Last night at the Computer History Museum, former New York Times reporter John Markoff interviewed some of the original engineers who work on the first iPhone that was unveiled in January 2007. Hugo Fiennes, Nitin Ganatra, and Scott Herz all talked about their own experience working on this incredible project. Then, Scott Forstall looked back at his time at the company when he was leading software development.
Scott Forstall left the company in 2012 after the release of iOS 6. Less than a year later, Apple introduced iOS 7, the biggest redesign for the operating system. With that version, Apple moved away from the famous skeuomorphic apps and switched to flat design with a big emphasis on white space and transparent user interface elements.
While Forstall didn’t really comment on his departure and iOS 7, it’s still fascinating to hear him talk about the early days of the iPhone. (And yes, it looks like he’s wearing the same shirt in yesterday’s interview and during his last WWDC presentation in 2012 pictured above)
As for the three engineers on the first panel, it’s crazy to see that they only knew about one part of the iPhone but discovered many of the things that made the iPhone special when Steve Jobs used it for the first time on stage.
If you have a couple of hours, here’s the video of the event: