Video shows early competing iPhone prototypes developed by Tony Fadell and Scott Forstall
A video posted to the internet on Tuesday shows two very early iPhone prototypes running differing software versions of Apple's "Acorn OS," one developed by a team led by Tony Fadell and another by Scott Forstall's group.
The pair of rare handsets and their respective bare-bones operating systems are shown off in images and a video posted to the website of parts leaker Sonny Dickson. In the short clip, both prototypes boot up to an extremely limited feature set, which mostly consists of diagnostics tools and basic system information.
Explaining the hardware, Dickson notes Apple put two teams to work when creating the software that would ultimately power the original iPhone. The first device, designated "P1," ran software developed with the help of Tony Fadell, while a second "P2" variant was the brainchild of Scott Forstall.
While both models share an -- extremely rough -- original iPhone aesthetic and are powered by identical internal components, the underlying software is completely different.
As seen last week, Fadell's P1 version of Acorn bears a striking resemblance to the aqua-styled onscreen interfaces seen on iPods at the time. In fact, the P1 implements a digital representation of a scroll wheel to cycle through hierarchical system menus made famous by pre-iPhone OS iPod products.
By contrast, Forstall's P2 client software is a more fleshed out direct touch -- ultimately multitouch -- interface complete with icons and interactive onscreen graphical elements. While an obvious prototype, the P2 version seen below shares similarities with the "SwitchBoard" operating system Apple currently deploys to test iPhone prototypes.
The P1 and P2 hardware showcased today are just two of likely hundreds or even thousands of iterations, both hardware and software, that evolved through Apple's comprehensive prototyping process to become the iPhone.
Rumors swirling as late as December 2006, just a month shy of iPhone's unveiling at Macworld, suggested the finalized smartphone would adopt a virtual click wheel and other features native to Fadell's attempt. Despite rampant speculation, it was Forstall's vision of Acorn OS that ultimately became iPhone OS, the operating system now known as iOS.
Monday marked the 10th anniversary of late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs' presentation of the original iPhone in January 2007. For an inside look at how iPhone changed the trajectory of tech, and how it continues to shape our future, make sure to read AppleInsider's in-depth retrospective.
The pair of rare handsets and their respective bare-bones operating systems are shown off in images and a video posted to the website of parts leaker Sonny Dickson. In the short clip, both prototypes boot up to an extremely limited feature set, which mostly consists of diagnostics tools and basic system information.
Explaining the hardware, Dickson notes Apple put two teams to work when creating the software that would ultimately power the original iPhone. The first device, designated "P1," ran software developed with the help of Tony Fadell, while a second "P2" variant was the brainchild of Scott Forstall.
While both models share an -- extremely rough -- original iPhone aesthetic and are powered by identical internal components, the underlying software is completely different.
As seen last week, Fadell's P1 version of Acorn bears a striking resemblance to the aqua-styled onscreen interfaces seen on iPods at the time. In fact, the P1 implements a digital representation of a scroll wheel to cycle through hierarchical system menus made famous by pre-iPhone OS iPod products.
By contrast, Forstall's P2 client software is a more fleshed out direct touch -- ultimately multitouch -- interface complete with icons and interactive onscreen graphical elements. While an obvious prototype, the P2 version seen below shares similarities with the "SwitchBoard" operating system Apple currently deploys to test iPhone prototypes.
The P1 and P2 hardware showcased today are just two of likely hundreds or even thousands of iterations, both hardware and software, that evolved through Apple's comprehensive prototyping process to become the iPhone.
Rumors swirling as late as December 2006, just a month shy of iPhone's unveiling at Macworld, suggested the finalized smartphone would adopt a virtual click wheel and other features native to Fadell's attempt. Despite rampant speculation, it was Forstall's vision of Acorn OS that ultimately became iPhone OS, the operating system now known as iOS.
Monday marked the 10th anniversary of late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs' presentation of the original iPhone in January 2007. For an inside look at how iPhone changed the trajectory of tech, and how it continues to shape our future, make sure to read AppleInsider's in-depth retrospective.
Comments
Whatever happened to Fadell's loyal fans who thought Google buying Nest instead of Apple was a sign of Apple's decline? For that matter, what happened to Forstall's loyalists who thought his love of skeuomorphic UI and refusal to apologize for Maps made him the perfect future Steve Jobs?
A number of the people involved in the original iPhone UI are still at Apple working on the user interface team. In fact one of them presented at WWDC last year (was part of the iMessage demo).
Scott was a colleague and one of the main architects of AppKit. Ives doesn't know a damn thing about Software Design or Development. Steve Jobs never would have ousted Forstall. He was one of his most favored top architects at NeXT and Apple. Scott was very good at his job.
