14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s iPhone is without a doubt the most popular smartphone in the entire world, and after learning that Steve Jobs originally planned the device to launch with two different buttons, we come back with another different story regarding the early days of this product.
Scott Forstall, former SVP of iOS Software at Apple who left the company nearly 5 years ago, explained in interview that Steve Jobs decided to start work on a tablet (which was eventually converted to smartphone) after being annoyed by someone who worked at Microsoft and bragged about new tablets and pens that were under development at the software giant.
The whole thing started when Jobs met the husband of a friend of his wife, with Forstall recalling that every time the two met, all he heard was how awesome everything at Microsoft was in terms of new devices like tablets.
“It began because Steve hated this guy at Microsoft. Any time Steve had any interaction with the guy, he’d come back pissed off. He just shoved it in Steve’s face — the way they were going to rule the world with their new tablets with their pens. He came in on Monday with a set of expletives and then was like ‘let’s show them how it’s really done,’” Forstall explained.
Not impressed with Microsoft’s tablets
Steve Jobs wasn’t very impressed with the technologies that were being developed by Microsoft, especially because they were using resistive touchscreen, so he decided to create several tablet prototypes with multitouch displays and without a pen. Why without a pen? Because Steve Jobs hated pens, that is, as he believed that “you don’t use a stylus, we are born with ten styluses.”
Eventually, Steve Jobs decided to suspend plans for a tablet, but use all the technology that was created until that point for a smartphone.
“Steve saw it and said ‘put the tablet on hold, let’s build a phone.’ And that’s what we did,” Forstall explains.
And this is how Microsoft is more or less responsible for the iPhone, even though the name of the Microsoft guy who was so annoying that Steve Jobs decided to build his own device will never be revealed.
*the iPhone references start at 1:30.