In 2007. And the other is his integration of each one of the technologies. And those two stories come together. Why did you take that approach and just take us back to the start of the book project itself. Guest yell. Well, so the idea for the book really kind of began with sort of the start was a ship that this thing that is so fully integrate itself into a lease my own life and the life of my peers and so on and so forth with something that it really didnt understand particularly well. A lot of us had that moment i think when we are abruptly and suddenly to go without it for a second when in this case i locked it in a cab. When i was retrieving the phone i would stand in line at dmv. Of course i jettison all my responsive as for the day immediately, put off the meetings at work, put off any other obligation. You just get the phone back. Thats what you do when you lose your phone. Its kind of like started gelling in my head like what is it about this one device that gives it his power . Theres very little else i can imagine being forced to do such a thing. And as i sort of resolved the kind of big into this too peerless green off to to understand how it works, to see it more than just a consumer product, i sort of start to realize there were two stories. There was this one story, the history of the phone itself, how will steve felt at apple. That was carefully guarded by apple itself, the corporation which is very good at controlling, keeping secretive its narrative and the other side of the story might have more work than a steve jobs keynote presentation. And then, in parallel to that theres a story about any technology has to develop, and that requires much more vast timelines, much more input, much more complexity. So i kind of wanted to look at both of them in tandem and see how one post on the other. In the way the chapters that are not about apple about sort of the development of this sort of technological buffett line that apple was then able to come along and say we want that for our phone, we want this, we want multitouch. We will use this lithium ion battery because thats who i think slender enough and powerful enough to rent. We will use this ship that uses very Little Energy but is also a formidable processor, and then theres the story to how they integrate each of those pieces which is the story in apple. I try to double. Host early on and theres this breakdown, great moment of epiphany we get your phone torn apart. Explain that and what you learned. Guest exactly. That moment came early on because it was the very first thing i did was, look at this phone, which is pretty much all screen. And say okay, the first step is to find out whats actually in this thing. So i took it to i fix it which is a Company Based in san luis obispo, its a refurbished car dealership that they kind of transformed. Its a cool place, great staff there. Their mission is to kind of keep gadgets repairable and keep transparency about whats inside them alive. What apple wants to do is make us think of this thing as something that only they can provide, only they can fix, only they can have the power to sell, market, and then put into the aftermarket. These guys are like no, no, no this is something you bought your subject this is an object that can be fixed, tweaked if you so desire so yeah i took it to them and they screwed it off. They are very skilled repair and breakdown technicians. The guy was called a teardown engineer, which is a great job title if ive ever seen one. He just had walked me through this. He said youre to be careful of these cables right on top because these connectivity multitouch sensitive if you break them your cell phone will not work. Once the screen comes up you looking at this sea of gadgets and the batteries that have a realistic and you can start leaking through. Its this whole kind of world opens up. And that was kind of the moment that really sort of set off that epiphany youre talking about what its like okay, theres a lot in your in each of these bits has a story, and that kind of more or less if you will the table of contents for the second track of the book, getting down to each of those. Host just explain what it is, what it tells us what apples culture try to depend alone a signature screw that host a pundit probably try to apple doesnt want to see anybody to open up its it was a classic steve jobs mantra, just he was quoted in the isakson biography saying like we do want to let people into our stuff because they are just going to mess it up. It will just give them an opportunity to screw it up. That has sort of been instilled into apples design process ever since. It works very nicely, part and parcel to the tendency we want something small, compact, sealed up. But the penta lobe, you cant just go to your workbench and political driver and open up your phone, even though you bought it and you own it. You have to track down this custom tool that small enough to get into the screwdrivers, diesel screw see you can open it up and it sends a message that takes someone train come take some skill. This is not for anybody. Basically they are trying a think maybe perhaps indirectly to just kind of instill this idea that its to be bought. Its the upgrade ever yupik thats not to be fixed, not to be tampered with. Adds us a lot about apple i think. More broadly host more broadly you run through some things. One of them is the myth. This goes back forever. Isaac newton, physicist, starter says 17 century that i see further than others is because on because i have stood on the shoulders of giants. But the case you make in a book with scrupulous reporting is that this is particularly true for a product like the iphone. Elaborate on that point a bit, and some of this is, they kind of build on each other. Part of why this took off as a did is because its the timing of all these things coming together gratuitously, right, and then apple putting them together. But help me out and help us out with whats so striking in the kind of the complexity of this product . Guest right. Yeah, so i fully believe that of the most important thing in this book is that in this case come in the case of apple and the case of particularly steve jobs, steve jobs let apple, that myth of the lone