Following the depositions of former Apple head of software engineering Scott Forstall in the Epic vs. Apple case, we’ve come to learn some interesting details about the early days of the iPhone and the App Store. Now Forstall has revealed that Apple once considered letting Adobe bring Flash to iOS, but the results were “embarrassing.”
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As we shared earlier today, the macOS operating system — formerly called Mac OS X — is turning 20 years old this Wednesday, March 24, 2021. To celebrate the occasion, none other than Scott Forstall decided to use his Twitter account tonight to congratulate Mac OS X.
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Apple has always discouraged users from jailbreaking their iPhones, but that doesn’t mean that Apple engineers don’t have jailbroken iPhones for testing purposes. In a new Vice interview, Pandora executives revealed that none other than Scott Forstall suggested that they should use jailbroken iPhones to develop an iOS app before the App Store and an official iPhone SDK.
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Apple has claimed to Epic Games that it doesn’t have Scott Forstall’s phone number.
Epic is seemingly not content with being able to question Apple CEO Tim Cook for seven hours: The company also wants to do the same to former iOS SVP Scott Forstall. But it has so far been unable to contact him, and Apple says it can’t help as it doesn’t have his current phone number!
The hilarious development in the antitrust case is revealed in court papers…
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Update: Watch the full video below.
Scott Forstall, former senior vice president of iOS and one of the main creators behind the iPhone and iPad, will join Code.org’s Code “Break event” this week. Interestingly, Forstall will appear at the event alongside rapper and songwriter Macklemore.
Since departing Apple in 2012, Scott Forstall has shifted his focus primarily to Broadway production. Every so often, however, Forstall takes time in an interview to reference his days as an Apple software VP. In the latest instance of this, Forstall talks Steve Jobs, Apple TV, and more.
Written by the creator of the original iPhone keyboard, Creative Selection is available now (Amazon, iBooks) and explores Apple’s software development process for the iPhone, iPad and more.
Written by the engineer that made the original iPhone keyboard, this is my favourite book focused on the ‘modern’ Apple era. It covers Apple’s decision-making strategy under Steve Jobs, what it is like to demo for the man himself, a deep dive into how the iPhone keyboard came to be, and much more in between. Read on for my review of some of the book’s best bits.
Last night’s Computer History Museum interview with Scott Forstall was loaded with rich storytelling and candid anecdotes, and the whole thing is absolutely worth watching if you haven’t yet. Museum historian John Markoff even asked the question that was on everyone’s mind before the interview started: What does Scott Forstall think about modern iOS design?
Former iPhone software lead Scott Forstall is set to publicly discuss the origin of the iPhone next week (via MacRumors) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Forstall has generally traveled under the radar since Apple CEO Tim Cook fired him in late 2012 following the rocky Apple Maps rollout.
Having originally planned to add a new transit directions feature to Maps last year, only to pull the feature before WWDC 2014, Apple now hopes to launch its Transit service with iOS 9, according to sources. Apple currently plans to debut bus, subway, and train route navigation as the central upgrade to the Maps app in iOS 9 at WWDC, using a user interface similar to the one intended for last fall’s launch, as depicted in the screenshots above…
Scott Forstall, former Senior Vice President of iOS and one of the main creators of the iPhone and iPad, has finally spoken about Apple for the first time since leaving the company in the fall of 2012. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal primarily centered around his work on Broadway, Forstall briefly commented on Apple:
Asked about the split, Mr. Forstall said he was “so proud of the thousands of people I worked with [at Apple] and with whom I remain friends. I am delighted that they continue to turn out great and beloved products.”
Forstall’s admiration for Apple remains following a very public breakup between the executive and the company following problems with iOS 6 Maps application and the iPhone 5 launch. Since Forstall’s departure, Apple has publicly poked fun at skeuomorphic design, which was a cornerstone of Forstall’s iOS and OS X releases.
What exactly is it like to live (and work) with Apple’s new 12-inch MacBook? We’ve been using it for the last week or so and have some initial impressions to share. Along with that, it looks like Scott Forstall has surfaced, but you’ll never guess what he’s doing now. We also get into new Apple Watch availability details. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed…
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Less than 24 hours after a report surfaced revealing Scott Forstall began serving as an advisor to Snapchat last year, the former iOS chief has announced via his Twitter account an unrelated project: a Broadway musical.
