Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: how the tech are you. We are continuing our series
Speaker 1: of episodes about Johnny. I've the famous tech designer, industrial
Speaker 1: designer who, under the guidance and support of Steve Jobs,
Speaker 1: was instrumental in changing Apple from a company that was
Speaker 1: on the brink of bankruptcy into a company that became
Speaker 1: a household name in electronics. Now, if this is your
Speaker 1: first time hearing about all this, you should look at
Speaker 1: the episodes I published last Monday and Wednesday first, because
Speaker 1: I've already covered a lot of ground and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna pick up from there now. I ended the last
Speaker 1: episode a little rushed with a summary of ives work
Speaker 1: on the iPod, and as I mentioned in that episode,
Speaker 1: the iPod would go on to become an iconic piece
Speaker 1: of technology that would extend Apple's influence beyond the faithful
Speaker 1: customers who had been Apple's bread and butter for so
Speaker 1: many years. You know, I gotta keep in mind that
Speaker 1: Apple was really facing a huge uphill battle while the
Speaker 1: iMac was a big hit, and you know, especially in
Speaker 1: like the educational sector. The truth of the matter was
Speaker 1: is that Windows PCs still had most of the market share,
Speaker 1: like mac had only carved out that tiny little slice
Speaker 1: of the market share in comparison. So while while the
Speaker 1: iMac really helped Apple out and and helped it, you know,
Speaker 1: reel back from falling over the precipice, it was this
Speaker 1: expansion into electronics that would really change Apple's fate. So
Speaker 1: the iPod would ultimately reach folks who had never owned
Speaker 1: any other Apple product, but it took a while, and
Speaker 1: one reason for that had nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: industrial line of the iPod, but rather the lack of
Speaker 1: compatibility with non Apple computers. So the original iPod, the
Speaker 1: first generation, required a Macintosh in order to synchronize the
Speaker 1: iPod with the user's music collection, which was on iTunes. Now. Also,
Speaker 1: at this point in Apple's history, you could not buy
Speaker 1: digital music off of iTunes and there was no music store. Instead,
Speaker 1: you would take your CD collection because that's what we
Speaker 1: used to keep music on kids, and you would insert
Speaker 1: CD by c D you would RiPP music from the
Speaker 1: CD into iTunes. Then you could transfer the music from
Speaker 1: your iTunes library to your iPod using a physical cable,
Speaker 1: which is also how you would charge the iPod. It
Speaker 1: was a FireWire cable back in the day. So this
Speaker 1: was a point where Apple was really keeping everything within
Speaker 1: its own ecosystem for the most part. Now, the reason
Speaker 1: you couldn't buy digital music off iTunes in those early
Speaker 1: days that had a lot to do with the music industry,
Speaker 1: not with Apple. So this was a transitional phase where
Speaker 1: the record labels held most of the leverage, though sales
Speaker 1: of CDs and other media were starting to flag, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't take very long for Apple to switch that
Speaker 1: around to get the upper hand over the music industry.
Speaker 1: It was not instantaneous, and it did progress in phases,
Speaker 1: but it totally happened. One other thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention before we move on is that last year, this
Speaker 1: past year one for those of y'all listening for the future, Uh,
Speaker 1: that was iPods twentieth anniversary, So it had come out
Speaker 1: twenty years earlier, and this year in Apple finally discontinued
Speaker 1: all iPod models. But anyway, last year a software company
Speaker 1: called Panic actually showed off a prototype of the iPod
Speaker 1: and it looks absolutely nothing like what Apple would ultimately launch,
Speaker 1: and that was on purpose. So this prototype iPod, it's
Speaker 1: funny to even talk about. It was enormous. It was
Speaker 1: like the size of a DVD player, and it was
Speaker 1: also pale yellow in color. Uh had a mechanical scroll
Speaker 1: wheel in the upper left corner of the front face
Speaker 1: of this thing. It had four physical buttons that had
Speaker 1: little labels that were taped onto the prototype and the
Speaker 1: label said up, down, left, and right, so there was
Speaker 1: like a physical switch for each of those. And it
Speaker 1: had the Apple logo with the word iPod underneath in
Speaker 1: the upper right corner of the device. And according to
Speaker 1: Tony Fidel, the interior of the device was mostly empty space.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like filled with circuitry or anything. And the
Speaker 1: team who made it purposefully avoided anything that would look
Speaker 1: like what the final design was supposed to be be like.