inventor resonated powerfully. Its a compelling narrative and its a useful narrative for marketing a product. If you have somebody who is charismatic, clearly very smart, clearly sort of a master of industry, some like steve jobs can, and sell this product antenna forever be associated with it, when thats just a shade of the story. He was certainly hands on. He had a lot to do with it, but the truth is its like even the iphone insofar as it was developed at apple never wouldve happened without scores of people working around the clock to make it happen. And thats to say nothing of those deeper trendlines were talking about. With all the prior technologies. But you know, the tenth anniversary of the iphone is coming up and we see all these stories coming out and theyll have a picture of one person can steve jobs. Hes on stage and he, you know, he gives a commanding presence out our brain, its easy for us to process that, this guy handed it dow out and now we have the iphone. But exploring how these interlocking stories of innovation sort of took place is so important because, not just on the skill of actually all the breakthroughs at apple managed to do which i did manage to really sort of further the art and a lot of really important ways. On the engineering side they managed to get this technology called multitouch which allows us to swipe, zoom, all those, and vocabulary that translates into computing. They managed to get on glass in a really interesting way that had that been done before. I kind in josh had a big role n that, has a patent. The Human Interface Team got like all did amazing work designing these human interface that sort of makes the iphone was the iphone is. It is sort of i guess its like, its called the jingle of the iphone, its so much more than that but it is what makes it memorable, what makes it the experience. The little rubber banding effect. Host that is different. You didnt have to talk about it, you hold it, this is a departure. Guest exactly. All those trendlines were talking about coming together, the battery getting smaller, process of getting compact and lowpower enough. So Everything Else is at a point so its those little elements were apple really poured its work and heart and soul into furthering that part and going, this is how were going to make it stick out the this is how were going to make it something and who wants to use. Apple doesnt deserve an immense amount of credit for that but again part of the story is that the iphone was born as like the software interaction paradigm was born to behind steve jobs back. This group of guys called the ornery team like a document in the book started basically extremity. It was free wheeling research, it was fun. It was like wild kind of stuff. They had this crazy projector rate they were using to active or products together and what would become the iphone. Steve jobs had nothing to do with that from the beginning. Once he saw it in a form that was convincing enough when the demos were good enough, they were able to convince him to take it up, not before that. So the invention comes in so many different sources and they think its just important to sort of trace some of those disparate origin stories. Host the screen, swipe, tap, so forth is the defining thing that people see. Might want to drill down all of it on one. This guy Wayne Westermann you describe his company, is sort of soccer, telesat story because it ends up being, without it there is no iphone, right . Guest exactly. As a brief process, multiTouch Technology itself, did try to trace it back as like as i could go and i visited this guys name been stumped great name. Was a pioneer in Touch Technology. Also the World Wide Web [talking over each other] guest that was a fun little anecdote that it picked up that some of the first report of multiTouch Technology ever develop was basically a stones throw away from where tim did help the web and as for the iphone does so well. It integrates web and Touch Technology so you can touch your maps online. You can move through pictures. But anyways, been stumped maintains he developed some of the earliest multiTouch Technology just decades ago and since was public, since it didnt happen this stuff, got swept up into sort slipstream of technology that would wind up later in the iphone but the guy who would put on the table so apple could see it was Wayne Westerman us this incredible story produces brilliant engineer from the midwest who comes from a family that is plagued by disability and he had severe hand disabilities. When he was a phd student he was trying to write his phd dissertation and he just couldnt write. He had to stop. He looked around at the market to see if theres any alternatives to these hard keyboards, or which at the time read more cumbersome, and there were not any. So we trained some of the algorithms that he had been working on to try to start recognizing gestures and swiping. Pretty soon he came up with this bad that led into his phd, and seemed like a pretty Good Alternative for people that this problem with her hands. Instead it just always typing it was a much lighter touch and you could do a lot of things with swiping and gestures and the vocabulary was a lot fortunate will be can do with the iphone today. But he started manufacturing this product called single word and it was beloved by a small percentage of users. People like repetitive strain injuries, and people who are kind of like into creative computing kind of editors, music, Music Software users, people who are kind of thought it was cool that you could like swiping to gestures. It was an opaque black pad that you would use next use mouse are next to the keyboard. It wasnt on the screen yet. So a Junior Engineer at apple just happened to bring one of these in an an these guys i mentioned earlier are doing this sort of freewheeling experimentation saw this Junior Engineer, the finger works at edison whats that . That looks interesting. That literally became the focal point for their experiment and that was what was under the projector when they wheeled in a Projector Screen to combine this touch sensing unit. They put a piece of paper over it and then they beamed down the home screen of amec at the time, hacked the software that