I’m thrilled to be co-producing the Broadway musical Fun Home http://funhomebroadway.com opening this Sunday. Bravo to the phenomenal team!
The announcement is especially notable as it marks the first time the former Apple executive has surfaced in public since his ousting at Apple under current CEO Tim Cook in late 2012.
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Jobs and Forstall (Image via Getty)
According to a leaked email from the Sony Pictures hack, Snapchat has given former Apple executive Scott Forstall a 0.11 percent stake of its company for being an advisor. According to the email, Forstall was given his stake in early 2014 with his advisory occurring in January of that year.
Following friction between top Apple Human Interface Vice President Greg Christie and Senior Vice President Jony Ive, Apple’s hardware and software design is being dramatically shaken up, according to sources familiar with the matter. After adding human interface design direction to his responsibilities in 2012, Ive will soon completely subsume Apple’s software design group, wresting control away from long-time human interface design chief Christie, according to sources briefed on the matter. Previous to this shakeup, all Apple software design has been led by Christie, who has reported to Craig Federighi, and Ive has been attending interface design meetings and providing instruction…
Apple is readying an upgraded version of its iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Maps application for the next major release of iOS in an effort to battle Google for mobile maps supremacy, according to sources briefed on the plans. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Senior Vice Presidents Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi, and Maps head Patrice Gautier are using the new app to move toward fulfilling a promise to users that the iOS Maps application will eventually live up to the “incredibly high standard” of Apple’s customers…
Former WSJ Apple reporter/scoopster Yukari Iwatani Kane is coming out with a new book called Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs ($12.74 Amazon/$14.99 iBookstore).
We’re not sure how the book reads quite yet but this excerpt of her New Yorker piece via Fortune, doesn’t take on a very optimistic tone for the company where she once had some solid sources:
When Jobs was ousted in 1985, the impact of his absence on Apple’s business was not immediately obvious. After a slow start, Macintosh sales began rising. Two years after Jobs left, Apple’s annual sales had almost doubled compared to three years earlier, and its gross profit margin was an astonishing fifty-one per cent. Outside appearances suggested that Apple hadn’t missed a beat.
Inside Apple, employees knew differently. Something had changed. “I was let down when Steve left,” Steve Scheier, a marketing manager at Apple from 1982 to 1991, recalled. “The middle managers, the directors, and the vice presidents kept the spirit alive for a long time without his infusion, but eventually you start hiring people you shouldn’t hire. You start making mistakes you shouldn’t have made.” Scheier told me that he eventually grew tired and left. The company had “become more of a business and less of a crusade.”
So what about now? Apple’s supporters point to the company’s billions of dollars in quarterly profit and its tens of billions in revenue as proof that it continues to thrive. But Apple’s employees again know differently, despite the executive team’s best efforts to preserve Jobs’s legacy. People who shouldn’t be hired are being hired (like Apple’s former retail chief, John Browett, who tried to incorporate big-box-retailer sensibilities into Apple’s refined store experience). People who shouldn’t leave are leaving, or, in the case of the mobile-software executive Scott Forstall, being fired.
Mistakes, in turn, are being made: Apple Maps was a fiasco, and ads, like the company’s short-lived Genius ads and last summer’s self-absorbed manifesto ad, have been mediocre. Apple’s latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 7, looks pretty but is full of bugs and flaws. As for innovation, the last time Apple created something that was truly great was the original iPad, when Jobs was still alive. Although the company’s C.E.O., Tim Cook, insists otherwise, Apple seems more eager to talk about the past than about the future. Even when it refers to the future, it is more intent on showing consumers how it hasn’t changed rather than how it is evolving. The thirtieth anniversary of the Macintosh—and the “1984” ad—is not just commemorative. It is a reminder of what Apple has stopped being.
It is tough to replace the legend, but hopefully this is just the pessimistic take. We’ll have more from Kane and the book as it becomes available. It debuts March 18th from HarperCollins.
Offering somewhat of an answer to a very popular question among followers of Apple, new publication The Information is out with a report today offering a few interesting tidbits regarding Scott Forstall’s post-Apple activity.
Scott Forstall, the former SVP of iOS Software who was replaced by Craig Federighi under Tim Cook’s executive reorganization in late 2012, has reportedly been using his free time to advise startups, spend money philanthropically, and visit other countries.