Speaker 1: And that was just to avoid any potential leaks or
Speaker 1: anything like that. As for the real thing, I've was
Speaker 1: inspired by a much older piece of technology, the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight Brown T three radio, which was designed by
Speaker 1: an industrial designer, famous industrial designer named Dieter Rams. I've,
Speaker 1: like Rams believed in the mantra, less but better meaning
Speaker 1: the design of whatever you're working on should not be
Speaker 1: burdened with flourishes and unnecessary touches. I have a feeling
Speaker 1: that Johnny I've detests baroque. If he walked through say
Speaker 1: Hurst Castle, his eyes would probably pop out of his
Speaker 1: head because it is probably the gaudiest place I've ever
Speaker 1: been to, and I've been to Pigeon Forward, y'all. Now,
Speaker 1: if you google image search the nineteen fifty eight brown
Speaker 1: that's b R A U N T three, you'll see
Speaker 1: a small radio that, when it stood on its end,
Speaker 1: has a speaker that's at the top, and below that
Speaker 1: is a radio tuning wheel. And you'll look and you'll say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that does look a lot like an iPod where you
Speaker 1: had the screen at the top and then you had
Speaker 1: the little scroll wheel, the circular wheel you could, you know,
Speaker 1: physically mechanically move in a circle. With that first generation
Speaker 1: on there, you could definitely see the similarities. The T
Speaker 1: three is larger than the iPod, but the T three's
Speaker 1: influence on I've is unmistakable. That's not to say that
Speaker 1: I've didn't make this design his own. He totally did.
Speaker 1: But you can see sort of the pedigree of the
Speaker 1: iPod design by comparing it to this this old radio. Now,
Speaker 1: Johnny i'ves design of the iPod brought in a material
Speaker 1: that Apple had not really been using for its products
Speaker 1: up to that point, which was stainless steel. So the
Speaker 1: front of the iPod would be white. Actually the name
Speaker 1: of the color of the original iPod is moon gray.
Speaker 1: The back of the iPod would be stainless steel, and
Speaker 1: the company logo would be on the back of the
Speaker 1: iPod on the steel side. Now, some questioned i've's decisions.
Speaker 1: They thought it made more sense for Apple to put
Speaker 1: the logo on the front of the device, not on
Speaker 1: the back. But I didn't want the logo to intrude
Speaker 1: on the experience, and he wanted to use stainless steel
Speaker 1: partly because it would actually give the iPod some heft.
Speaker 1: It would it would have some weight to it, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking that weight in the hands of the
Speaker 1: user might be associated with the work that artists were
Speaker 1: putting into their music. That you were actually listening to
Speaker 1: this idea that it should be heavy. It can hold
Speaker 1: up to a thousand songs like it's a It's an
Speaker 1: interesting leap there, because obviously music doesn't weigh anything unless
Speaker 1: you're trying to carry a musical instrument or a lot
Speaker 1: of sheet music. But you know, music doesn't weigh anything,
Speaker 1: but the idea of no, but we need this device
Speaker 1: to make it feel like it should weigh something because
Speaker 1: it's able to hold an entire library is worth of music.
Speaker 1: Well that's what they thought back in the day. Turns
Speaker 1: out that people can collect way more than a thousand songs,
Speaker 1: So that was an interesting choice one that I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know how I fall. I mean, I like
Speaker 1: the feel the weight of that first generation iPod. Actually
Speaker 1: like the way that feels. Um. I don't necessarily associate
Speaker 1: it with the amount of work artists put into their music,
Speaker 1: but that may be a lack of imagination on my part. Now,
Speaker 1: one component that wasn't ives idea on that first generation
Speaker 1: iPod was that mechanical scroll wheel, right, that circle that
Speaker 1: you could spin around to go through menus and stuff.
Speaker 1: That was actually Phil Schiller's idea. Schiller was head of marketing, uh.
Speaker 1: He would actually step in for Steve Jobs a few
Speaker 1: times when jobs health was in decline, and Schiller had
Speaker 1: pitched the idea of an input device that gave physical feedback.
