The T-Touch Frenzy
The T-Touch Phone was both a sensation and the dominant force. Anyone who needed a mobile phone wanted one. Those with sufficient means bought unlocked units from ID Flagship Stores, while others signed two-year contracts at carrier stores to obtain theirs. In exchange for staying with the same carrier for twenty-four months, they received a modest subsidy on the installment plan, making the expensive T-Touch Phone far more accessible. The model had originated with TG Mobile in Korea, and its success prompted carriers worldwide to adopt the same approach. ID Flagship Stores also offered card-company installments, yet the subsidy gap remained large. Customers flocked to carriers, who happily signed up new subscribers amid the surge.
As August drew near, however, the carriers began to panic. Supplies had run dry. ID Electronics, formed by merging Korea’s three largest electronics firms, had reorganized its mobile division to focus entirely on T-Touch Phone production. The system was still settling, but monthly output had already reached two million units and was projected to hit three million once fully stabilized. Global orders, however, had already far surpassed that figure. In July alone, ID Flagship Stores sold over one million units, while carrier outlets moved another two million. Combined, that totaled three million, and demand showed no sign of slowing.
Only a few years earlier, mobile service had been a premium offering confined to developed nations. Now even developing countries were rolling out networks, though coverage remained limited and prices steep. Only the upper class could afford it at first, yet those elites were not to be underestimated. They chose the finest products without regard to cost, and that product was unmistakably the T-Touch Phone.
With supply so tight, buyers willing to pay premiums began to appear. On P Market, T-Touch Phones listed with markups of several hundred dollars sold almost immediately. The phenomenon bordered on a full-blown syndrome.
Meanwhile, manufacturers that had rushed out new handsets suffered badly. Consumers acted as though no phone other than the T-Touch existed. Nokia released the 1630 and Motorola launched its ambitious new Razr, yet few customers bought either. Only after steep price cuts and generous terms did sales tick upward at all. Side by side with the T-Touch Phone, rival devices simply could not compete in design or performance. Pure processing power still favored certain PDAs that had evolved from electronic organizers, but their prices—well into the high thousands—kept buyers away.
In such an environment, competitors naturally cried out against ID Technology. Among them was the company whose logo was a simplified apple with a bite taken out—Apple’s Steve Jobs.
“Hmm.”
Steve Jobs, browsing internet reactions on his company’s vaunted Power Mac, felt his mood darken. Every community thread seemed to revolve around the T-Touch Phone. Consumer sentiment was one thing; the developer community was another. Stories of indie creators striking it rich with simple puzzle games that took only a few months to build were everywhere. The App Store had become an overnight sensation, and the flood of new developers was rapidly swelling the catalog of available applications.
“The growth rate is downright abnormal.”
Wrinkles creased Steve Jobs’s normally genial face. He had known about the App Store concept for some time; it was the same electronic software marketplace first introduced with the Livepod MP3 player. From the moment he saw it, he had been certain it would succeed. A convenient development environment, an astonishingly fair revenue split, and—most crucially—overwhelming device penetration. The Livepod’s lack of cellular connectivity had tempered his expectations for explosive growth, yet he had always believed that once the platform reached phones, success would be inevitable. What the T-Touch Phone was now demonstrating, however, far exceeded even his projections. He had anticipated visible results only toward the end of 2000. Instead, barely two months after launch, several apps were already generating millions of dollars in revenue. Visuald, in particular, was a runaway hit. Strolling through the park near Apple headquarters, one could hear the constant chime of exploding gems from Visuald. The sound had grown so irritating that Jobs had stopped taking his usual walks. His face had grown rounder as a result, but that was preferable to taking out his irritation on his staff.
“Still, it isn’t without weaknesses.”
Steve Jobs steeled himself. To ordinary users the T-Touch Phone was flawless, yet his engineers had found small openings. Reverse-engineering every new ID Technology product had become standard practice across the industry. Officially it was done to check for patent infringement; in reality it was a race to absorb the underlying know-how. ID Technology’s patents covered most of its innovations, and anyone who copied them risked a bruising encounter with the conglomerate’s notoriously aggressive legal team. Even so, the intangible knowledge gained from teardown reports was too valuable to ignore. Apple was no exception. Its covert reverse-engineering effort had concluded days earlier, and the resulting report now lay on Jobs’s desk.
