Blackberry vs iPhone | The Jesus Phone | 2

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s late 2005, and Steve Jobs is deciding between two prototypes for an Apple phone. His choice will go on to become perhaps the best-selling product ever. Now his team just has to make the touchscreen technology work.

Thousands of miles away in Waterloo, Canada, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis can barely keep up with orders for BlackBerrys. But a scandal at the company blackens their reputation, and plants a seed of disaster between the two co-CEOs.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars at free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:13.5	A note to listeners, this episode contains adult language.
0:20.1	Late 2005, Cupertino, California.
0:23.7	Steve Jobs stands in his personal conference room with his inner circle of Apple executives.
0:28.7	Tony Fidel, who leads Apple's iPod division, hands jobs what looks like an iPod in his hands.
0:35.3	The device has a small screen, smooth silver edges and a large track wheel.
0:40.9	Jobs takes his thumb off the track wheel and looks at Fidel.
0:45.5	How the hell do you use this thing to dial a number?
0:48.2	Well, you can use the track wheel to scroll through an address book very easily. Look, you just...
0:52.7	I know that, but that's not what I asked.
0:54.7	People are going to have to dial unknown numbers at some point, like 9-1-1.
0:59.8	It takes way too long to scroll through the track wheel to select numbers.
1:03.5	This is basically an ancient rotary phone.
1:06.7	Fidel looks stumped. His team has been working on modifying the iPod into a phone for the last several months.
1:13.6	But the iPod is so popular, people are already used to the track wheel. This wouldn't be such a leap.
1:18.7	The iPod is Apple's biggest product. They're on track to sell 20 million iPods in 2005.
1:25.8	But Jobs shakes his head. This just isn't going to work.
1:30.3	Johnny, let's see what you've got.
1:32.2	Johnny Ive, Apple's chief design officer, pulls out a prototype of P2,
1:37.9	the codename given to his team's latest project.
1:40.9	The whole front of the device is a screen. There's no keyboard or track wheel.
1:46.1	There's one small round button at the bottom. He clears his throat.
	...

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