Speaker 1: The clicking of the wheel in this case, and so
Speaker 1: that element did not come straight from Johnny Ives group. Now,
Speaker 1: like I said in the last episode, the first iPods
Speaker 1: sold well, but they it wasn't the breakout hit that
Speaker 1: later generations of the iPod would become. I mean, if
Speaker 1: Apple had stuck with the way they did the first iPod,
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't be calling these things podcasts. We'd be
Speaker 1: calling them something else. But Apple did more than a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand units between when the first iPod came out
Speaker 1: in early to mid November of two thousand one and
Speaker 1: then the end of the year, So in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a little more than a month, they sold a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand units. That's not shabby. By January two thousand three,
Speaker 1: Apple had sold more than six hundred thousand iPods, which
Speaker 1: wasn't bad, but it did show how Apple's customer base
Speaker 1: at this point was still fairly limited. In fact, the
Speaker 1: company had only added support for Windows machines in August
Speaker 1: of two thousand two. But in two thousand four things
Speaker 1: really picked up. Apple introduced the iPod Mini, which was
Speaker 1: a slimmed down version of the iPod that was available
Speaker 1: in several colors, so not just moon gray that I've
Speaker 1: really favored. In addition, the Mini was made out of
Speaker 1: anodized aluminum, giving the iPods a different feel. Uh they
Speaker 1: you know that the texture was different, and Ivan his
Speaker 1: team had worked hard to find just the right material
Speaker 1: and colors to create a line of devices that still
Speaker 1: had the right weight and feel to them and would
Speaker 1: be inviting. And Apple's iPod sales climbed above two million
Speaker 1: but into January two four by the end of the year,
Speaker 1: so that was at the end of January, but by
Speaker 1: the end of the year they went to more than
Speaker 1: ten million units sold. That's an astronomical climb in sales, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it was two million by the end of January two
Speaker 1: four by the end of the next ten eleven months
Speaker 1: rather more than ten million. Incredible. So the iPod success
Speaker 1: was huge both for I've as a designer and for
Speaker 1: Apple as a company. And we'll talk about what that
Speaker 1: meant for Apple when we come back from these messages. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the iPod was a huge hit, and that huge
Speaker 1: hit was enough to really convince Steve Jobs, not that
Speaker 1: he needed much convincing anyway, but it really sealed the
Speaker 1: deal that his own preference, which was to put it
Speaker 1: as much emphasis on design as on things like functionality.
Speaker 1: That was the way to go that you had to
Speaker 1: have designed be a prime component of any product. That
Speaker 1: couldn't just be what does the software do or how
Speaker 1: do you access it? What's the user interface? But the
Speaker 1: actual physical design of the product had to be just
Speaker 1: as important, if not more so. Now you have to
Speaker 1: remember that back then, Apple was not the brand that
Speaker 1: it is today. The company had its rabid fans back
Speaker 1: in you know, two thousand, two thousand one, but they
Speaker 1: were in the minority. Apple had been the butt of
Speaker 1: jokes in the mainstream, Like people joked about how the
Speaker 1: Apple Mac was. You know, you don't even play games
Speaker 1: on an Apple Mac, like there's there's nothing to play.
Speaker 1: That wasn't true, by the way, but that was the perception.
Speaker 1: So things were starting to turn around now, right because
Speaker 1: the Imax had really started to catch capture a lot
Speaker 1: of attention. They were just very fun and and love
Speaker 1: lead designed like you wanted you wanted to have one.
Speaker 1: It looked like candy. The iPods were a huge hit.
