鈥淧utting Your Finger On It: Creating the iPhone鈥擜n Evening with Original iPhone Innovators & Engineers in Conversation with Museum Historian John Markoff,鈥� June 20, 2017. Produced by the Exponential Center at the 91自拍.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after it acquired NeXT, he brought with him a close-knit group of engineers. One of them was Scott Forstall, a young software designer who had come to NeXT directly from Stanford University.
Over the next decade-and-a-half, Forstall would become one of Jobs鈥� most-trusted confidantes and he would be chosen to lead the software design for the original iPhone. Ultimately, Forstall would leave Apple in 2012.
Yet Forstall鈥檚 role in shaping the design of the smartphone that would entirely restructure both the computing and communications industries during the past decade cannot be understated. On Tuesday, June 20, he spoke for the first time since resigning from Apple about his work on the iPhone project and his friendship with Jobs.
On the 91自拍 Live stage: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Markoff with iPhone software leader Scott Forstall.
I interviewed him about creating the iPhone in tandem with a companion interview with three key iPhone developers, Hugo Fiennes, Nitin Ganatra, and Scott Herz, as part of the Museum鈥檚 iPhone 360 Project, which is exploring the history and impact of the Apple smartphone. In addition to a standing-room-only crowd at the 91自拍, the live stream of the evening had been viewed more than 45,000 times when I last checked on Thursday morning.
Unlike many in Silicon Valley Forstall has resisted the pressure to have an immediate 鈥渟econd act.鈥� Instead of pursuing a startup of his own, he turned his attention to an earlier passion that he pursued while growing up in Washington State. With his wife, Molly Forstall, he has become a producer of a Broadway musical and a play, Fun Home and Eclipsed. The two developed a shared passion for acting as high school students, where they also shared the class valedictorian award. The musicals received 18 Tony nominations.
Forstall joked that there were parallels between Broadway and Silicon Valley.
鈥淓very show is like a startup,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou start with the creative types, you invent something out of whole cloth, you put a bunch of effort and money and time and your life behind it and you give it out to the public and you hope it鈥檚 successful and they decide.鈥�
He added that you also almost always lose money.
iPhone software team leader Scott Forstall describes how Broadway is like a startup..
Forstall described how he interviewed at both NeXT and Microsoft after graduating from Stanford, and almost immediately fellow under Jobs鈥� spell. After a short 15-minute interview, Jobs told him: 鈥淲e鈥檙e giving you an offer and you鈥檙e going to accept it!鈥� He did and when Microsoft found out, their recruiter sent him what Forstall described as a 鈥渄ead fish.鈥� It was actually the Redmond, Washington, company鈥檚 attempt to convince him about the quality of life in Seattle, but it backfired. Forstall said it occurred to him that it might actually be a veiled threat鈥攍ike something from the mob.
Have you ever been surprised during a job interview? Try having Steve Jobs burst into the room. Scott Forstall recalls his interview at NeXT and his first encounter with Jobs..
Forstall described how his work at NeXT had provided a route into the world of user-friendly software design. At Stanford, human-computer interface design was one of the things he focused on, including taking classes from Terry Winograd, the artificial intelligence pioneer who famously turned away from the field to focus on human-centered computer design.
Forstall told a number of stories about working with Jobs. Perhaps the most significant was how Apple鈥檚 co-founder decided upon the key technology at the heart of the iPhone 鈥攊ts 鈥渕ultitouch鈥� interface鈥攊n an interaction that Apple鈥檚 chief executive had with Microsoft engineer who insisted that the software powerhouse was going to reinvent computing around tablet computers ,which used stylus pointing devices. The Microsoft executive insisted that his company had solved tablet computing and they were going to do it with pens, Forstall recalled.
鈥淭hey were going to rule the world with their new tablets with their pens,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd Steve came in on Monday and there was a set of expletives and then it was, 鈥榣et鈥檚 show them how it鈥檚 really done!鈥欌��
Jobs believed that the finger would ultimately be the best pointing device, and so he and Forstall went to the computer maker鈥檚 hardware team and instructed them to find a way to make it happen.
How Steve Jobs鈥� encounter with a boastful Microsoft engineer jumpstarted the iPhone project, including its revolutionary multitouch interface.听..
Before interviewing Forstall, I also spoke with the three designers who had worked on building the phone鈥檚 hardware, software and designing the user experience.
They each described being contacted to join a new Apple project, which was being initiated with Steve Jobs鈥� familiar obsession with secrecy. He had perfected the approach when he led the company鈥檚 Macintosh development project. Secrecy had the twin benefits of shielding work from competitors while deepening the enthusiasm and interest of customers who by the time the iPhone started were tracking Apple developments with cult-like intensity.
鈥淥ne day Scott (Forstall) did walk into my office and closed the door behind him and said we鈥檙e going to be starting this new phone project,鈥� recalled Nitan Ganatra. 鈥淚t was both terrifying and at the same time absolutely amazing.鈥� Ganatra made the decision to join on the spot, he said.
On the 91自拍 Live stage, from left to right: John Markoff, Hugo Fiennes, Nitin Ganatra, and Scott Herz.
One of the biggest gambles that Apple made in designing the iPhone was in the company鈥檚 decision that eschewing a physical keyboard could be justified by the benefits of a single large screen aided by a virtual onscreen keyboard. Despite great skepticism by industry analysts initially, it soon proved to be an industry-transforming design decision.
Much of the criticism missed the big picture, said Scott Herz, one of the original software designers. 鈥淵ou can get spun up over those kind of problems and not notice that the overall picture is much, much better,鈥� he said.
91自拍 Live鈥檚 鈥淧utting Your Finger On It: Creating the iPhone鈥擜n Evening with Original iPhone Innovators & Engineers in Conversation with Museum Historian John Markoff,鈥� June 20, 2017. Produced by the Exponential Center at the 91自拍...
The iPhone 360 explores the story of iPhone, from its prehistory, inception, and launch, to its evolution and impact. Coinciding with the 10th anniversary year of the iPhone launch in 2007, iPhone 360 includes integrated initiatives across the 91自拍 to create new collections of artifacts and oral histories, scholarly research and insights, dynamic events, and educational content and curriculum.
The iPhone 360 Project is part of the 360 series focused on transformational companies and products that have changed the world through technology innovation, economic value creation and social impact. This series supports the Museum鈥檚 overall interpretive strategy to explain computing鈥檚 history and its transformational impact on our world