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NOVEMBER 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
the Great Leader, but even some
otherwise sober observers have proven
susceptible to the myth.
Walter Isaacson’smegaselling biography
of Jobs, published last year, is not short on
awkward details—the Apple founder, we
learn, would occasionally soak his feet
in the toilet (“a practice that was not as
soothing for his colleagues”). But Isaacson
does li le to deflate the notion that there
was something preternatural about Jobs’
abilities. “Was he smart?” hewrites. “No, not
exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.”
When the going was good, testimony
at the Samsung trial followed suit. One
imagines that Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior
vice president of worldwide marketing,
was happy to outline his company’s
approach to market research. “We don’t
useanycustomerinputinthenew-product
process,” he testified. “We never go and ask
the customer, ‘What feature doyouwant in
the next product?’ It’s not the customer’s
job to know.” This line reinforces a trope
about the genesis of the iPhone and iPad:
that they were the result of inspiration
rather than legwork.
Similarly, Apple designer Christopher
Stringer, who showedup to court inawhite
suit andproclaimed that his job is to “imag-
ine objects that don’t exist,” would have
been applauded for staying on message.
But then Stringer’s testimony led us back
to that kitchen table, and the “brutallyhon-
est circle of debate” that transpired there.
Again, there’s nothing earthshaking
about this characterization. Common
sense tells us that Apple’s products, as
with every product that has ever come to
market, would have involved trial and error. Yet here we enter an
epistemological grayarea. It’s the difference between intuiting that an
agingHollywood actor has undergone cosmetic surgery andknowing
exactlywhat the procedureswere. Herewe get close to the discomfort
to which Apple was subjected during its legal rout of Samsung.
Nobody at Apple, surely, would have been eager to reveal descrip-
tions—and worse, images—of its aborted prototypes. There’s
something delightfully intrusive about examining these archetypal
distortions: scrawny iPhones, blocky iPhones, weird-looking iPhones
with curved glass and beveled edges. Then there’s the early version
of the iPhone dubbed “Apple Proto 0956,” an unsightly aluminum
slab that looks like the
illegitimate child of a
MacBook and Sony’s
digital Walkman.
The pressure during
the unveiling of these
prototypes must have
been immense. As
Isaacson notes, Steve
Jobs did not take a
nice-tryapproachwith
designerswho failed to
live up to expectations:
“
A person was either a
hero or a bozo, a prod-
uctwas either amazing or ...” Here the author uses a colorful adjective
suggestive of Jobs’ exacting standards.
So what we end up with a er the suit is a picture of a company
whosedesignproceduresweremorepedestrianthanthemythmakers
would have us believe. We see a teamof 15 designers si ing around a
kitchen table, not disciples or demigods but error-prone employees
working in the shadowof a demanding boss. These are the folkswho
built Apple into the world’s most valuable company—and that may
be the most compelling story yet.
Wired
special projects editor
MARK MCCLUSKY
would like to point out
that he wrote this article in one sitting, no tinkering required.
NOVEMBER CROSSWORD ANSWERS
BRIGHT IDEAS
||
TECH
iFLOPS
Over the course of
its suit against Samsung,
Apple was compelled to reveal
a host of rejected prototypes
There is something
delightfully intrusive
about examining
these archetypal
distortions: scrawny
iPhones, blocky
iPhones, weird-
looking iPhones.
