WEBVTT - How a Crisis Almost Derailed the Original iPhone 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.800 It's been over ten years since Apple released its very 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:09.120 first iPhone and remember you know, yeah, you know June 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.920 when um customers were able to get the hands on 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:17.119 on the units. But it doesn't mean that I love it. 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:18.880 I love it. One of the best days of my 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.319 life as well. I was thirteen years old at the time, 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.600 right around the time of my bar Mitzvah. I waited 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:27.040 in line at my dad at an Apple store in 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.920 Los Angeles, and my mom and brother joined us later 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.720 that day. It was actually my parents wedding anniversary, and 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.880 they have never let me forget that I was considerably 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.040 older than thirteen. I was in my in my mid thirties, 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.559 working for the New York Times covering Apple, and we 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.360 actually fanned out and we're talking to people waiting in line, 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.400 and I remember being somewhat dubious about this enthusiastic display 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.600 about what at the time seemed like just another device. 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:54.720 You have no idea, man, I mean, this is something 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:04.319 our hours anyone best part It was one in line line, 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.880 but I was that was sleeping outside of my local 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.520 teen T store, local Apple store for days. The line 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:14.759 starts over there, but it snakes all the way behind 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.560 me around this Manhattan block some of these. Yesterday when 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:19.959 we were here, there about nineteen people waiting in line 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.840 for this phone. Today, as you can see, hundreds more 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.679 people cheered and yelled as they walked out of the 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.319 store with their new phones for the first time. It 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.080 was a great, if slightly corny moment in technology history. 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.720 But I've always wondered what this moment was like for 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.640 the people on the inside. I ended up I had 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.600 a personal trip to Chicago, so I decided to to 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.440 watch the the unveiling of the first customers from the 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.800 Chicago store. And to this day, I mean, right now, 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.840 just talking about it, my skin, you know, it's getting 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.600 goose bumps, and I remember literally tears just coming down, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.760 coming down my eye. Right. Everything that we sacrifice, all 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.040 those unseen worth it, you know when you started to 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.640 look at the faces of the customers that were gripping 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.520 through the box and getting the hands on on the 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:19.800 unit for the first time. Now, ten years and billions 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.520 of dollars in revenue later, Apple is revving up for 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:29.320 perhaps its most important new phone since that very first release. Hi. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.680 I am Brad Stone and I'm Mark German, and this 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.840 week on Decrypted will bring you the untold story of 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.800 the original iPhones development. We'll take you inside the room 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.919 when Steve Jobs was making important decisions about the iPhones 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.360 key features. We'll also talk about how Apple recruited its 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.200 engineers from all over the world. We'll even reveal a 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.720 crisis that almost killed the entire project, and these original 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.960 team members relived those final moments before the iPhone was 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.280 announced back in two thousand and seven. We'll give you 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.920 a peek into what goes on inside Apple when the 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.680 company is gearing up to launch a new key product. 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.520 As we approached the unveiling of the next iPhone, there's 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.440 teams of people at Apple going through all of this. 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.359 Right now, this year's model, which is going to be 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.720 a major overhaul, has been much discussed. There's clearly some 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:32.000 excitement in the air. Stay with us, so let's start 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.280 at the very beginning. The year is two thousand and five. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:41.440 Steve Jobs is at the top of his game. Thank 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:47.760 you very much. It's great to be here. So we've 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:49.600 got a lot of great stuff for you today, a 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.080 lot of first two. Apple is nearing a transition from 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.280 power PC two Intel chips for Smax. That was a 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.440 huge step forward Apple's on track to announce the ipole Nano, 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.920 which turned out to be a smash hit. Internally, Apple 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.800 was already thinking about how to cannibalize the iPod, which 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.880 already sold tens of millions of units. Six years after 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.120 coming back from the brink of disaster, Apple was growing 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.400 into a technology powerhouse, and part due to Steve Jobs. 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:21.279 Then Steve dreamed up a new project. Not only were 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.640 we uh you know, asked to you know, develop a 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.120 product of the company had never done before. Uh and 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.719 and literally pick up skill sets. It didn't necessarily exist 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.120 within the company, but we had to do it any 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:40.400 very aggressive schedule, very aggressive timeline. That's Jose Kong today, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.400 he runs Plause. It's an HR software startup. Back in 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.040 two thousand five, two of apples most celebrated executives, Steve 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.119 Jobs and Tony Fidel, asked Jose to recruit the team 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.960 that would go on to build the iPhone. You know, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.960 I remember heading in the first time. Uh. It was 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.839 shocked because one, you know, whole side of the building 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.920 in which the IPOT or the Special Projects Group SPG 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.680 was was house all of a sudden had a wall 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.479 with a batch reader. There was the utmost secrecy around 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.760 the project. It even had a code name Project Purple, 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.800 and only the team involved knew what the product was. 