It's almost unbelievable what a journey Apple with his iPhones from the first to the last generation. Although 10 years have passed since the introduction of the first iPhone last year (it was released in 2007 - editor's note) and one would say that we have already learned all the secrets about its development from the mouths of Apple engineers, the opposite is true. From time to time, a very interesting story comes to the surface, which is connected with the development of the first iPhone. And one such story is also related to the software keyboard and what it could have looked like. It is told by a now former engineer AppHello, Ken Kocienda.
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Ken Kocienda worked at the company Apple for 15 years. When he left in 2016, he decided to write a book about his work, experiences and, last but not least, practices. Steve Jobse, which for quite a long time in Applu experienced. The book is coming out on September 4th, but Kocienda has already revealed a small taste to the world.
The published passage brings us back toonec 2005, when you Applu puzzled over the graphical interface of the environment for iPhone. The brief was clear – develop a multi-touch user experience that would work across the entire screen. Of course, there were many teams working on the project, each with a different focus. Ken was on the team led by Scott Forstall, then head of software for iPhone, and his task was to design a keyboard UI. In the excerpt, Kocienda recalls his design and its subsequent removal from the table. He then went back to the drawing board and came up with a design that includes the keyboard podsatat, with which iPhone He made his debut in 2007.
This is how the original designs looked:
You can read a short excerpt from the upcoming book here:
"I was supposed to present to Scott the keyboard design I had designed this week. He was also supposed to participate in the demo." Phil Schillerwho worked in AppThe senior marketing manager. He was the man who, after Steve Jobs, had the most responsibility for presenting our products. Scott didn’t tell me why Phil was coming. But since there were multiple teams working on the designs, I expected that after everyone’s presentation that day, there would be an executive-level discussion during which they would review all the designs.
I was nervous when Scott brought Phil into the conference room. I had never met him before. But I had everything set up, everything worked, even though I made a few changes to the user interface in a few days. Scott introduced me. Phil was very polite, but you could tell he wanted to get straight to the point. After a short demo, he took his Wallaby (HTC Wallaby, editor's note) and tapped a few times. I didn't see what he wrote. He immediately asked me why I assigned multiple letters to one key. He seemed to find my keyboard strange and the suggestion needed explaining. I tried to explain to him how simple writing could be. But Phil wasn't satisfied and told me so too. That's how it was. I was surprised myself how quickly it took. We were done in 2 minutes.
It was terrible to hear Phil's opinion. Of course, he had no emotional attachment to my keyboard, it was obviously just me. I had been working on the proposal for a long time, it was something completely new and Phil didn't care. He simply could not accept my proposal, for two reasons. Phil played a key role in our future development and would have to convince people about the quality of the keyboard, which he did not believe. Second, and perhaps most importantly, he responded to everything and everyone like a potential customer. My keyboard would be part of the overall impression. Phil wasn't convinced about my keyboard, he looked confused.
A few days later I did another private presentation. This time Scott took me to see Tony Faddel, managing director of the iPod division. I have never seen him. But I didn't have to know him to know that it was about capacity. When he got my demo in hand, he barely looked at it. He didn't ask anything. The meeting was even shorter than Phil's. He couldn't even write two words. After a minute they left me in the conference room and told me to clean the Mac, the Wallaby and the wires that connected them.
Two presentations and 0 positive responses. It was clear that I didn't have the right solution. I didn't have access to the demo that was intended for Steve. Maybe we already had the right design, but Scott didn't tell me about other demos. I tried to accept the feedback and think about what to do next. At that time, I remembered Safari and the time I saw the first web pages in the browser we designed. I started thinking about my keyboard as a winning design, not a flop. But I started thinking about improvements. I had a vision right in front of me. I cut out a piece of paper about two centimeters high and 1,3 inches wide. It was a little less than half the size of a credit card. I pinned this piece of paper to the bulletin board next to my desk and kept looking at it. I had to think about the keyboard in just this small space. This should be enough. People should be able to tap here, tap there, and see what they're actually typing. Once I figured that out, I knew I had to change a lot about my original design."
In this context, the board is a drawing board, not a drawing board.
Title of the book? will it be in CZ? link?