Speaker 1: So now the general public, we're starting to want to
Speaker 1: get their hands on Apple products. It was it was
Speaker 1: going beyond the Apple Faithful, and those attractive computers and
Speaker 1: iPods were really transforming the company. One computer that got
Speaker 1: attention and not all of it was positive, was the
Speaker 1: iMac G four computer, which was released in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: so same year that the iPod came out. And if
Speaker 1: you take a look at this, if you look at
Speaker 1: the iMac G four, which had a couple of different
Speaker 1: names throughout its history, you can definitely see that the
Speaker 1: evolutionary step that existed between the iMac G three models,
Speaker 1: which were those really colorful CRT screen computer systems that
Speaker 1: were all in one computer system, and then you can
Speaker 1: also see the following step after the iMac G four,
Speaker 1: which are the more modern IMAX, which are kind of
Speaker 1: all in one devices where you've got a flat screen
Speaker 1: with the computer integrated right behind the flat screen and
Speaker 1: it's on a stand. Right, That's been the IMAX of
Speaker 1: recent years. Well, this one, the iMac G four, is
Speaker 1: kind of in between those, though I'd say it's more
Speaker 1: it's closer to the more recent IMAX than the old
Speaker 1: uh G three's. So the base of this computer was
Speaker 1: a little dome and that's where all the computer elements were,
Speaker 1: right like that's where the optical drive was, That's where
Speaker 1: you would plug in your peripherals, and that dome is
Speaker 1: kind of what I think of as the nod to
Speaker 1: the IMAX three days now. At the top of the
Speaker 1: dome was an attached arm that you could tilt kind
Speaker 1: of like a desk lamp, and on the end of
Speaker 1: that arm was the flat panel display for the computer.
Speaker 1: So it didn't have the computer incorporated behind the flat screen.
Speaker 1: It was instead incorporated in this little dome. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't quite the same as modern IMAX. So that's why
Speaker 1: I say it was kind of in between. And this
Speaker 1: was a bold move for the company. It differentiated Apple's
Speaker 1: computers from the beige desktops associated with Windows machines, and
Speaker 1: the company called it the New iMac at the time.
Speaker 1: Later on they would rename it the iMac G four.
Speaker 1: The l c D display on the New iMac wasn't cheap,
Speaker 1: and so the New iMac was pretty expensive machine, and
Speaker 1: the education sector, which again was one of Apple's really
Speaker 1: big customers, kind of lagged on adopting the iMac G
Speaker 1: four because it was so expensive. A lot of them
Speaker 1: kept on buying the G three until Apple stopped selling them.
Speaker 1: In two thousand four, Apple would unveil the iMac G five. Now,
Speaker 1: this was the first of the Imax to incorporate the
Speaker 1: computer behind the flat display itself, and it would all
Speaker 1: be supported on an L shaped stand that would be
Speaker 1: on your desk. Now, unlike later Imax which would have
Speaker 1: aluminium cases like the most recent ones have aluminium cases,
Speaker 1: the iMac G five had a white case, and I've
Speaker 1: insisted on that. He felt that the screen was meant
Speaker 1: to capture the user's attention, like all their attention should
Speaker 1: be on the screen. The screen was beautiful, it was
Speaker 1: the focal point for the computer. So he wanted a
Speaker 1: really minimalist approach on the case so that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: your eyes wouldn't be drawn to something else, You would
Speaker 1: be focused on what was important, and everything else like
Speaker 1: the keyboard and the mouse would all be a simple
Speaker 1: white as well, again not to pull focus from the display.
Speaker 1: Now back to the iPod. The introduction of the iPod
Speaker 1: Nano in two thousand five, which would replace the Mini,
Speaker 1: would change things up again. The first generation of the
Speaker 1: Nano was available only in white or black, and it
Speaker 1: had a screen measuring just one point eight inches on
Speaker 1: the diagonal. The second generation added a few more features
Speaker 1: as well as some more color options. The third generation
Speaker 1: would change the form factor by having the candy bar
Speaker 1: like dimensions of the first two generations trade off for
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a Graham Cracker kind of dimension.
Speaker 1: It was more squarish than a rectangle. Uh So the
Speaker 1: actual physical form factor changed and that design would flip
Speaker 1: flop a bit between those over the following generations until
Speaker 1: Apple just playing Out discontinued the nano. So yeah, So
Speaker 1: again it was Ive's team kind of working on different
Speaker 1: things to try and experiment with different design layouts, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they would go back to an idea that they
Speaker 1: had had before, you know, refined it a bit. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't like you know, the I Pod, the nanos
Speaker 1: of of you know, two thousand ten looked exactly like
Speaker 1: the ones from two thousand seven. It wasn't like that,
Speaker 1: But they did kind of experiment with those different form factors.
Speaker 1: I've also had a hand with the iPod Shuffle, which
Speaker 1: didn't have a screen at all on it, so you
Speaker 1: had no screen to look at. Instead, you would load
Speaker 1: music on this device, you would play it in shuffle mode.
