Tony Fadell, former Apple VP who is known as “the father of the iPod,” doesn’t seem to have plans to retire anytime soon. After creating his own company and then selling it to Google, Fadell is now joining the board of directors of semiconductor company Arm, which is responsible for the widely used CPU architecture ARM.
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Former Apple VP Tony Fadell became known as “the father of the iPod.” Although he no longer has any ties with Apple, he often shares opinions on what the company has been doing. This time, Fadell shared his thoughts on the European Union’s requirement for iPhone with a USB-C port. The engineer believes that this is the “right thing” to do and that he now sees Apple in a monopolistic position.
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It’s not unusual to hear Tony Fadell talk iPod, but a 20-minute video provides a new perspective as it’s illustrated by CT scans of three different iPod models.
Fadell talks about a number of the design considerations. For example, the team was extremely nervous about the reliability of the hard drive as consumers – unused to the delicacy of such devices in such a portable product – might treat the iPod rather more casually than they would a laptop …
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We have recently been hearing rumors about Apple offering iPhone models that are only compatible with eSIM, without the physical SIM card slot. However, years before this technology even existed, Steve Jobs wished that the first iPhone didn’t have a SIM card slot.
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Tony Fadell, also known as the father of the iPod, released his new book this week called Build, which tells the story behind his 30 years working in Silicon Valley companies. Now in an interview with CNBC’s Jon Fortt, Fadell shared more details about the early stages of development of the iPod and iPhone, and also about controversial decisions by Steve Jobs.
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The father of the iPod, Tony Fadell is out today with his new book titled Build which includes 30 years of wisdom from his time as a creator and leader at Apple, working with Steve Jobs, and beyond. Written as a guide to “making things worth making,” Fadell’s book includes valuable advice on building everything from yourself and your career to products, teams, and businesses. Follow along for an in-depth interview where Fadell shares fascinating excerpts like what happened when Steve Jobs vacationed, what separates good assholes vs bad assholes, and much more.
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Tony Fadell, often referred to as the “Father of the iPod,” is releasing a new book next year. The book, entitled Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, could provide some interesting insight into the creation of the iPod and more.
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The iPod success story was far from assured, even after it was launched, says Tony Fadell, the man dubbed “father of the iPod.”
Early sales were nothing to write home about, and Fadell felt it would take three generations before the product line would take off, so he asked Apple cofounder Steve Jobs to make a promise…
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Tony Fadell — known as the “Father of the iPod” — took the day to answer on Twitter a few questions about his work at Apple with one of the most successful products in technology history. He worked at the company between 2001 and 2008 as a designer and then vice president of iPod engineering.
It scarcely seems possible now that Apple ever considered an iPhone based on a click-wheel iPod, but we actually got to see a surviving prototype earlier this year. Steve Jobs created competing teams to work on different approaches to an iPhone, and ‘father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell has spoken about this in a new interview …
Apple has hired software engineer Greg Duffy for an unknown role at the company, according to The Information. Duffy is the co-founder of Wi-Fi camera firm Dropcam which was bought by Google in 2014 after being independent for five years.
Tony Fadell hasn’t been able to shake the bad press as CEO of Nest since Google (now Alphabet) acquired his smart home accessories company, and today that story’s coming to a close as Fadell announced publicly that he’s stepping aside and ‘leaving the Nest’.
Tony Fadell, often called the “father of the iPod” and now CEO of Alphabet’s Nest, is on Bloomberg TV today to discuss his time at Apple, the future of mobility and his current effort in the connected home industry. During the interview, Fadell revealed that back in 2008, he had discussions with then Apple CEO Steve Jobs about what an ‘Apple car’ would look like and how the company could approach such a project…
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Following the Nest Cam outed by Best Buy earlier this morning, Nest did in fact take the stage today to announce its new lineup of products. Besides the Nest Cam, Tony Fadell and company showed off the 2nd generation Nest Protect smoke detector, a new mobile app for iOS and Android that brings all of the company’s new products together, and more. Unfortunately, the company’s flagship Nest Thermostat didn’t get any hardware upgrades today, but here’s what’s new…
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From 9to5Google.com:
It looks like Google may finally be preparing Glass for primetime as a number of changes around the company’s heads-up display product were revealed today. Most notably, the Glass project will be moving from the experimental Google X group to its own unit under the leadership of Tony Fadell, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Next of note, Google will end the current run of its Glass Explorers program on January 19th, removing the current version of Glass from sale to individuals; however, the WSJ includes that businesses and developers interested in purchasing Glass can still do so through an application process. The Glass at Work program, which has continued to grow, will live on beyond the Explorer Program’s imminent demise.
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Apple kept making the iPod Classic for much longer than many expected, but when it finally called time over lack of components there were still plenty of people who wanted one. The Guardian reports that some iPod Classics are now selling for up to four times the original price.
Versions of the 160GB Classic – which can hold around 40,000 songs – are being sold as new via Amazon for up to £670. More than 3,000 of the models – the seventh, final version came out in 2010 – have been sold on eBay since the Classic was retired in October, most for between £350 and £500. Even refurbished older models now cost far more than the £229 for which the later generations retailed.
While The Guardian was looking at UK prices, the same phenomenon can be seen in the US on Amazon and eBay …
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When Apple quietly pulled the iPod classic from its online store the day of the iPhone 6 event earlier this month, it meant the last iPod click wheel from Apple had finally been retired in place of touch screens and voice input. Tony Fadell, CEO of Google-acquired Nest Labs who is most known for his work in the iPod division at Apple through late 2008, spoke with Fast Company to discuss the death of the last click wheel iPod:
“I’m sad to see it go,” Fadell admits in a phone interview. “The iPod’s been a huge part of my life for the last decade. The team that worked on the iPod poured literally everything into making it what it was.” […] “Products just don’t come around like that often,” laments Fadell. “The iPod was one-in-a-million.”
