Tony Fadell on early iPhone prototypes - On The Verge
Tony Fadell on early iPhone prototypes - On The Verge
2012-04-29
you also worked on the iphone yes the
first three generations so you were
there for the inception the creation of
the original iphone absolutely and how
did that so how did that go like how
where did that come from was that we did
Steve you'll run into the engineers I
don't know where he would run into did
he run anywhere probably not but he did
walk in somewhere and say well I want
asked yeah it was like I want to make
this thing and here's what it looks like
what was it again it was there was all
kinds of different Jess stations of it
actually did three different types of
iphones there was a ipod + phone and
then there was the iphone and then there
was the next generation iphone then
that's the one that actually shipped did
he have a keyboard uh none of them that
was there ever there was never a virtual
keyboard yeah but like there was never a
version with recording never really it
was it was it even discussed uh well it
was definitely discussed it was it was a
heated topic really yeah absolutely
whether people that were for it and
people who were against it absolutely
you for it or against it uh I had known
a lot about touch screens and given my
15 years of the time and so I was
skeptical I wanted to try it first so
you really got hardware get guy you were
like let's do a hardware keyboard no I
was just I want to try it I wanted to
work because it made sense that you
wanted a full screen you didn't just
want a little keyboard what the biggest
problem with the the ipod + phone was
that we had a little screen and we had
this hardware wheel and we were oh so
you literally like we were making an
ipod and i love in making calls exactly
that seems like it would be kind of not
intuitive well you could make the old
dial oh yeah no I like a perfect
recreation of a phone that hasn't been
made in 50 years sometimes you have to
try things to throw it away
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.