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Apr 2025
7m 9s

đŸ“± iPhone: The Device Steve Jobs Didn’t ...

Nick & Jack Studios
About this episode

Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/


Before 2007, mobile phones had tiny keyboards, crappy screens with internet so slow - you could finish a super burrito while waiting for your MySpace profile to load. Then Apple wowed the world with the iPhone: a digital Swiss Army knife that replaced cameras, maps, music players, AND created an entire new app economy. But the wildest part? Steve Jobs didn’t even want to build it
at first. Once Steve finally said ""yes,"" the real work began: a top-secret team (codename: Project Purple), some engineering dead-ends (a click wheel), and a near-impossible engineering challenge. Even then, Apple barely pulled it off — the first iPhone prototype was so flakey, one wrong tap could have sunk Steve's big reveal. Find out the (many) ways the iPhone almost failed before it even launched, what drove Steve Jobs to order 4,000 lattes, how a single device reshaped society (and your screen time), and why the iPhone is the best idea yet.


Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet for the untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — and the bold risk takers who made them go viral.


Episodes drop every Tuesday, listen here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/

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