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:23.680 And that's when I knew that it was serious. That's 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.760 when I knew that it was secretive. UM, I couldn't 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.400 tell anyone. I remember signing a pretty thick n D 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:34.200 a UH that basically stated that if I leaked any 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.160 knew so any information about this particular project, my boss 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.200 and my boss's boss reliable and you know, potentially looser jobs. 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.240 My name is Andy greg Nun and you and I 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.320 are in half Moon Bay, California, which is just south 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.440 of San Francisco by about twenty minutes if you drive 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.800 real fast. Andy was an up and coming software engineer 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.880 at Apple when the iPhone project started. I met Andy 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.880 at a beachside brewery, which he calls his office. He 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.400 works from a laptop on the bar counter, but he 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:11.440 reserved a nice back room for us to chat Apple. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.440 Andy has firsthand knowledge of how hard it is to 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.599 build a phone. His team was responsible for the phone's 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.440 functions that specifically related to making calls. Andy had a 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.200 background developing software, and earlier he actually worked on the iPod. Well. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.279 He was at another startup, but taking an iPod and 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.200 turning it into a phone, that was a really big challenge. 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:37.479 Here's Jose I remember, you know, as the recruiter assigned 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.200 to this project. One of the first requisitions that came 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.560 through was for an antenna engineer. Uh, I had no idea. 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:47.920 I had never recruited for, you know, anything in that 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.560 particular space. Today, almost every phone is trying to look 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.039 like an iPhone, but not. Back then, the BlackBerry ruled 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.840 the land. Business People were certain that they needed a 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.880 hardware key word in their phones. You had phones like 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.080 the Sidekick, um feature phones where keyboards split out. Those 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.480 were popular at the time. There was a lot more 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.440 variety in the phone world, and the idea of a 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.160 piece of glass that you typed on seemed frankly, very 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.640 strange to a lot of people. And don't forget at 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.560 five it was one of the most expensive phones to date, 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.760 but that clearly didn't matter. Yeah, there was a lot 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.440 of skepticism, and it also only worked famously on the 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.720 Singular network, which became a T and T and coverage 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.440 was terrible, right, you know, you had those famous dropped 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:32.480 calls over the first couple of years, and so I 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.880 think a lot of people, probably particularly the folks up 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.440 in Waterloo, Canada at BlackBerry, they underestimated what the iPhone 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.440 could become. Over the course of the two years, working 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.600 on the iPhone went in cycles. You know, here's the thing, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:48.560 I think that a lot of people don't really get 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:56.160 about development of major projects. Right, there's no one defining 0:07:56.240 --> 0:08:01.640 moment on on a project like this. But some episodes 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:07.000 were intense. We were looking for UH imaging technology, right 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.080 and at the time Nokia probably had the best team 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.400 in the world. And UH, Steve had become fixated on 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.760 a great candidate that we found who he had met, 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.560 and he wanted to make an offer to him. But 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.960 you know, this is being Apple, This being Steve had 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.320 to be an aggressive opera offering had to be UH 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:34.200 and over the top production. And so last minute I 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.320 was told, hey, you had a head to Helsinki. You 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.880 have to go meet with this particular candidate so that 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.840 we can make an offer. And so uh, within you know, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.320 literally a few hours on my way to s Foh 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.880 no luggage, look at my at my itinerary and it 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.240 was basically get their head, dinner and turn around and 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.880 come back. At what point I had the highest level 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:01.800 of travel recognition with United, so that that should give 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:03.960 you. You You know, there wasn't a flight that I that 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.720 I wasn't upgrade because I had so many miles that 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.160 I was using. Thanks to Jose's recruitment drive, the iPhone 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.000 team was growing. But you know, I remember one time 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:18.480 in particular, UM, we were we were doing a quote 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.560 unquote open house. Basically, Jose had gone to Libertyville, Illinois 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.800 or Motorola's offices were they booked a hotel room to 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.880 do a mass meeting of Motorole's engineers. The plan was 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.360 to bring motorole as best engineers and bring them over 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:36.400 to Apple. I remember getting a call from the legal 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.600 department at Apple basically say Nope, you have to cancel it. 