Business Insider relays this message from the report:
Amir Efrati at new technology site The Information is reporting that Forstall spent the year traveling to Italy and South Africa. He also advised a few startups, and became more philanthropically involved, focusing on education, poverty, and human rights.
As for what’s next, Efrati doesn’t have any news, but he says VC firms like Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz have stayed in touch, but Apple employees think Forstall’s next move will be starting his own company.
Forstall visited the UK in June, was in Zambia in early October http://t.co/3pPXUsurer
— Michael Steeber (@MichaelSteeber) December 9, 2013
While The Information’s report is somewhat vague, it reveals more details than the very private former Apple exec has let on in the past. Check out The Information to read the full report.
For fans of books about Apple, this is a epic time. Earlier this week, Fred Vogelstein’s book Dogfight went on sale, and today, Leander Kahney’s The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products book about Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive went on sale.
Dogfight focuses on the emergence of both Apple and Google as the world’s two preeminent technology companies, and it details the competition of the two companies and the respective product development cycles of early iPhones and iPads and devices running Android. The book provides first-hand accounts of life working under Steve Jobs, and details the incredible run-up to the launch of the first iPhone in early 2007…
Henri Lamiraux, Apple’s top Vice President of Engineering for the iOS iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system has left the company, according to a source and corroborated by his LinkedIn profile.
Lamiraux confirmed his departure to me via email. He says that he retired from Apple a “couple of weeks” ago, following the release of iOS 7.0.3. Lamiraux decided a “little while ago” that iOS 7 would be his last release…
Image: reuters.com
Reuters is today running a profile on Apple CEO Tim Cook. There’s of course the inevitable angle in there: stock down, no major new products launched, questions asked about whether Cook has what it takes. But what emerges is a picture of a man who knows he isn’t Steve Jobs and isn’t trying to be.
In the day to day at Apple, Cook has established a methodical, no-nonsense style, one that’s as different as could be from that of his predecessor. Jobs’ bi-monthly iPhone software meeting, in which he would go through every planned features of the company’s flagship product, is gone. “That’s not Tim’s style at all,” said one person familiar with those meetings. “He delegates.”
Yet who also doesn’t shy away from making big decisions in tough circumstances.
[The Apple Maps fiasco] prompted him to fast-track his thinking on the future direction of the critical phone and tablet software known as iOS, a person close to Apple recounted.
Cook soon issued a public apology to customers, fired Forstall, and handed responsibility for software design to Jony Ive, a Jobs soul-mate who had previously been in charge only of hardware design.
“The vision that Tim had to involve Jony and to essentially connect two very, very important Apple initiatives or areas of focus – that was a big decision on Tim’s part and he made it independently and very, very resolutely,” said Bob Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Co. and an Apple director …
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“Can’t innovate anymore, my ass.”
Over the past few months, it feels as if Apple is on a media and publicity roadshow. Tim Cook has appeared on Rock Center, testified at the Senate’s corporate tax hearing, and was interviewed at All Things D’s D11 conference. In addition, as was mentioned during today’s Happy Hour podcast, the Apple executives took many opportunities during the WWDC keynote to speak directly to recent criticisms about their design decisions and abilities to innovate in the tech industry.
This is, quite simply, the era of unshackled and vocal Apple executives.
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With the grand unveiling of Apple’s next operating system for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch approaching, sources have provided detailed descriptions of what users and developers alike could expect from the software’s fresh look.
As we reported in April, Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive has been leading a thorough overhaul for iOS 7 that focuses on the look and feel of the iOS device software rather than on several new features.
Sources have described iOS 7 as “black, white, and flat all over.” This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements.
Sources say that over the past few months, Apple has re-architected iOS 7’s new interface several times, so until the new software is announced at WWDC, interface elements could dramatically change from what Apple has been testing internally in recent weeks.
Nonetheless, you can find what we have been hearing about iOS 7’s new user experience below:
When Jony Ive took over the role of leadership for Apple’s Human Interface in October of last year, many speculated that the style of Apple’s design language across iOS and Mac OS X would also shift towards a flatter, more clean style. This speculation was fueled mainly by Ive’s feelings towards skeuomorphism and his minimalist design aesthetic.