so you could touch. Thats what really spark the entire trajectory of the iphone project. Host that is a great backs forever his mother, chronic back pain as well. He has history of knowing this in the family, and then its at the delaware. Its that stanford or berkeley. Really kind of cool i thought. Guest that was one of my favorite stories to dredge up. He is still at apple site couldnt interview him on the record because he was behind the titanium curtains, as they say. I was able to get in touch with his sister who kind told his families back story. And its just fascinating how it really wise, it is one of those stories of overcoming adversity to sort of produce something that ends up helping a lot of people. Its not even the iphone now. Its the same basic technology in android, and its informing the language of how we talk to computers. Host let lets jump to one e places because this is, ill just read a paragraph and then ask you to elaborate. This is bolivia. Again, just fascinating back details. Bankrolled the spanish empire for hundreds of years. In the 16th century some 60 of the worlds silver was pulled out of this area. By the 17th century the mining boom had turned it into one of biggest city in the world, 160,000 people. Local natives, african slaves in spanish settlers living there making the investor hub larger than london at the time. More would come and the nun moun would swallow many of them. Between four and 8 Million People i believe to have perished therefrom caveins, freezing and starvation. So you go down there for what reason . Guest well, it turns out that apple sources some of its ten from this mine that used to bankroll the spanish empire hundreds of years ago. The same place, which was just incredible to me. Apple published for the suppliers and smelters where sources were it and its a pleasure to its metal and one of these is sourcing its metal from this mountain. And tin mostly comes from there and that tin is used in solder which holds the components in place and does a number of other things. Its just fascinating to me that this cutting edge device, this pain that is so integral to how we kind of think of the modern moment and what ostensibly propels the future is rooted in these same minds, being mined sadly by children sometimes with hand axes like pulled out of the rock, the depth pick its easy to disconnect these two ideas, the product to its origin. Thats just at the comes out of the earth. I thought it was important to spend a chapter looking at where it really begins in a physical sense, not just the sense of its history or the idea, away the actual physical material comes from. And its not just bolivia and its not just tin. Its tungsten. Its the cobalt for the batteries. Its lithium which is one of the more one night only mined materials that still has drawbacks, and that was nearby chilly when the mine lithium in one of the driest deserts on earth. Its everywhere. There are materials being pulled from every continent on earth just about, and all sort of feet into the iphone. Host you asked a consultant to do and all in exercise about how much might come if you will, how much of the earth and water is used to produce the x number of iphones we now have. Refresh my memory. This came out, it was a big number, right . Guest its a lot. Host you have to tear up a lot of ground to get a little bit, right . Guest Something Like 75 kilos or her every tiny 129 graham iphone. You are moving a lot the birth just to do that and that meijer using a lot of toxic chemicals and he focused on the sinai because sinai is often used to extract gold. Youre producing all these byproducts. For every single one of these is an exponential amount of earth that his mind. A funny thing since i published that part, i looked and dozens of other estimates that are even worse, that are even more this was on the conservative side. Basically if youre thinking about to get the aluminum out of the earth yet to have these huge and actual operations. Done in australia, to get the gold, you are drenching or in sinai sometimes to remove the stuff. The tin is coming from the labor intensive by hand sort of loosely cooperative mining structure. Theres all these different feet in spirit we are having a big impact on the planet by creating these small slender devices. Host among, how many miles did you log . Did you ever do a rough back of the envelope kind of calculation . Guest i didnt actually but i should. I should look at the iphone gps trackers to see if i can host how many steps. Lets go to china. You did visit the plant with these things are made and you got in. You are one of the few people have done that. This guy mike daisy who wrote a play, he poses like a contractor where you just sort of, there was a porous opening such as was. Tell us that story. Guest well, ive got to give the credit to my fixer, my translator who is a journalist in shanghai. We were just, i think were kind of imposing because we tried to sort of aboveboard channeled all they did we try to get into weve been anything people at the gates, all around. We were trying just to arrange a meeting. We even met a floor manager who manages an operation is said that when my taking a somewhat unique executive approval. The security guards were not having it. We basically burnt all day doing interviews time to get in, these are interviews outside at the gate. Guest outside the gate. Host little coffee shops. Guest exactly. Theres sidewalks outside of it. Theres a structure you can walk over. Host gives the dimensions. How many, this is x number of football, it goes on forever. What it looked like and then a decent sized city, right . Guest right. From the outside its deceptive. It seems like its all walled off. The wall goes on pretty much as far as you can see and theres buildings peeking up over it, but whatll happen is after trying to get in all the had to use the bathroom, legitimately pics about a so host you with their instead of okay, well let this guy and . Guest the idea kind of was like, you know what, maybe some genuine urgency or something and it did. Translated. Theres a bathroom that we could see my translator well come right back. Will come right back. Host and no one tells you . Guest not that we know of.