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.480 There's no way that you can go. You know you nope, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:47.640 can do it. Uh, it's too aggressive. Um. But at 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.840 the same time I got a call from you know, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:51.720 the product side of the house saying, no, no, you 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.800 have to deal. We need these individual's. Uh. Fearing you know, 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.920 being fire for not doing my job, I decided the 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.520 top of the plane and we went. I would fear 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.360 the repercutions of letting Tony and Steve down more than 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.240 the repercussions of the legal department coming down on me. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.480 Thanks to that open house, Apple ended up bringing over 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.080 a whole bunch of people from Motorola. They went on 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.600 to become key members of the original iPhone team. Now remember, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.119 at the time, Project Purple is top secret and Motorola's 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.880 offices were in Illinois. Jose was convincing people to relocate 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.120 to California and join Apple, all without telling them even 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:34.439 what they'd be working on. As the team was closing 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.600 in on the final months before the big unveiling at 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.559 the Macworld conference, something happened. It quickly escalated to the 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.719 level of a full blown crisis with this bug where 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.720 we couldn't reliably keep a phone call going, and to 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:49.800 the point where you didn't know when it was gonna 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:58.520 stop when before we announced them in the fall of 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.800 two thousands six, okay, so three months before the phones 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.920 have some some amount of time right inside Apple, this 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.480 was a major problem. Who's going to buy a phone 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.320 that well, I can't make phone calls. There was a 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.800 serious risk that if Andy and his team couldn't fix 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.520 the issue, it could derail the entire project. At this stage, 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.360 with just three months to go, the product should have 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.800 ideally been locked and loaded for its splashy January unveiling 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.319 the chips verified on either side. The chip that made 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.199 the phone call was fine. There's no reason it should drop. 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.920 We had the people you know, from Korea and in 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.400 Germany and in everywhere else who wrote the code that 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.120 made the chip single stepping, along with the deepest technical 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.959 bench we had at Apple. We dragged in people from everywhere. 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.680 But just imagine for a second, you're dragging in colleagues 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.319 to fig this issue. But with all the secrecy around 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.840 Project Purple, they can't know what the product actually is. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.679 And of course Steve Jobs had to get involved. In 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.079 all the years of experience I had with Steve, sometimes 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.840 when you screw up, you gotta take the verbal lashing. 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:16.880 He'll scream in holler, and they'll make you feel like 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:22.520 when you knew you were in trouble, not you personally, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.840 would you the royal like the program was in trouble 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:30.080 was when he moved well past screaming and yelling, what's 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:35.520 past screaming, pensive rocking in his chair, it was you 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.800 you still like you don't really know what to do anymore? 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.560 He knew innately. When we came to him, We're like, 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.720 this is a show stopper. In the end, this problem 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.320 was so difficult that it actually didn't even get solved 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:52.400 in time, So we ended up shipping with a workaround. Uh, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.199 for the very first iPhone. We never figured out, by 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.960 the way, until it was after the phones were shipped, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.280 what the actual core problem was. Luckily, and he found 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.280 a workaround so Apple could stay on track to un 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:28.959 field the phone at Macworld, which was scheduled for January nine. Seven. Okay, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.640 so the iPhone team is entering the final stretch. Two 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.880 and a half years of working in secret is about 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.000 to come to an end on January nine. The stress, 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.000 the pressure, the long work hours is starting to get 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:47.560 to everyone. Steve was expert at finding people who wanted 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.680 to ship a thing above all else, And that and 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.320 above all else goes to not eating, not sleeping, you know, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.719 not being with your family, you know, not being with 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:00.839 your partner, not being like you know, you would do 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.760 anything to get this thing up. It's a conscious decision 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.959 I made every day to put all of this ahead 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.280 of everything else. This was a recurring theme for the 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.400 people working on the iPhone. Their personal lives are basically 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.080 on hold until the news of the phone became public. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.240 You know, from my perspective, it was tough. I mean, 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.080 two thousand and five to two thousand and seven, I 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.880 hardly saw anyone in my life. You know, I didn't 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.120 get to see my family very much. I didn't get 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.000 to see my friends very much. I neglected, you know, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.520 my relationships. Uh. To this day, yes, I feel guilty 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.560 about missing birthdays uh and special occasions, even weddings. But 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.080 to be honest with you, you know, the iPhone was 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.440 so important. We were so emotionally connected to this project 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.000 that if you had to do it all lover again, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.120 I would still do the same thing. The big unveiling 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.640 at Macworld was scheduled for January nine, two thousand and seven. 