Kamal Ghorui
Apple turned 50 on April 1. On Apple’s 50th birthday, popular science and technology writer David Pogue released his book ‘Apple: The First 50 Years’. The 600-page book tells Apple’s entire life story, including how it was born, nearly died, was born again under Steve Jobs, and how it became one of the most valuable companies in the world under CEO Tim Cook. The book is reported to have over 150 interviews with top executives and key personalities who shaped Apple into what it is today. ‘Apple: The First 50 Years’ is said to be full of tales of frenetic all-nighters, engineering genius, and creative rebellion that is said to be a testament of one of the world’s most-loved technology brands.Among the many stories in the book is about how a Microsoft engineer’s constant boasting about his company made the Apple founder build the iPad. Apple’s rivalry with Microsoft is quite known. According to the book, and as first reported by GeekWire, in late 2005, Steve Jobs attended the 50th birthday party of a Microsoft engineer who was the husband of a friend of his wife, Laurene. Over dinner, the Microsoft employee reportedly lectured Jobs on how Microsoft had solved the future of computing with a tablet and stylus. According to the book, much to Steve Job’s annoyance, it wasn’t the first time that he was listening to ‘Microsoft’s greatness’. Jobs had reportedly heard Microsoft’s pitch from the same person roughly ten times before.“I was so sick of it that I came home and said, ‘Fuck this, let’s show him what a tablet can really be,’” Jobs said later, as reported in the book. Next Monday, Jobs reportedly walked into Apple’s Monday morning meeting all riled up. “We need to show the world how to create a real tablet,” Jobs is said to have told his team.To him, that meant no stylus: “God gave us ten styluses,” he said, pointing at his fingers. The eventual result was the iPad, according to the book. Steve Jobs announced the original iPad on January 27, 2010. He pitched it as a “magical and revolutionary” third category of device between smartphones and laptops.
Bill Gates didn’t think much of the iPad
Bill Gates kind of dismissed the iPad when it launched. This despite the fact that Gates has been a proponent of tablet computers for years, and he was in awe of the iPhone when it first came out. But the iPad? Gates said in an interview “he isn’t sold on.” “You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard – in other words a netbook – will be the mainstream of that,” he said. “So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with my iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'”The story is one of dozens of Microsoft anecdotes that appear in Pogue’s epic book. Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates maintained a complex “frenemy” relationship, evolving from early software collaboration in the 1980s to bitter rivalry over the GUI, eventually culminating in a 1997 partnership where Microsoft saved Apple from bankruptcy. After returning to a failing Apple in 1997, Jobs reportedly negotiated a deal where Microsoft invested $150 million, ended patent lawsuits, and promised to keep developing Microsoft Office for Mac.