Speaker 1: You could play it in just you know, regular nodes
Speaker 1: that would play in order, but typically it was shuffle
Speaker 1: mode and it would just sort of randomly shuffle up
Speaker 1: the song order for you and play whatever. And it
Speaker 1: had simple controls for advancing or going back through songs,
Speaker 1: plus volume controls and a play pause button and that
Speaker 1: was about it. Like it had the little headphone jack
Speaker 1: and that's you know, he didn't have much more after that.
Speaker 1: The first one looked kind of like a stick of gum.
Speaker 1: You could actually pull the end off. It was a
Speaker 1: cap for a USB that could be you know, plugged
Speaker 1: into a computer. The second generation looked more like a stamp,
Speaker 1: like it was you know, rectangular in dimension. The third
Speaker 1: generation of the Shuffle would be the boldest of the
Speaker 1: designs because I've and his team created one that lacked
Speaker 1: any physical controls other than a power control. So instead
Speaker 1: all of the controls for changing the volume or advancing
Speaker 1: through a track, all of that moved to Apple's iPod earbuds,
Speaker 1: which I've also designed, which meant that initially, at least
Speaker 1: the third generation of the Shuffle had limited functionality if
Speaker 1: you weren't using Apple's own earbuds, so you couldn't just
Speaker 1: you know, plug any earphones into a shuffle of this
Speaker 1: generation and be able to control it. You'd be able
Speaker 1: to listen to music, but you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: do things like change the volume, So if it was
Speaker 1: too loud or too quiet, you couldn't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: And if a song came on that you didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear, there was no way to skip it unless
Speaker 1: you were using the the Apple earbuds which had the
Speaker 1: controls on them. Eventually, third parties would come up with
Speaker 1: their own earbuds that would have controls that were interoperable
Speaker 1: with this shuffle, but this was one of those decisions
Speaker 1: that had people kind of complaining about Apple. Apple has
Speaker 1: a reputation for uh making moves to trap people into
Speaker 1: an ecosystem, whether it's with peripherals or with their approach
Speaker 1: to software um and that you know customers, consumers tend
Speaker 1: to like to have a lot of options, right Like
Speaker 1: a lot of people would much prefer to be able
Speaker 1: to pair their favorite headphones with their favorite music device.
Speaker 1: But Apple was taking an approach where, at least to
Speaker 1: have the ideal experience, you really need to be all
Speaker 1: in on Apple, something that I think was really true
Speaker 1: even when Apple opened up iTunes to Windows machines. But
Speaker 1: I've complained about that too many times in the past,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to pick that up again here.
Speaker 1: The fourth generation Shuffle would actually bring back those physical
Speaker 1: controls onto the device itself, which seems to be an
Speaker 1: admission that perhaps the third generation may have gone too far.
Speaker 1: I mean, some bold moves just end up being the
Speaker 1: wrong ones, it turns out, or at least maybe if
Speaker 1: you want to say it's not the wrong move, it
Speaker 1: might be a move that just doesn't resonate with the
Speaker 1: general public as well. And then after all that, we
Speaker 1: would have a device that really would push Apple into
Speaker 1: the next level. So to to kind of some up
Speaker 1: what we've been looking at so far. With the Johnny
Speaker 1: Ives tenure at Apple, you know, he came in during
Speaker 1: a tumultuous time where the company was heading toward disaster.
Speaker 1: He was encouraged by Steve Jobs to help design a
Speaker 1: new generation of Macintosh computer that brought attention back to
Speaker 1: Apple on a level that had not been there for years,
Speaker 1: Like positive attention, the company had largely been dismissed at
Speaker 1: that point. He had helped introduce a new product line
Speaker 1: with iPods a new whole business for Apple, which when
Speaker 1: paired with iTunes and the iTunes store, would end up
Speaker 1: being a lucrative business for Apple. But what would come
Speaker 1: next would really push the company into the stratosphere. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that when we come back after these messages.