The problem we see isn't just a few folks, but a lot of key architects from NeXT left between 2007-2012. When you lose people like Bertrand Serlet you lose far more than someone like Chris Lattner. Bertrand was a guiding force behind Openstep and later OS X. He is brilliant as well as being a very engaging and personable human being, who not unlike a conductor of an Orchestra knew how to make it all cohesively work and meet deadlines.
Also, losing the creator of the Mach Microkernel and Senior VP Avie Tevanian was a monumental blow that most people don't grasp.
Steve spent most of his time at PIXAR after 1993 and the release of Openstep for Intel. We weren't making black hardware anymore and PIXAR was working on Toy Story. Steve didn't invest much time at NeXT until WebObjects and even then later he was mainly back at PIXAR. When the merger was a possibility he immediately re-engaged on NeXT and the possibility of being the special consultant advisor that later became iCEO moved him from 100% PIXAR to 100% Apple.
Steve was really a Hardware man. He expected the OS to work as meticulously as he expected the hardware to be both aesthetically ideal and as reliable as possible. He hated to have an idea and later discover it would take time to develop it. It's also one of the reasons he loved being on the forefront of controlling the OS and Hardware. It was also a problem for NeXT because instead of being just ahead of the industry curve we were always ten years ahead, which translated into no one being interested.
Tim Cook seems to prefer being 6 months ahead and thus irritates the hell out of those more in favor of Steve's 18 months ahead of the competition. If you are just barely ahead of the competition most people will overlook your innovation as nothing special. But nearly two years and everyone will be a copycat.
Scott was very much respected, but let's be honest, a lot of the folks today who are Senior VPs weren't even senior managers at NeXT. Most of the top brass moved on and out of the industry entirely after the merger. Some people are better at seeing the big picture and others have big egos who were given a huge title to match.
Believe it or not, but Craig is a dick and butted heads with a lot of former colleagues he worked with at NeXT and later after he came back to Apple by leapfrogging others more qualified than himself. People rave about his ``keynote'' entertaining moments, but he's actually not the most laid back person to be around. Forestall was far more qualified to demo OS X, iOS than Federighi ever would be. Craig's focus at NeXT was EOF (Enterprise Objects Framework) and that was it. Scott was one of the principal architects of AppKit and much more.
A fellow colleague of mine and friend to this day that was better than all of them at charisma, showmanship and always made the best in-house demos is Mark Tacchi. He garnered fame by creating the Java Gamelet Toolkit on a whim, while at NeXT. He's the founder and CEO of Vendini. Also founded one other company named HipBone.
If anyone would have been Steve's successor it would have been Mark, but during the merger people offered him a ton of cash to bolt and run a new startup software engineering division at more than double what Apple was willing to pay. He's just an all around great person who knows how to engage, is amazingly compassionate and a keen eye for building teams, while having a grounded ego.
Guys like Faddell are pure opportunists. Guys like Tacchi wanted to work at NeXT because of it's unique vision and its founder's history. They are rare.
However, this is proof of concept prototype stuff. It shows the potential of each (and the huge drawback of the iPod interface for touch).
I can just hear Jobs saying "Make it (the buttons and icons) more like OSX."
Apple was losing out to Android big time in features during IOS 6.
Chris may or may not have another big technical advance in him but if he does it was unlikely to happen at Apple anyway. Still his loss is no less than Scott, Bertrand or Avie.
"Tim Cook seems to prefer being 6 months ahead and thus irritates the hell out of those more in favor of Steve's 18 months ahead of the competition. If you are just barely ahead of the competition most people will overlook your innovation as nothing special. But nearly two years and everyone will be a copycat."
Brilliant - just very well said...
Take Marcs comment with a large grain of salt.
- Many of the products and parts coming from Tim Cook's Apple are more than 6 months ahead of the competition. Apple Watch is one (2 years in and no competitor has a product with the capabilities, fit/finish, reliability, and overall features), I expect AirPods and W1 chip to be another at least a year ahead. New solid state storage in MBP. A-Series processors in general (year old iPhones trouncing new Samsungs in single core performance). Apple Pay. Not to mention, but what Apple delivers is often much more thought out w.r.t implementation, more secure, and enables more privacy (perhaps not an issue with much attention today, but I personally think that will change with ever more cyber attacks and proliferation of the IoT crap).
- Someone who is a great & talented designer / architect doesn't necessarily make the best leader of people
- No matter how good a company is, some of the brightest stars and talent will want to move on and do different things.
- A company can only hold so many "visionaries".
Forstall was well liked by his own team though.
Fadell. by the way, seems to be positioning himself as the "father of the iPhone" but clearly nobody used his stuff. Forstal must be under some huge NDA to not reply to this.