempt to regain market share.
This is the only reason I can think of for the brain damaged look of the icons and navigation cues in iOS 7.
You apparently don’t own any Android devices do you?
On what do you blame your own brain damage?
Paragraph 1: I love Apple so don’t call me a troll
Paragraph 2: Fallible logic
Paragraph 3: I disagree with the artistic elements that changed in iOS 7 and so I decree the whole thing to be trash.
I won’t call you a troll and will accept at face value that you found the original mystical and amazing.
But you can’t possibly believe that because Android handset manufacturers spew out models a-plenty or because Android looks like iOS that Android devices have surpassed the iPhone in market share. The cachet of the iPhone would have won out for all but the “I’m not a part of the iPhone herd” crowd, all other things being equal. The reality is that Android handsets came to garner more market share because they offered their phones for cheaper. Period. End of story.
People never bought an iPhone because the icon for the weather app was the best they could ever dream of. They bought an iPhone because it worked and they could figure it out when they tried it. Like or dislike the icons and artistry of iOS 7 it still passes the intuitive test just like before. And Galaxy tablets are still available for *free* with the purchase of a Panasonic 5.1 stereo receiver.
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Market share doesn’t mean quality. Market share means low prices. You seem to confuse the two. A Bugatti Veyron is about 1000X better than a Kia Sedona but Kia has enormous market share compared to Bugatti. iPhone = Bugatti. Android smartphone = Kia.
Android is basically a shyte trojan OS Google gives away for free and is used in dirt cheap smartphones by any Tom, Dick or Harry company. If it wasn’t for BRIC nations, Android OS wouldn’t have a pot to piss in. Once the new iPhone sales kick in Google is going to be facing a world of butt hurt as Android market share suddenly falls.
Wow. Watching the keynote, I never would have known. I still remember the feeling of awe when it was over. That was the longest 6 months of waiting for launch…
‘You are [expletive] up my company,’ or, ‘If we fail, it will be because of you.’
Wonder if Jobs would look at Obama and his Obamacare rollout and say, ‘You are [expletive] up the country,’ or, ‘If online enrolling fails, it will be because of you.’
I have a very gentle Vet that I can recommend to put you out of your misery. Call 1 800 put down.
Good point. But the ObamaCare launch has gone very smoothly. The 800 number – 800-FUCK YO – conveyed the message Obama wants sent to everyday Americans very well.
this is a mac forum btw
No, he wouldn’t.
Jobs probably recognized that it isn’t his country. What the Affordable Care Act will or will not do remains to be seen. What failure to pass a funding bill or to authorize the payment of debts Congress has already authorized will do is well known, because the’ve done it before. Deliberately derailing the country is treason.
What does this have to do with iPhones? Don’t they have special forums that discuss this type of stuff that has nothing to do with technology?
‘Steve Jobs Day’ today! Remembering the genius, vision and success that is Apple Inc. today.
And why should he blame himself? What a weird phrasing.
Another ignorant nonsense. Stock fell after most Jobs-era announcements, too. Because, you know, “iPad is a just a giant iPod touch” idiot “analysts” opinions and such.
Somehow, somewhere, a Hater or a clueless dolt shows up and ruins the article with stupid comments. It always starts with the context of;
“yeah nothing the iPhone ever did was not already available years before. Nothing really new or innovative at all” “Apple hasn’t innovated since the Mac” “Apple keeps losing marketshare and it will be like Windows vs Mac”… *sigh*
“You are [*******] up my company”
Visionary, boss or otherwise I would have handed that dude his own ass before he completed that sentence.
Uh, ok…
Steve Jobs is not a rugged capitalist, who would selfishly drive employees just to make a ton of money on a great product. That is according to BUSTER and Gregori, or Boris or whatever the hell his name is.
“Visionary, boss or otherwise I would have handed that dude his own ass before he completed that sentence.”
Right.
You would have been handed your ass on the way out the door/off the campus with your shit in a cardboard box.
Interesting behind the scenes look. The real magic of Apple and it’s devices is how it keeps creating products that existing users feel they must have and will upgrade to. After just a short time with my iPhone 5s I now find myself trying to unlock my iPad mini and my wife’s iPad retina by just placing my finger on the home button. A new feature introduced in the 5s that when it makes it way to the other devices will immediately make me have this uncontrollable urge to buy the latest versions even though both versions of the iPads still fit our needs. When the day comes and new iPads are announced with the fingerprint sensor I’m sure I will be pre-ordering them.. I’m not that way with other products, just something about the magic of Apple.
That was a good read. It reminded me a bit of Tracy Kidder’s excellent, “The Soul of a New Machine.”
I’d like to see Vogelstein expand the article. There has to be much more to this ground-breaking journey.
In the article, the writer states,
“Google hasn’t just tried to compete with the iPhone; it has succeeded in competing with the iPhone. Android has exploded in popularity since it took hold in 2010. Its share of the global smartphone market is approaching 80 percent, while Apple’s has fallen below 20 percent. A similar trend is under way with iPads: in 2010 the iPad had about 90 percent of the tablet market; now more than 60 percent of the tablets sold run Android.”
To me however, Apple is like Porsche in many ways. They are relatively small, don’t have many models and they are always at the forefront of automotive innovation and performance and are priced how they should be. They are prized and collected by their owners. Heck, even Jobs owned one!
The problem here is that Android is very much like the rest of the low end auto industry. Manufacturers and models of every kind that offer similar looks and performance but when it comes down to it, are basically cheap.
So, comparing Android anything to Apple is like comparing Porsche to 80% of the automotive industry. Kinda dumb if you ask me but that is how many people perceive things and so does the writer of the article.
Wall Street and analysts are only interested in market share but I’m not sure why. Highest market share doesn’t always guarantee success. Nokia and Palm are prime examples of companies that did have high market share but eventually lost it. The same can happen to Android if Apple puts some effort into it. Apple can eventually suck the profits out of the smartphone industry so it’s not worth smaller companies sticking around and that would be the start of the Android collapse. A slow but steady decline. If it probably weren’t for Samsung, Android OS would already have fallen by the wayside. If Samsung does eventually switch to Tizen OS, it’s all over for Android OS.
I find it interesting that almost every comment thread on this site turns into political posturing by both low-information sides of a discussion.
The typing might be of value sent to a congressman or senator, but it’s about useless here except for entertainment value.
Outstanding article. What a great insight into a seminal moment in Apple’s amazing history.