Speaker 1: All right, this is where we're getting up to round
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. And if you know Apple and you
Speaker 1: know your timelines, you know that two thousand seven is
Speaker 1: when we get the iPhone and who boy. So the
Speaker 1: iPod established Apple as a household name in electronics. The
Speaker 1: iPhone would move the company into hyperspace. So when Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs unveiled the iPhone back in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: it took the world by storm, which was particularly remarkable
Speaker 1: because I don't know how many of you remember this,
Speaker 1: but here in the United States, when the iPhone launched,
Speaker 1: it was exclusive to a T and T. You could
Speaker 1: not have the iPhone running on any other carrier. So
Speaker 1: if you were a Sprint customer, or a Verizon customer
Speaker 1: or T Mobile customer, then you would have to switch
Speaker 1: carriers if you wanted to get an iPhone. There was
Speaker 1: a big limitation, and yet the iPhone was still a
Speaker 1: remarkable hit for Apple, and when Steve Jobs took the
Speaker 1: stage in two thousand seven to talk about this to
Speaker 1: unveil it, he drilled home to the audience that he
Speaker 1: was going to introduce products that represented an iPod, a
Speaker 1: mobile phone, and an Internet communications device. And the implication
Speaker 1: at first was that these were three different products. But
Speaker 1: then he reveals, no, I'm talking about one thing that
Speaker 1: that happens to be all three of these, and that
Speaker 1: was the iPhone. So he gave a very long presentation
Speaker 1: about the iPhone that day. It's like a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: You can actually find it on YouTube. You can watch
Speaker 1: the whole thing if you like. And he spent some
Speaker 1: of that time to talk about the design of the phone.
Speaker 1: Although it was in pretty general terms. He pointed out
Speaker 1: that there were minimal physical controls on the device. There
Speaker 1: was a home button that would take you back to
Speaker 1: the home page wherever you happen to be. There was
Speaker 1: a wake slash sleep button, so you could, you know,
Speaker 1: turn the phone on or off. There was a volume control,
Speaker 1: and there was a switch to turn the phone to
Speaker 1: ring or silent mode. It also had front facing and
Speaker 1: rear facing cameras, had a back that was made out
Speaker 1: of aluminum. The front was originally going to be plastic,
Speaker 1: but Steve Jobs noticed that his early model he was
Speaker 1: carrying around was starting to get scratched up, and so
Speaker 1: the team at the last minute had to change the
Speaker 1: determination to make it go to glass. The one that
Speaker 1: you'll see in the presentation that that Steve Jobs is
Speaker 1: showing off, that's the one that has a plastic face.
Speaker 1: The one that would go to market would have a
Speaker 1: glass face. Now that design change, uh was a big one.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about it a little bit more and what
Speaker 1: the team had to do in order to make it work.
Speaker 1: It was pretty remarkable, and the design of the iPhone
Speaker 1: overall followed that less but Better philosophy. So, unlike other smartphones,
Speaker 1: iPhone did not have a physical keyboard. If you look
Speaker 1: at the smartphones around two thousand seven, you'll see that
Speaker 1: all of them pretty much have a third to about
Speaker 1: a half of the phone taken up by a display
Speaker 1: and the rest of the phone taken up by a
Speaker 1: physical keyboard with little plastic keys and some navigation buttons.
Speaker 1: And Steve Jobs hated that he wanted to have a
Speaker 1: touch screen device, and because of that, it meant that
Speaker 1: you could dedicate the entire almost the entire front of
Speaker 1: the phone to the screen, which measured three and a
Speaker 1: half inches on the diagonal for the original iPhone. Now
Speaker 1: above the screen was the front facing camera, the speaker
Speaker 1: for your ear, that kind of thing. Beneath the screen
Speaker 1: was the home button, and there was a fairly narrow
Speaker 1: bezel on either side of the screen. So it was
Speaker 1: a pretty simple and elegant approach to a smartphone with
Speaker 1: most of the focus going on the display, just like
Speaker 1: with the newer iMac computers that were coming out. The
Speaker 1: glass that would cover the iPhone was special, and it
Speaker 1: ended up being a special kind of glass that Corning
Speaker 1: had been working on in its R and D department. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because Apple was looking everywhere to find someone
Speaker 1: who could deuced glass that wouldn't scratch or shatter easily.
