The Apple iPhone is undoubtedly the most popular smartphone in the entire world, and now we have found out an interesting trivia about the biggest IT company in the world.
Former SVP of iOS software at Apple who left the company five years ago, stated in an interview that Steve Jobs had decided to work on a tablet (which was eventually converted into a smartphone) after being annoyed by someone who worked at Microsoft and bragged about new tablets and pens which were under development at the Redmond based software giant.
The whole thing was initiated when Jobs met the husband of a friend of his wife. Forstall recalled that every time the two met, all he heard was how awesome everything at Microsoft was when it came to tablets and other new devices.
“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 stated.
It was apparent that Steve Jobs was not at all impressed with the technologies which were being developed by Microsoft. The reason was that they (Microsoft) were using resistive touchscreen for their devices. Jobs decided to create several prototypes with multi-touch displays and without a pen. Jobs hated pens, as he believed that “you don’t use a stylus, we are born with ten styluses.”
Eventually the plans to create a tablet were suspended and Jobs decided to divert all technological prowesses at that point to make 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 was responsible for the iPhone, more or less. Although the name of the Microsoft guy who was annoying to Steve Jobs will me a mystery, we cannot help but thank (partially) for the iPhone.
The video above is a conversation between John Markoff moderates a discussion with former iPhone team members Hugo Fiennes, Nitin Ganatra and Scott Herz, followed by a conversation with Scott Forstall.