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.000 At this point, there's only a few weeks ago. Steve 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.840 and a small trusted team start preparing the keynote. You know, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.800 you could cut the tension in the offices with with 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.280 your fingers, with your hands, as I think it was 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.800 because it had to be perfect, right, I mean, this 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.560 is Apple, this is Steve on stage. We can't just 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:19.440 you know, unveiled the product. You know, the customers, the media, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.840 the market. Everyone expects this to be a massive theatrical 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.920 you know, unveiling, but for Andy and the team, the 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.360 iPhone still wasn't completely finished. We're there late one night. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.840 It was you know, Christmas this time, you know, coming 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:39.280 up late December, before Christmas and before the announcement. So 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.880 it's two thousand six, right December. We're hanging out. There's 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.200 like four of us in the hallway, the way Andy 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.440 tells it. Another colleague walks up to the group and 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.920 starts asking the questions about the status of the iPhone. 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:55.040 People are exhausted, overworked in the conversation suddenly gets confrontational, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:02.320 and that quickly escalated into effectively a yelling match between 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.720 these two people on who had spent less time with 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.960 their kids, Like who had missed what performance, you know, 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.600 Christmas thing or whatever, who hadn't seen this, who didn't 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.320 buy Christmas presents? But whatever? It was just but it 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:21.640 turned into like this, like clearly pent up frustration of 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.680 just all of it, right, the program, We're not ready, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.800 you know, I haven't seen my family, I haven't seen 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.920 my kids, like just right, and it just all came 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.240 out and finally this this person was screaming off down 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.280 the hall and goes into off slams the door so 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:44.080 hard that it breaks the lock. Eventually, the team used 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:46.040 a steal bat to break down the door and get 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.040 their colleague out, who was stuck on the other side. 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.680 That screaming match happened with maybe a month ago before 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.200 the iPhones January debut. Andy couldn't have been prepared for 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.720 the crisis that still lay ahead. Having worked hard with 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.760 this small number of individ edibles in a very confined 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.040 environment where you couldn't even talk to your family or 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:11.040 you couldn't talk to other individuals within the company about 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.280 what you were working on, you know, realizing that the 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.120 unveiling was was near. Uh, let me tell you for 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.639 for for for the first phone at least, it was 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:25.879 probably the most exciting time of my career. It was exciting, sure, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.240 but Project Purple still had to get through the keynote 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.280 address at McWorld two thousand seven, when Steve Jobs would 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.240 walk out on stage and tell the world what Apple 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.760 has been up to. Remember, Steve had a terrifying reputation 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.159 in the industry as a perfectionist. Keynote addresses had to 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:45.320 be dramatic and absolutely flawless. Apple prepares months ahead of 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.600 its events, leaving nothing to chance. The company prepares for 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.000 anything and everything that could go wrong. But that doesn't 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:54.960 mean there haven't been close calls. We're coming up to 0:17:54.960 --> 0:18:00.680 the announcement day in at Musconi and at the time, 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.160 all of the keynotes were staged in this one particular room. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.960 As he gets closer and closer, as people started to 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.399 practice with Steve for for for the keynote, tensions just 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.920 became a lot higher. You know, you knew, you knew 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:22.240 that we were getting closer. Uh by the calendars. All 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:27.320 of a sudden, certain members of our organization, which is unavailable. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.359 Apple keynotes, which some people call Steve Notes, had become 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.480 major events in the tech industry. Fans and media would 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.720 even wait in line overnight just to get a seat 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.040 inside the event designed to tell you when you can 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:45.560 wait in line for the actual product. All the laptops used, 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.480 all the cabling, production people were there, but it was 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:50.000 like instead like this huge room, it was like a 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.159 tiny room and everyone just kind of shat you shoulder 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.600 shoulder with laptops, but it was that exact same equipment configuration. 