Speaker 1: They needed something that was going to be durable, especially
Speaker 1: for a device that could, you know, on occasion, maybe
Speaker 1: slip out of your hand and hit the floor. So
Speaker 1: they looked at this special glass Corning had developed, and
Speaker 1: this was stuff that would later evolve with the commercial
Speaker 1: name Guerrilla Glass. That's a popular brand of glass that
Speaker 1: has scratch and shadow resistant properties. It's really cool. I
Speaker 1: once wrote an article on how guerrilla glass works for
Speaker 1: how stuff works way back in the day, so um yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was great. I got to talk to people
Speaker 1: at Corning and everything to learn more about the actual
Speaker 1: engineering that was required to make this happen. Now, at
Speaker 1: the time that they were using it for the iPhone,
Speaker 1: this stuff hadn't really found its way into any consumer products.
Speaker 1: It was still kind of an R and D thing.
Speaker 1: So this is an example of how Steve Jobs and
Speaker 1: Johnny I would go to great links to make sure
Speaker 1: that their vision would be realized, even if it meant
Speaker 1: having to make use of an experimental material in order
Speaker 1: to do it well. I should also add that Jeff
Speaker 1: Williams played a critical part in getting the glass from
Speaker 1: Corning incorporated into the iPhone design. I know, when I
Speaker 1: talk about this, it makes it sound like Johnny Ivan
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs did everything at Apple on their own and
Speaker 1: just raised it from the mud and put it into
Speaker 1: the heavens. That's not the case. There were clearly hundreds
Speaker 1: and thousands of people working at Apple who made these
Speaker 1: things possible. Some of them took on, you know, leadership roles,
Speaker 1: so people like Jeff Williams and Johnny I've and Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't ever want to take away
Speaker 1: from the fact that these things exist because of the
Speaker 1: collaboration of lots of incredibly talented people. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of the design elements of the iPhone would obviously find
Speaker 1: their way into the iPod Touch. In fact, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people said the iPod Touch was really
Speaker 1: just an iPhone only without the phone part. And the
Speaker 1: iPod Touch had also a multi touch display, meaning that
Speaker 1: you could do multi finger gestures on it, like pinch
Speaker 1: to zoom, that the stuff. But it also had a
Speaker 1: lower resolution screen than the iPhone did, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: as sharp as what you would get with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: It also lacked physical volume buttons for the first generation
Speaker 1: of the iPod Touch, which was something that irritated some
Speaker 1: reviewers and some users. Uh. You could actually use an
Speaker 1: iPod Touch as a phone if you enabled the WiFi
Speaker 1: and you used apps like Skype. Actually know someone who
Speaker 1: did that for a while. My buddy I as actor
Speaker 1: who uh who produces content for a c net he
Speaker 1: um for a while was using an iPod Touch as
Speaker 1: his primary phone. And uh, one of these days I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna have to have him on the show again
Speaker 1: and talk about how that worked out for him and
Speaker 1: was it convenient or what did he like about why
Speaker 1: did he hate about it? Sometimes I think having a
Speaker 1: WiFi only phone would be great because anytime I'm not
Speaker 1: around WiFi, I wouldn't have any notifications. And I'm just
Speaker 1: I've I've obviously reached the age where uh notifications are
Speaker 1: the bane of my existence, and I tried to avoid
Speaker 1: them at all costs. Anyway, back to Ivan Apple, you
Speaker 1: would also clearly see Johnny i'ves influence and the release
Speaker 1: of the iPad, which came out in twenty And in
Speaker 1: case some of y'all didn't know, I usually say this
Speaker 1: whenever I talk about the iPad, so you probably have
Speaker 1: heard me say this before, even if you haven't heard
Speaker 1: the original episode. Way back in the day, I infamously
Speaker 1: dismissed the iPad when it was first coming out. I said,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna work. It's gonna be a flop.
Speaker 1: No one's gonna want this. I could not imagine that
Speaker 1: people would flock to a tablet computer, and the reason
Speaker 1: for that was because in the past, tablets had really
Speaker 1: only found a place in niche markets, Like you know,
Speaker 1: in the medicine field, there were places where you know,
Speaker 1: doctors and nurses were using tablet computers, but it just
Speaker 1: never managed to take off as a mainstream product. And
Speaker 1: I was convinced that that was just that was just
Speaker 1: gonna be the case, that even Apple would not be
Speaker 1: able to produce something in that form factor that would
Speaker 1: appeal to the average person. And I could not have
Speaker 1: been more wrong. So I've actually provided a bit of philosophy.
