“One of the fascinating tidbits of Apple history that emerged online this week was the story that Phil Schiller was insistent that the original iPhone ship with a physical keyboard,” Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac. “Only problem is, no-one seems to know whether it’s true or not. Former Apple exec Tony Fadell claimed it is. Schiller denied it. Now Fadell has denied it, too, but the author he told the story to is sticking by what he was told. What a mess!”
“The anecdote is from an upcoming book by tech writer Brian Merchant, titled The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, timed to coincide with the iPhone’s tenth anniversary,” Dormehl reports. “In a lengthy excerpt from the book published this week on The Verge, Tony Fadell — who worked at Apple from 2001 to 2008, before going on to found Nest Labs — is quoted as saying that Schiller was the only holdout in wanting the iPhone to come with a BlackBerry-style keyboard.”
“However, it didn’t sit well with Phil Schiller, who tweeted to say the story never happened,” Dormehl reports. “Strangely, Fadell then also tweeted to say that, ‘I respect @pschiller as a colleague & friend. The story about him is not true. Have asked writer to correct the record’ … But having had his credibility called into question, author Brian Merchant now says that he has a recorded conversation with Fadell to prove his point.”
https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/874714380058763264
I respect @pschiller as a colleague & friend. The story about him is not true. Have asked writer to correct the record. https://t.co/87BkZGcHSi
— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) June 14, 2017
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There’s nothing like a little “controversy” to move some books!
https://twitter.com/bcmerchant/status/875112975828361216