Those who expressed concern about Google’s acquisition of Nest may have have been right: the company has told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it may choose to serve ads on “refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google made the statement in support of its contention that it shouldn’t have to break out ad revenue from mobile devices.
Google argued that it doesn’t make sense to break out mobile revenue since the definition of mobile will “continue to evolve” as more “smart” devices roll out.
“Our expectation is that users will be using our services and viewing our ads on an increasingly wide diversity of devices in the future,” the company said in the filing.
While the statement is purely a defensive one – the company not wanting to share more data than it has to with competitors – the specific thermostat example seems unlikely to have been chosen completely randomly.
Google added the Nest smart thermostat to Google Play three months after purchasing the company. Nest remains on sale in Apple stores, both retail and online.
Nest was created by former Apple engineer Tony Fadell, the man dubbed ‘father of the iPod.’ Fadell sought to allay concerns about Google’s acquisition of the company soon after it was announced, promising that all data collected by Nest was used only to improve the product, and that any changes to that policy would be opt-in. Nothing was said about serving non-personalized ads, however.
Update: Google gave the following statement to Engadget…
“We are in contact with the SEC to clarify the language in this 2013 filing, which does not reflect Google’s product roadmap. Nest, which we acquired after this filing was made, does not have an ads-based model and has never had any such plans.”
Google CEO Larry Page (centre) with Nest co-founders Matt Rogers amd Tony Fadell (photo: technologyreview.com)
‘Father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell (right) and the rest of the Nest team will become Google’s “core hardware group,” working on a variety of hardware projects and given access to “as many resources as it needs,” according to an unnamed source cited by TechCrunch.
The new division will still work on hardware devices, but not necessarily thermostats or smoke detectors. In fact, Google would like Fadell to work on gadgets that make more sense for the company. Will it be a phone or a tablet? It’s unclear for now […]
When it comes to budget, Google is willing to let the Nest team use as many resources as it needs. In other words, the company is getting serious about consumer hardware, and Motorola was just a false start …
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Nest CEO and ‘father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell has responded to data privacy concerns expressed after the company was acquired by Google, stating that there have not yet been any changes to the data collected by the smart thermostat and smoke detector, and that any future changes would be both transparent and opt-in.
At this point, there are no changes. The data that we collect is all about our products and improving them.
If there were ever any changes whatsoever, we would be sure to be transparent about it, number one, and number two for you to opt-in to it …
Fadell gave the assurances during an interview at the Digital-Life-Design conference (via TNW). He also said that he was excited by the conversations he’d had with Larry Page and other Google execs when discussing future plans.
We were finishing each other’s sentences, and the visions that we had were just so large and so great, and they weren’t scared by them. We were both getting exhilarated by what could change and how things could change, and that we could have the ability to change those things together.
Apple senior VP Phil Schiller unfollowed both Fadell and Nest on Twitter following the acquisition.
Schiller and Fadell on the left
Only a few days after “father of the iPod” Tony Fadell agreed to sell thermostat and smoke detector maker Nest to Google for north of three billion dollars, Apple senior vice president (and former Fadell colleague) Phil Schiller has unfollowed the Nest CEO and the Nest company on Twitter.
Here’s Schiller’s following list from a recent cache:
Google has confirmed in a press release that it is acquiring Nest Labs, the company behind Nest smart thermostats and fire alarms started by Father of the iPod Tony Fadell. Earlier reports were quickly confirmed along with the transaction price of $3.2 billion in cash in an official announcement posted on the company’s Investor website. In the statement, Google said that Fadell will be staying on board as a Google employee and continuing to run Nest:
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The Nest Protect has a nice glow :-)
We originally reported last month that Nest Labs, the company founded by famed iPod creator Tony Fadell, was readying its next product for launch soon: the smart fire detector. Nest Labs officially announced today that the ‘Nest Protect’ will be joining the lineup with the smart thermostat.
The Nest Protect detects smoke and carbon monoxide and addressses some of the flaws of modern smoke detectors and of course connects it to your iPhone in the process:
Nest believes that safety shouldn’t be annoying, so they started from scratch and built a new smoke + CO detector, the way it should be done, with advanced features under a sleek interface:
· Heads-Up: Instead of just beeping at you, Nest Protect gives you helpful vocal warnings before conditions get dangerous. And if you have more than one Nest Protect in the home, you can connect them so you’ll know where the danger is, no matter which room you’re in.
· Nest Wave: No more climbing on chairs to reach your detector. You can silence Nest Protect by simply waving at it.
· Mobile app: Get low-battery alerts and Emergency Alarm notifications on your smartphone or tablet.
· Pathlight: Nest Protect glows white as you pass under it at night, lighting your way in the dark.
The smoke + carbon monoxide detector itself has a design similar to our Apple products as it resembles Apple’s previous generation Airport Extreme base station. I really like the idea of silencing an alarm with just a wave. Wrestling with a tiny disengage button in a commotion is the last thing anyone wants. Check out availability information and the official promotional video below:
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Nest thermostat versus “ugly white crap” smoke detector
Nest Labs, the high-profile startup created by “father of the iPod” Tony Fadell, is reportedly planning to set its sights on a hi-tech smoke detector, following the successful launch of its Learning Thermostat.
Former WSJ journalist Jessica Lessin cites “people close to the startup” as saying that the new device could go on sale later this year. It’s speculated that the smoke detector would also detect carbon monoxide, and would be offered with a subscription-based monitoring service. More mundanely, it could be silenced simply by waving at it (I’m probably not the only person whose cooking requires the occasional ability to silence a smoke detector …).
And the company doesn’t plan to stop there …
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