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.480 Everything was then report was packaged up, labeled, and then 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:08.000 replicated on the giant Mausconi stage. The Mosconi Center is 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.960 one of San Francisco's giant conference halls. It's right in 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.760 the center of the downtown and on any given year, 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.119 Apple would use Macworld to make a whole range of 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.520 product announcements. The Macworld stage had been used to unveil 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.400 some iPods, the first MacBook Pro, and iTunes. The two 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.560 thousand seven event would also include the Apple TV at 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.520 a new airport extreme Internet router. But the iPhone was 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.600 obviously the main event. And yet Andy and the iPhone team, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.360 we're up against one huge issue. They were preparing Steve's 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.520 iPhone announcement without having the actual iPhones. We we didn't 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.200 have enough phones because they were building the phones over 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.600 in China. They were being hand carried in suitcases from 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.080 from Vascon. If you're working on the hardware side, um, 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:57.000 most of the engineers and operations professionals are spending a 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.359 lot of time in the factory in China, right. You know, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.280 if I had not seeing my family in you know, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.440 for a couple of years, this individuals may net had 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.600 seen their homes for several months at a time. They 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.800 were under unimaginable pressure to make sure the units coming 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.240 out of the Chinese factories were meticulously finished. The units 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:19.399 come in from Asia, and the process was, you know, 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.520 Steve and Johnny would put on like these white gloves 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:26.320 and they would take the units out of out of 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:27.880 the packaging and all the other stuff, and they would 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.280 inspect them with jeweller's loops and they would grade them. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.200 So that's Steve jobs of course, and Johnny I've back 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.680 in two thousand seven. Johnny was Apple's chief industrial designer. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.560 He's actually still at Apple today in a bigger role 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.080 as the company's chief design officer. So each unit got 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.359 a grade. So it started off the best unit that 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.359 we could produce at the time would be a double A, 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:50.400 and then we go down to an A and then 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.679 B C D. You know they and they are just 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.040 in terms of mostly visual quality, like how how is 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.560 the fit and finish on it, Like does the bezel 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.000 lineup with the cases there? Sky Mars is there? Whatever 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:05.520 it is? Is everything seated properly and um and so 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.879 like anything below like A B isn't really suitable to 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.720 be on stage or the show. Once Steve and Johnny 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.639 signed off on the hardware, the phones were sent for programming. 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.480 That meant Apple to lay all the software that would 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:23.080 power the phone. Everybody signs off on it, and UM, 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:26.879 the team responsible laying down the final software on the 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.480 show units, UH gets gets the building right, and so 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.320 they started. They did a gang programming where they did 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:36.120 eight units at a time that we could flash right, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.760 and so again, brand new units off of the floor, 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.720 and they start with the double a's first. They plug 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:47.400 all of the double A units in and UH software 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:52.600 goes on and as the flashing process finishes up, they'll 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:58.160 start rebooting, like just repeatedly rebooting, and then they go dead. 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:10.800 Turns out there was a buck. This is a day 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:14.760 I've been looking forward to for two and a half years. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.119 Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:32.000 that changes everything. I'm January nine seven, Steve Jobs got 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.120 on stage at the Moscony Center and unveiled the iPhone. 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.320 He would begin the event by announcing the Apple TV 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.000 the company set up box. Then the big moment happened. 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:50.440 We introduced the Macintosh. It didn't just change Apple, it 0:22:50.560 --> 0:23:04.800 changed the whole computer industry. In two thousand and one, 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:13.520 we introduced the first iPod and it didn't just it 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:15.840 didn't just change the way we all listen to music. 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.399 It changed the entire music industry. For years leading up 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:23.119 to two thousand seven, the rumor meal speculated that Apple 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.600 could be writing its entry into the smartphone world, but 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:28.399 nobody had imagined what a departure the iPhone would be 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.240 from everything else in the market. The iPhone couldn't be 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:34.119 more different than the rocker phone. For example, an Apple 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.600 Motorola team up that put a version of iTunes on 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.680 a bulky Motorola phone. It was a huge flop. An 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:53.359 iPod a phone, and an Internet communicator, an iPod a phone. 0:23:54.200 --> 0:24:02.120 Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:14.800 This is one device, and we are calling it iPhone today. 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:22.720 Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:28.080 it is. And about those perfect iPhones fresh from the 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.480 factory floor, the ones that crashed in Apple's offices when 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:35.080 they were being meticulously prepped for the keynote day. What 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:37.040 was supposed to happen with those units was they were 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.040 supposed to be these big glass bell jars that were 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:43.120 stationed all the way around Mosconi for the people who 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:45.320 are the invited press and people who were there to 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:47.600 take a look. And and what was supposed to be 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.119 on them was a little a little video reel that 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:52.200 was just playing a video over and over and over again, 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:54.040 that's all. And it was supposed to rotate around, and 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:55.520 you could you guys could all get up there with 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:58.679 your cameras and get a super close, tight shot showing 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:00.960 whatever was on the screen at the time. And there's 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:02.760 a few of you'll see it in some of the 0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:04.920 photos around. There's a few of them where the screens 0:25:04.960 --> 0:25:08.119