Tomas Chlebek Scott Forstall, one of the people behind the birth of the iPhone, recounted several stories about the creation of the revolutionary smartphone and Steve Jobs in a comprehensive interview.
Scott Forstall made the most significant impact on Apple's development as head of iOS development, which he was from 2007 to 2012, when he left the company he left mainly because of the failure with Apple Maps. Now, for the first time in almost five years, he has spoken publicly about his former job and employer. He did so as one of the participants in a discussion forum at the Computer History Museum, California's computer history museum.
Although Forstall did not reveal any previously unknown essential information, he enriched the publicly known history of Apple and Jobs's biography with several anecdotes. The initial impulse to start developing a multi-touch display device, he revealed, was the result of Jobs' grudge against an unnamed person at Microsoft (not Bill Gates).
The guy was supposed to be bragging about how Microsoft's stylus-controlled tablet would be the next milestone in computing history. In response, Jobs came into work one Monday morning and, after a series of expletives, declared, "Let's show them how it's done." At the same time, another big topic at Apple was the search for a device to match the success and capabilities of the iPod, and he was considering a cell phone because everyone had one.
It is said that Forstall and Jobs decided to practically test the idea of an Apple phone during a lunch when they noticed a great reluctance among themselves and others to use otherwise very useful devices. That the phone from Apple has a promising future was clear after trying a demo of a multitouch display reduced to the size of a pocket device.
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After this elaboration on the history of the most successful phone of all time, Forstall described how the initial reaction and reviews completely missed the point of the iPhone. They focused on benchmarks that matter to competitors' devices, such as the number of steps it takes to send an email, and ignored the fact that Apple is fundamentally changing the way people use and relate to their phones with their phones.
After all, the former head of iOS development convinced himself of this time and again, when he was the first in the world to secretly use the iPhone at home and enjoyed every interaction. Only Steve Jobs had his number, who had to force his iPhone from Forstall by appealing to his status as an Apple director.
Regarding the relationships between Steve Jobs and his colleagues, Jony Ive and Tim Cook are mostly mentioned, but Scott Forstall was also among Jobs' closest friends. He explained this fact by describing his closest experience with death, in which Jobs allegedly saved his life.
Forstall had been in very serious health trouble for two weeks - he was "throwing up all the time", lost a lot of weight and, at Jobs' instigation, was diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease caused by a rare virus. When even strong medication didn't help, and Forstall felt so bad that he wanted to die, Jobs invited "the best acupuncturist in the world" (he said he would donate a new wing to Stanford Hospital if they wouldn't let her in).
Forstall did not have much faith in the power of alternative medicine, but after two days of treatment with needles, he stopped vomiting and was able to eat again. During his illness, Jobs called Forstall daily, and he then visited Jobs daily as he battled cancer. A memory of Forstall's more hilarious incident with Jobs concerns their lunch together in the company cafeteria: Jobs insisted on paying for both of them with his company card for an eight-dollar lunch. The payments took place in the form of deducting the given amount from the employee's salary, but Jobs, as a director, was only paid a symbolic dollar a year.
Forstall also mentioned skeuomorphism, which is often associated with his name. He said he had no idea what the word meant and had to find it. At Apple, they always talked mainly about user-friendliness and comprehensibility of the environment, the increase of which was the "photo-illustrative design" tool. Forstall said the results of this approach weren't necessarily always their favorite, but it proved to work best.
Jony Ive, under whose leadership iOS underwent the most significant visual change to date in the seventh version, in a comprehensive magazine profile The New Yorker from a few years ago which still among the best texts about Apple, mentions that the transition to the design of iOS 7 and later was made possible by a good prior familiarity of the users with the operation of the system.
Scott Forstall has spent the past few years producing several successful Broadway shows and consulting for technology companies. He also plans to continue doing so and is said to not be directly involved in the development of any new technologies or devices.
He's still a fighter :-)
And he still wears the same pajamas :-D
he will return to Apple anyway.