The T-Touch Phone had proven the most difficult device ever to disassemble. Its seamless, battery-integrated design hid every screw. The secret lay in the adhesive—strong enough to hold firm, yet weakened by careful application of heat. Before discovering that method, the team had destroyed four units through brute force. Only after spending millions of won had they managed a clean separation. The result was an artistic L-shaped board, a rectangular battery, a camera module, and an elegant arrangement of chips and resistors. It was astonishing that such tiny components could deliver computer-like performance. Yet the board also contained several empty footprints. The engineers attributed them to testing or cost-cutting, but Jobs refused to accept so simple an explanation. To him they looked like deliberate provisions for the future. He already had a fair idea what components those spaces were meant to accept, and that realization had revealed the opening he needed.
“The game isn’t over yet.”
Determination settled across Steve Jobs’s features. The T-Touch Phone represented a remarkable leap, yet that very achievement would ultimately hobble ID Group—because of time. Yoo Jae-won had surely already finalized concepts for the next-generation handset. Bringing any successor to market, however, would require at least two years. The evidence lay in the carrier contracts. Most T-Touch buyers had chosen the two-year plan, and their numbers already ran into the millions. Crossing ten million was only a matter of time. These users were ID Group’s most ardent followers. Their replacement cycle would not arrive until the summer of 2001. Jobs intended to unveil a device that would redefine the very concept of the mobile phone well before that window opened. Defining exactly what that device should be had proven difficult—until the teardown report arrived and the pieces clicked into place.
A single word flashed through his mind.
“Smart…… smartphone.”
The word “smartphone” instantly organized every scattered thought. “The world’s first smartphone. Its name will be the iPhone.”
Even the model name of the legendary device had leapt fully formed from his lips. The challenge now was turning the vision into hardware. Apple’s development teams were already fully mobilized; some had been working for months. Promising prototypes existed, yet none had cleared Jobs’s exacting standards. That had been his own fault for failing to provide clear direction. Now the direction was perfect.
“Mona, call an executive meeting immediately.”
—Yes, sir.
Steve Jobs asked his secretary to summon the executives so he could share the brilliant idea that had just struck him.
“Ah, and bring Wozniak and the engineers as well. Make it a full meeting.”
—Understood. I’ll convene an expanded session.
Once the instructions were given, Jobs could no longer contain his excitement. He rose and began pacing the office. The smartphone concept—and the name iPhone—had arrived in a single, sudden flash. It had never happened to him before. He could not hide the flush of exhilaration on his face.
At the same moment, Yoo Jae-won, freshly returned from a lengthy trip to Russia, threw himself into preparations for the rapidly approaching IDDC 99. As the Group’s flagship event, the conference was already being organized at the corporate level, yet countless details still required his personal oversight. The most urgent task was finalizing the product lineup. Each affiliate had submitted its desired showcase items; Jae-won reviewed them once more and locked in the final slate. Many new products were slated for display, but the stars of IDDC 99 would be Android and ID Office. Version names had also been decided. Android Millennium Edition. Jae-won had initially resisted the “Millennium Edition” label. The term carried unfortunate baggage from his previous life—Windows Millennium Edition, the notoriously buggy operating system that had shipped during his university years. Its memory leaks were so severe that simply leaving the machine idle after boot could trigger fatal errors and the blue screen of death. Programs also failed to release memory cleanly upon exit. Running several applications quickly exhausted available RAM, forcing a reboot. Jae-won had worried that the same stigma might attach to the next Android release. Yet he could not impose a personal aversion on the entire company. Besides, Microsoft no longer existed. Stripped of that emotional baggage, “Millennium Edition” was the perfect way to commemorate the new century—and a confident declaration that this product would be nothing like its infamous predecessor. That confidence rested on the finished product itself. Android 98 had been excellent; Android ME was a dramatic leap forward. Its most significant advances were native multi-core support and the ability to address more than 4 GB of memory. The implications were straightforward: Android ME was the world’s first personal 64-bit operating system.