How Apple Kept the iPhone Secret

An anonymous reader writes "Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk — all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune's Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year's biggest tech launches. One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo and Google."

Secret?

[slughead]

I think most of us who tool around the macrumor sites had a pretty good idea of what they were going to release. The only 'secret' was when. I wasn't surprised by any feature the phone had.

Re:Not Kept For Very Long

[jaiyen]

Keeping something a secret until six months before release is much, much easier than keeping it a secret until release day.

Looks like that wasn't an option this time. If you read the TFA it says:

In the end, Apple decided to reveal the iPhone several months ahead of its official June launch because it could not keep the secret any more. Apple has to file with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the permits needed to operate the iPhone, and once those public filings are made, Apple has no control over the release of that information. So, Jobs said, he made the decision to have Apple tell the world about its new phone, rather than the FCC.

Re:What CPU?

[Macthorpe]

Santa Rosa isn't a CPU, it's a Centrino platform. From the article you linked to:

second generation Intel Core 2 processor (code named Merom) that uses Socket P
800 MT/s front side bus with Dynamic Front Side Bus Switching to save power during low utilization
Intel Mobile 965 Express chipset (code named Crestline) with Intel's GMA X3000 graphics technology
Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n mini-PCIe Wi-Fi adapter (code named Kedron)

Re:Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, $500 and $600. Still a lot, but not $700.

Re:Not all that's secret

[S3D]

Can users install their own software? Rumor is that you cannot - you have to buy it from Apple or Cingular.

Legally most probably no. Consider how paranoid apple about iPod games - developers had to send their sources to apple and can't even run binaries on the real device, not speaking about on-device debugging. About underground hacking - hassle with versions, danger of bricking the device, voiding warranty - most users probably wouldn't bother.

Re:Agreed

[tzhuge]

I don't know how much of a smartphone it really is. It might end up being a device with a limited first-party set of apps. We will have to wait and see. Personally, I don't think it is in the same niche as the Blackberry. Reports will probably want to stick with the ugly keypad to report in from the field. The iPhone seems like something that could gain wide adoption like the iPod. Just imagine every person on the bus with an iPhone instead of an iPod. Email and internet access on a mobile device should be for everybody not just for the few business users. To me, the iPhone is the portable convergence device we've been promised for a long long time. The 'Oragami' should have been something like this. I think the biggest challenge for Apple is that they need a cellular service provider to catch up to their way of thinking. We have the vision represented in a device from Apple, now we need a cellular provider to realize that data access should be a standard part of every cellphone plan just like calls and it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg. I'm sure the iPhone will enjoy some success but whether or not it becomes a revolutionary device depends on others... and that is quite unfortunate for Apple.

Re:How sad...

[EXMSFT]

If you want a 9-5 with no innovation then go work for microsoft.

Oh. Ow. Words that hurt.

But seriously. Microsoft may be like that in some parts today - and why the hell not, it's a giant sloth-like beast with 50K fulltime employees and probably nearly that many contractors. However, there are quite a few areas where Microsoft (that's a "big" M on there for you, my Mac-loving friend) does innovate and create cool new software. And the reality (I can tell you from experience) is that it's often much more than a M-F 9-5 commitment.

Re:Yet Another Phone (or PDA), huh?

[E-Rock]

Except that you're wrong on every coung. My Blackberry has google maps and you sure as hell can find a location and dial it right from there. I'm also pretty sure every smartphone out there connects to IMAP and POP, Treo sure does. As to your last item, the pricing was already announced and those prices listed were *With two year contract, so that is the special pricing.

Re:Not all that's secret

[danigiri]

"You'll also notice that the Japanese have almost universally shunned any form factor other than the clamshell... just as we have"

Yeah, but not in Europe, no.

While I personally prefer clamshell style phones, in Europe candy-bar is either king or head-to-head (around 17/28 offers on Spanish Vodafone-subsidized consumer phones are clamshell http://tienda.vodafone.es/do/catalogo/moviles/todo s [vodafone.es] ), hell, not so long ago Nokia candy-bars were nearly universal around here...

Do not underestimate the phone market, it is HUGE, and there are many massive markets besides the US and Japan, Europe is no small fry (GSM / GPRS is truly universal in Europe and it was spearheaded here). On the other hand, UMTS and beyond is yet to gain a significant foothold in the mass-market consumer phone european market, no matter where the markedroids would like UMTS (and others) to be, it is nowhere as ubiquitous as GPRS/GSM.

3G is still to become what it's meant to become, no true killer-apps, no user critical-mass, expensive provider fees, expensive provider fees perception, sub-par network coverage (heck, my GPRS phone sound quality and coverage runs rings around my CIO's 3G exec phone), FUD about the VoIP and other data services, etc.

Don't discount other markets in the phone business, don't discount legacy, don't discount 2G, don't discount 2.5G...

Re:Agreed

[djupedal]

"As slick as Apple's UI is, they have no way of replicating such a simple and critical feature as the ability to locate a "home" key on your device's interface for "no-look" dialing."
And no need. The iPhone has one button, lower front/middle, called the 'Home' button. Punch it...say the name you want and wait for the other party to come online - no answer? You will have the option to SMS, email or IM that same number.

Re:Agreed

[coleridge78]

Get a life. In everything but the bargain-basement end and one narrow stripe in the absolute middle-of-the-road (ie, easiest to capitalize on economies of scale), everything Apple does is cheaper than any competitor for equivalent (and often better) specs. Towers, minis, notebooks, MP3 players. In the budget-but-not-trash and everything above the absolute middle (ie, all pro gear) they're anywhere from 10% to 25% cheaper than Dell, Gateway, and the like. We're talking hundreds of dollars on good notebooks, over a thousand on high-end towers. Do the research yourself, or read any of the myriad articles (even by pro-PC sources) that have looked at this and acknowledge it. Seriously. Give it up, trolls.