Phil Schiller on the Launch of the Original iPhone

Apple SVP Phil Schiller sat down for an interview with Backchannel on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.

He told the site that while Apple knew the iPhone would be big, they didn't realize how big.

"We knew we were working on something important that was big to Apple, and that the world was changing around these things in the future. But we didn’t know how big it would be, and we didn’t know how many things would come from it."


Schiller also reveals that there was great internal debate on whether the iPhone would be an open or closed system. In the end, there just wasn't time to open the original iPhone to external apps.

“He [Steve Jobs] said ‘We don’t have to keep debating this because we can’t have [an open system] right now. Maybe we’ll change our mind afterwards, or maybe we won’t, but for now there isn’t one so let’s envision this world where we solve the problem with great built-in apps and a way for developers to make web apps.”

Schiller continues to talk about how the iPhone has changed over the last ten years. He hopes that in 50 years people will look back and say, "Wow, they didn’t realize how much was to come — in fact, others missed it because they were busy running around looking for other things. Everyone has their opinions at this point, but it could be that we’re only in the first minutes of the first quarter of the game. I believe this product is so great that it has many years of innovation ahead."

Much more in the full report linked below...


Read More