Schiller refutes book's account that he demanded physical keyboard in early iPhone
A forthcoming book's accuracy about the early development of the iPhone has come under fire by Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller and Tony Fadell, with both denying a story that Schiller vigorously demanded a physical keyboard during development of the original iPhone prototypes was accurate.
The book, called "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone" authored by Brian Merchant had passages quoted on The Verge on Tuesday, with one passage discussing how Schiller was pushing the design team for a physical keyboard, like found on the BlackBerry.
The passage cited in the article about the book claims that:
The author stands by the reporting, and declares that Tony Fadell told him the account about Schiller directly.
On June 14, Fadell, the proclaimed "Father of the iPod" denied that the story about the physical keyboard was accurate.
Late on June 14, Merchant again stood by his account, and claimed to have audio from the interview in question.
Neither Schiller nor Fadell had any other comment on the excerpts.
Merchant has been a Motherboard editor for five years, and has a robust body of work including a stint at Discovery Communications for four years, starting in 2008. "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone" will be available June 20 from Amazon in paperback for $14.01, or in a Kindle format for $14.99.
The book is in a pre-order status from the Apple Book Store for $14.99 and will also arrive on June 20.
The book, called "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone" authored by Brian Merchant had passages quoted on The Verge on Tuesday, with one passage discussing how Schiller was pushing the design team for a physical keyboard, like found on the BlackBerry.
The passage cited in the article about the book claims that:
Shortly after the excerpts were published, Schiller responded to a user commenting on the piece on Twitter, and denied the account was accurate.The iPod phone was losing support. The executives debated which project to pursue, but Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing, had an answer: Neither. He wanted a keyboard with hard buttons. The BlackBerry was arguably the first hit smartphone. It had an email client and a tiny hard keyboard. After everyone else, including Fadell, started to agree that multitouch was the way forward, Schiller became the lone holdout.
Not true. Don't believe everything you read...
-- Philip Schiller (@pschiller)
The author stands by the reporting, and declares that Tony Fadell told him the account about Schiller directly.
I stand by the reporting--that is the story Tony Fadell told me, on the record, verbatim.
-- Brian Merchant (@bcmerchant)
On June 14, Fadell, the proclaimed "Father of the iPod" denied that the story about the physical keyboard was accurate.
I respect @pschiller as a colleague & friend. The story about him is not true. Have asked writer to correct the record. https://t.co/87BkZGcHSi
-- Tony Fadell (@tfadell)
Late on June 14, Merchant again stood by his account, and claimed to have audio from the interview in question.
I don't know why Tony would deny this now, I have audio of our interview where he told me this story verbatim.
-- Brian Merchant (@bcmerchant)
Neither Schiller nor Fadell had any other comment on the excerpts.
Merchant has been a Motherboard editor for five years, and has a robust body of work including a stint at Discovery Communications for four years, starting in 2008. "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone" will be available June 20 from Amazon in paperback for $14.01, or in a Kindle format for $14.99.
The book is in a pre-order status from the Apple Book Store for $14.99 and will also arrive on June 20.
Comments
Also, I don't trust a word that comes out of Faddels mouth. It's well known that he consistently exaggerated his role and accomplishments at Apple in order to bring more legitimacy and hype to his new company (now sold out to Google of course).
Apple Book Store have annouced the new book in question can be found in fan fiction.
Mechant "has a robust body of work"
Robust?
He has a history of hostility towards Apple. Not exactly the fair and balanced historian you want to write this kind of account.
See
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/06/13/a-bad-sign
Merchant never had to claim it existed, though - up till then, he could claim
"a misunderstanding"...but that pretty well locks him into that version.
So, you think in the next couple days we'll hear him say, "my dog ate the recording"?
(He has tape of the dog, burping...)
"Can't innovate anymore my ass".
Every good implimentation has a team member(s) that doesn't believe the hype.
I think the whole extract is on the Verge or something.
It goes on to say that Phil kept hankering for the physical keyboard and finally Steve got so pissed that he said something to the effect of having to resolve this immediately and asked Phil to shut the fuck up 'cause Phil was wrong.
I'm not interested in paying $14.99 for this book.
Something similar surely happened with the new MBP. I'm convinced that internally, Apple was divided on the thinness issue.
Mechant didn't speak to Schiller; he spoke to Fadell who is denying he said any such thing. So Schiller isn't actually making anything worse because this really doesn't have anything to do with him.
My guess is that Fadell foolishly said it in a moment of grandstanding and now he has to walk it back.
Best is to verify the facts with other people that attended the early iPhone meetings. Something the author of the book should have done from the beginning …
>:x