And then Steve said: "Let there be iPhone», part 1

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Road length of 89 kilometers from Campbell to San Francisco can be called one of the most beautiful in the world. The path mostly runs along the Junipero Serra Freeway - a huge and surprisingly deserted highway, bordering the mountains of Santa Cruz. This is one of the best places to test its capabilities "Ferrari" and one of the worst places on the quality of reception of cellular signal. For Andy Grignon (Andy Grignon) it was the perfect place to be alone with yourself and your thoughts so early in the morning January 8, 2007.

Such atypical route for Andy. He was a senior engineer at Apple and worked in Cupertino - city west of Campbell. His usual journey to work took about 15 minutes, but not today. Andy went to Steve Jobs, so that together with him to make history.

Ahead of them was waiting for Macworld exhibition in San Francisco. Apple fans for several years asked Jobs to build the phone to iPod, freeing them so that the need to carry two devices, and Steve was ready to fulfill their desire. Grignon and his colleagues had to spend the night in a nearby hotel, and the next day at 10 o'clock they would, together with the rest of the world to see how Jobs will show the first iPhone.

However, moving the road farther north Grignon felt excitement for the upcoming event. He was terrified. Most presentations in Silicon Valley were mounted records. Why give a chance to poor Internet connection to screw up a good performance? But Jobs insisted on live presentations. They were doing the show very entertaining. Prior to that, significant disruptions to the public almost did not happen, but Grignon and those who provide demo holding from behind the scenes, presentations always meant a lot of stress.

Andy Grignon was a senior engineer and was responsible for the communication function iPhone. Nowadays, phones are able to do innumerable things, but still original, and their main function - two-way radio. Andy was responsible for the elements that make this phone a telephone. If the device does not ring, not connect a Bluetooth headset, or can not connect to Wi-Fi, the answer for this would have to Grignon. He was one of the first Apple engineers and dedicated to this project two and a half years of his life, working seven days a week.

Grignon is also entered into the rehearsal iPhone team, and later took part in a presentation at the Moscone Exhibition Center. He rarely got to see that the 90-minute presentation went smoothly. Jobs rehearsed performance for the past five days, but even on the last day of rehearsals iPhone still unexpectedly dropped calls, lost Internet connection, or just hang off.

First, attend the rehearsals were really cool. Only allowed to be elected to them. But very soon the discomfort emerged. I rarely saw him relaxed. Yes, it has happened, but mostly he just looked at you and said very directly, in a loud and stern voice: "You mean ** yvaesh my company" or "If we fail, you're to blame."

Andy Grignon, senior engineer at Apple

Grignon and everyone else knew: if the presentation itself something does not work, Jobs will not blame yourself. "It seemed that we were rehearsing the show a hundred times, but all the time something went wrong. It was a very bad feeling, "- says Andy.

Preparations were top secret. From Thursday until the end of next week, Apple is fully occupied Center. Behind the scenes, located 2.5 laboratory the size of 2.5 meters for storage and testing iPhone, and nearby was a recreation room Jobs. Before the entrances and throughout the building was on duty around the clock a dozen guards. The list of persons who were given an electronic pass to the building, to be approved exclusively Jobs. In the rehearsal room, as already mentioned, allowed only the elite.

Jobs was so obsessed with the exception of the probability of leaks, he was trying to leave all the staff in the building for the night before the presentation day. Aides to dissuade him from the idea.

Grignon knew that the iPhone display is not a typical product announcement, but no one could have imagined the consequences of the appearance of the device. Over the next seven years, the iPhone and iPad have become some of the most important innovations in the history of Silicon Valley. They have completely changed the mobile industry. They have created a platform for a completely new and highly lucrative industry of mobile applications which have already generated more than 10 billion dollars in profits for years of existence. They shook the multi-billion dollar empire of personal computers.

If you turn iPad into the segment of personal computers, Apple could not immediately be the largest PC manufacturer in the world.

For 2012 it was sold about 200 million iPhone and iPad - more than two times more than it was sold machines worldwide during the same period.

The effect was not only an economic, but also cultural. Apple innovation promoted a rethinking of how people interact with technology. It is not just about using fingers instead of a mouse. Smartphones have become an extension of our brain. They have fundamentally changed the way of obtaining and processing of human information.

Just think how revolutionary it was then. Books, newspapers, telephone, radio, tape recorder, camera, video camera, compass, TV, VCR, personal computer, game console, iPod - it all fits in a single device, which, in turn, can easily fit in pocket. These technologies are changing the way we learn, how doctors treat patients, as we travel and explore new things.

Yet Apple is now under siege. From that moment on, as Google introduced Android - his weapon of domination in the mobile sector, - it is not just trying to compete with the iPhone, and successfully does so. By 2010, Android has gained popularity explosive character: this OS runs 80% of all smartphones in the market. A similar trend can be seen with the iPad. In 2010, its share of the tablet market was about 90%, and in 2013 more than 60% sold tablet runs on Android.

What most worried about Apple fans is the lack of understanding of where the company is now focused. In 2011, when Jobs died, the question was not about is whether Tim Cook to be his successor, and that it even can someone become it.

During the reign of Apple Steve Jobs was an innovative machine, introducing breakthrough products every 3-5 years.

Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson that is coming is another breakthrough - a revolution in television, but I came to Cook, and the revolution in TV or not, and distrust of him by investors felt all stronger. Announcements of new Apple products made the company's shares to rise, but when Tim presented the iPhone 5c and 5s, shares fell by 10%. In 2012, the share price was 702 dollars, which made Apple the most valuable company in the world. A year later, the price has fallen by more than 25% of that figure.

Compare anyone with Jobs was unfair, and for two years as CEO Cook has made every effort to show everyone what the Steve himself pointed out to him, he runs the company as it is peculiar to him, without looking at the Jobs.

It is hard to imagine the excitement that Steve felt when he decided to show the iPhone in 2007. It's not just about a new type of device for Apple - he gave a presentation to the prototype that barely worked. Even despite the fact that sales of smartphones did not arrive for another six months, Jobs wanted the world to wish this device already.

In truth, the list of things that still need to be done in the iPhone, has been overwhelming. The production line has not yet been established. There were about a hundred of smartphones, and they were all of different quality. Some were gaps between the screen and the body, while others - scratches on the screen. The operating system contains a lot of mistakes.

iPhone can play the part of the video or song, but the whole system was falling when playing video. It works great if you send email, but then sorfish the web, but the reverse action may stop responding. Hours spent on trial and error, allowed Apple to develop a team that engineers call gold by - specific set of tasks to be performed in a given mode and a sequence that allows you to create the impression that phone works.

However, in the last minutes before the demonstration was necessary to find workarounds to iPhone looked workers. On the day of the announcement software Grignon were bugs in the software that is responsible for the work of memory, too. And no one knew whether the help included at the request of Jobs improvements in the demo samples to reduce the problem.

• Part 1
  
• Part 2
• part 3
  
• part 4