Apple reveals its secrets: How 1000 hard workers created the iPhone
Apple has been spilling the beans this week on some of its most closely guarded secrets. It’s happening in federal court in California where rival Samsung is being sued for alleged copying of the iPhone and iPad.
Steve Jobs: No outsiders!
Apple executives have openly discussed how Apple, , normally the most tight-lipped of companies, created the blockbuster products .Early designs have been shown and intimate details of the product team revealed.
Followers of the case have been tweeting nuggets, said the Wall Street Journal, like: An internal Apple survey showed that 78% of iPhone owners buy cases.
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of world-wide marketing, gave evidence on how much Apple spent on marketing the Big Two .
Schiller revealed Apple spent $647 million advertising the iPhone in the U.S., from its release in 2007 through 2011. For the iPad, launched in 2010, he put the amount at $457.2 million.
While Apple is trying to prove that Samsung copied its designs, Samsung is trying to persuade the jury that its devices are different - and that Apple was actually inspired by Sony products.
As early as January 2011, one Apple executive said the company should build a tablet with a 7-inch screen,we learned, much smaller than the 9.7-inch iPad.
Software VP Scott Forstall said one executive used a 7-inch Samsung tablet for a time, and sent an email to Chief Executive Tim Cook saying he believed "there will be a 7-inch market and we should do one."
Forstall said Apple in 2004 placed rules around assembling the team to build the iPhone, - "Project Purple," as it was called then.
Steve Jobs told him he couldn't hire anyone from outside to work on many parts of the project. So, said Forstall , he found "superstars" from within Apple , told them he was starting a secret project and wanted help.
He said he told them, "If you choose to accept this role, you will work harder than you ever have in your entire life." Forstall revealed his team numbered a staggering 1,000 people who directly reported to him.
A 99-page document filed in the case revealed early iPhone prototypes considered by the company some with bulbous backsides , others with angled edges. The company even considered a kickstand for phone.
Apple designer Christopher Stringer said the design team often worked around a table in a kitchen, sketches led to to computer designs to 3-D models.
Asked how Apple arrived at the final iPhone design, he responded : "It was the most beautiful of our designs…When we realised what we got, we knew."
The case continues.