The Story of the Original iPhone's Development 221
jds91md writes "Today's NY Times delivers a great story of the development of the iPhone by Apple. It focuses on the events during the leadup to Steve Jobs taking the stage with shockingly buggy prototypes and pulling off the show that is now history. 'Only about a hundred iPhones even existed, all of them of varying quality. Some had noticeable gaps between the screen and the plastic edge; others had scuff marks on the screen. And the software that ran the phone was full of bugs. The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn’t play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an e-mail and then surfed the Web. If you did those things in reverse, however, it might not. Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called “the golden path,” a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked.' One of the big problems was the phone's connectivity. The man in charge of the iPhone's radios, Andy Grignon, had to deal with Jobs's anger when rehearsals didn't go well. Grignon said, '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.'"
Re:A testament to engineers (Score:5, Interesting)
such a stressful story! My blood pressure was up just reading it. Imagine being caught in SJ's whithering gaze! The scary part is that when he told people "you f'd my company" that was the nice time, and other times he became unglued! Then to have to sit there in the audience, knowing there is nothing you can do! I would have been quaking in my boots.
the interesting thing is it didn't go into too much depth about iOS. in the early years SJ kept insisting to miniaturize OSX, but at some point they obv switched. there must be a story there!
Re:A testament to engineers (Score:4, Interesting)
Its also a testament about demonstrating something way before it was ready. A specific sequence of events that had to occur in a given order to prevent it crashing? Really? Send your most visible exec out with total crap in his hands?
Couldn't they just wait till it actually worked? Its not like anyone was racing them to market in those days.
if you've only got a highly buggy prototype (Score:2, Interesting)
...perhaps you shouldn't be demoing it to the public yet.
Re:A testament to engineers (Score:3, Interesting)
This is yet another example of the differences between Gates and Jobs. Gates went on stage and demo'ed their operating system. Jobs went out with his immaculately rehearsed script of things to do in the only order that they had managed to make work. Win95 blue screened when it hit a bad driver, while IOS (arguably a much more immature product when demonstrated) gave the illusion of being ready for consumers.
Intense Focus is not Pricktitude (Score:5, Interesting)
People who are dicks are dicks no matter what you are doing.
People with intense focus are only dicks if you are getting something wrong.
There is a big difference - and the reason why people were willing to work so hard for jobs where no-one would ever work that hard for a real dick.
Re:Identifying problem source (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly what I was thinking. Had I been there, my reaction, after the initial shock and horror, would have been, "No, if we fail, it will be because you demanded we demo a product before it was ready." There's pushing people to deliver amazing products in an amazing timeframe, and there's pushing people to deliver a product, finished or not, in an unrealistic timeframe. There's a very fine line between the two, and had they failed, it would have been entirely because Steve crossed that line. Fortunately for everyone involved, he didn't. He knew exactly how far and how hard to push, and he pushed that hard, but no harder.
Re:Golden Path (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why there are specific kind of demos where you don't want everything going smooth, or at the very least, you make something obviously unfinished. I've gone as far as making my UI uglier for a demo: People thought they were funding UI improvements, when in reality we just needed a whole lot more investment in the backend to support realistic loads effectively. Otherwise, the app would have looked ready to go, but fail miserably when in production.
Re: The Story of Windows Phone (Score:5, Interesting)
Not my experience. Are you just typing in the garbage you're paid to type in?
Yes, they are.
Social Media Marketing companies like Burson Marsteller, Waggener Edstrom and others have teams posting FUD and moderating in all tech sites on behalf of Apple, Microsoift, Facebook etc.
And you're right:
"Contrary to what you’ve heard, Android is almost impenetrable to malware
Until now, Google hasn’t talked about malware on Android because it did not have the data or analytic platform to back its security claims. But that changed dramatically today when Google’s Android Security chief Adrian Ludwig reported data showing that less than an estimated 0.001% of app installations on Android are able to evade the system’s multi-layered defenses and cause harm to users. Android, built on an open innovation model, has quietly resisted the locked down, total control model spawned by decades of Windows malware. "
http://qz.com/131436/contrary-to-what-youve-heard-android-is-almost-impenetrable-to-malware/ [qz.com]
Of course, Slashdot doen't consider this news bcause it's sponsors haven't paid it to.