Speaker 1: When he talked about the iPad later on, he once said, quote,
Speaker 1: when something exceeds your ability to understand how it works,
Speaker 1: it's sort of becomes magical. And that's exactly what the
Speaker 1: iPad is. End quote, which I think of a sort
Speaker 1: of paraphrasing Arthur C. Clark, the science fiction author. Clark
Speaker 1: once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Speaker 1: That if the technology is advanced enough to someone not
Speaker 1: schooled in that tech, it would seem to be impossible.
Speaker 1: And you think about that, like if you were to
Speaker 1: somehow go back in time to I don't know, the
Speaker 1: Renaissance and show off a computer somehow get it running,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you would do it as the results.
Speaker 1: But let's say you did, everyone would think that you
Speaker 1: were you were, you were magical, and you probably would
Speaker 1: be persecuted because that's just the way the world goes
Speaker 1: right anyway, he was more or less saying that the
Speaker 1: iPad was magical. It fell into that realm martely because
Speaker 1: of the way that you would interact with the device.
Speaker 1: You know, you literally had to put your hands on
Speaker 1: whatever it was you were doing. And there is something
Speaker 1: to that, right that your interaction when you're touching something directly,
Speaker 1: even if that directly is through a screen, it creates
Speaker 1: some more connected experience. You know, Steve Jobs, when you
Speaker 1: introduced the iPhone, talked about getting your hands on your
Speaker 1: music because you were physically touching your screen in order
Speaker 1: to play specific songs, as opposed to typing something out
Speaker 1: on a physical keyboard, which adds a bit of distance
Speaker 1: between you and whatever it is you want to do.
Speaker 1: It's that connection that cuts out those other input forms
Speaker 1: that could otherwise act as sort of a barrier between
Speaker 1: you and whatever it was you were doing. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting thought. I don't know how much I buy into it,
Speaker 1: but I do think there is something there. Uh and
Speaker 1: it meant that you were going to be able to
Speaker 1: interact with stuff on a screen very much like an iPhone,
Speaker 1: but on a size at much greater scale. Obviously, now
Speaker 1: we're going to start to to wind down here because
Speaker 1: I have one more episode in this series I want
Speaker 1: to do, and it really ties into the decline of
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs as health. His health would obviously have a
Speaker 1: huge impact on the operations at Apple and on Apple's future. Uh.
Speaker 1: He had first been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back into
Speaker 1: thousand three. He underwent a surgery to remove it, and
Speaker 1: he mostly kept it under wraps from even his close
Speaker 1: friends at Apple until two thousand four, when he did
Speaker 1: send out a message to everyone at Apple letting them
Speaker 1: know what had been going on, and there was hope
Speaker 1: that the surgery he had undergone had had removed all
Speaker 1: the cancer and that he was cancer free and healthy.
Speaker 1: But obviously over the following years that would change. So
Speaker 1: in our next episode, we're gonna talk about Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: and his failing health and ultimately his his passing, how
Speaker 1: that affected Apple in general and Johnny I've in particular,
Speaker 1: and how at least some people say that set the
Speaker 1: path for Johnny I've ultimately to step away from the
Speaker 1: company he had fallen in love with um not that
Speaker 1: it was the one and only factor that that went
Speaker 1: into that decision, but that that was the starting point.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in our next episode. I hope
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying these It's been really interesting to dive
Speaker 1: into Johnny i've's history and his influence at Apple, something
Speaker 1: that was clearly really important. And in the next episode
Speaker 1: we'll also talk about what we might expect with Apple
Speaker 1: moving forward without Johnny ivan It. But that's for the
Speaker 1: next episode. If you have suggestions for episode topics, well
Speaker 1: let me know. One way to do that is to
Speaker 1: download the I heart Radio app. It's free to download.
Speaker 1: You can navigate over to the tech Stuff podcast page
Speaker 1: use that little microphone icon to leave up to thirty
Speaker 1: seconds of a voice message let me know what you
Speaker 1: would like me to talk about, or you can reach
Speaker 1: out on Twitter. The handle for the show is text
Speaker 1: stuff hsw and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tex Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more
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