The iPhone Unveiled

Like artists embarking on a world tour, Yoo Jae-won and Tiffany had spent their honeymoon on a grand scale. Now they had returned to San Francisco. The first thing the couple did upon arrival was visit her parents' home to announce that their honeymoon had gone well. Her mother had prepared a heartfelt meal for them.

After dinner, Tiffany excused herself, saying she had something to discuss with her mother, and went upstairs. Naturally, Yoo Jae-won stayed behind to share coffee with his father-in-law. During their conversation, he presented the Swiss watch he had purchased as a gift and recounted his discussion with Vice Chairman Hu Jintao in China.

“China, you say. That’s something we’ve been considering for quite some time as well.”

As expected, his father-in-law had been running the numbers on entering the Chinese market for years.

“But from what you’re telling me, it sounds like China might be trying to use us as a channel to move assets overseas.”

That was Stephen D. Fink’s assessment after hearing Yoo Jae-won’s story. China possessed an extremely closed financial system. Moving slush funds collected through back channels quickly and safely was no easy task. Small amounts could be carried as cash, but given China’s continental scale, the size of such funds easily reached trillions. For sums that large, enlisting foreign financial institutions was the fastest and safest route.

“I think so too. Still, even if we only provide the channel, the benefits are substantial. Especially since guanxi is the most important factor when doing business in China, and Vice Chairman Hu Jintao sits at the very top of that hierarchy.”

“That’s true.”

The Chinese business concept of guanxi was well-known even in America. They had witnessed countless times how obtaining a simple business permit—which normally took months through official channels—could be resolved in an instant through the right connections.

Hu Jintao was like an enormous blade: difficult to wield freely, yet a legendary sword that could cut through anything once he decided to swing it.

“Moreover, I believe there is a very high chance that Vice Chairman Hu Jintao will become China’s next leader.”

Yoo Jae-won unpacked a small bundle of information for his father-in-law. Even China experts could have predicted Hu Jintao’s rise to power. Among the capable China specialists at Blackstone, some had already voiced that possibility. But the weight of credibility was different. When Blackstone’s experts spoke, it was taken as mere speculation. When Yoo Jae-won said it, however, it carried 99.9 percent certainty.

“Understood. If my son-in-law says so, I can’t afford to sit still.”

This was not the remark of a father-in-law, but of Stephen D. Fink, Chairman of Blackstone. After weighing every factor, he had concluded that following Yoo Jae-won’s lead would be the profitable move. And once a conclusion was reached, experience had taught him that the sooner it was executed, the better.

After spending a day at his in-laws’ house, Yoo Jae-won moved into their new home, a cozy residence overlooking the Pacific. In his previous life he had lived alone, but this time he had Tiffany—and their cat, Didi—by his side.

That evening, although they had just settled into the new house, Yoo Jae-won’s routine remained unchanged. He worked in the study, whose interior was not much different from his old one. As part of the move, he had significantly upgraded the computer system. It would not be an exaggeration to call it the highest-spec PC in the world. Yet what was even more impressive was its direct connection via optical cable to the massive data center in Coyote City. Thanks to that link, even heavy programs like Next Trend ran effortlessly from this very room.

“Ah, it’s starting.”

In this cutting-edge study, what Yoo Jae-won was watching was the 2000 Las Vegas Comdex keynote. More precisely, it was Apple’s return to Comdex after a long absence.

On the stage at the 2000 Las Vegas Comdex, Steve Jobs stood delivering his presentation with unusual fervor. He wore his trademark black turtleneck, jeans, and New Balance sneakers. He was clearly building up to something, taking far longer than usual to reach the main point.

Come to think of it, Apple presenting at Comdex itself was unusual. Apple fans knew the company had its own Macworld event, where all new products were traditionally unveiled. At the first Macworld of the new millennium back in January, they had announced Mac OS X—a complete overhaul of Apple’s classic operating system—and the iPod 3, a groundbreaking media player.

Both had generated considerable excitement at launch, but now, half a year later, cooler evaluations were pouring in. Netizens were sharply criticizing that both Mac OS X and the iPod 3 had heavily referenced ID Group’s Android OS and Livepod.

It was a rather ungrateful remark for the thousand-strong development team that had created Mac OS X. After all, the kernel architecture, operational methods, and security systems were completely different from Android. The custom Xcode library and the Cocoa framework they had rebuilt from scratch shared almost nothing in common with Android.

Yet simply because the interface and icon designs looked similar, people were calling it a derivative of Android. That had to sting for both Apple’s developers and Steve Jobs.

Of course, even that criticism paled beside the fatal flaw: Apple’s proprietary system offered no meaningful advantages over PCs running Android. Apple computers had fewer applications due to their closed ecosystem and suffered from poor expandability. They should have differentiated through performance and convenience, but Android ME was so well-made that Apple couldn’t claim superiority in any category.

If Steve Jobs had been given more time, the Mac OS X interface might have been more refined and distinctly its own. Unfortunately, time was not on his side. What he had squeezed out after countless all-nighters was the very product he was about to unveil at this Comdex keynote.

“Hahaha.”

Yoo Jae-won, who had been staring intently at the monitor, burst into laughter. After Steve Jobs had built up such dramatic anticipation by boldly declaring the iPhone, the next slide naturally should have revealed its design. Instead, the screen showed what looked like the body of the first-generation iPod with a giant rotary dial from an old telephone crudely attached to it. It was an American-style joke.

After pausing briefly to let the laughter subside, Steve Jobs finally revealed the real thing.

“Oh?”

The iPhone that appeared on the main screen was now the genuine article. Yoo Jae-won leaned forward, carefully studying the device that had appeared seven years earlier than in his previous life. His first impression was that it looked thick. At a glance, it seemed to exceed one centimeter in depth. The 9:16 display module appeared to be roughly 3.8 inches, with a speaker and front camera at the top and a prominent circular home button at the bottom, making the bezels quite thick.

The T-Touch Phone had some thickness too, but the iPhone was even bulkier. If you took the joke image of the iPod with a dial and simply removed the dial while enlarging the LCD module, you would get exactly this iPhone.

Only a few years ago, phones only needed to be portable. Motorola and Nokia models had been so bulky and heavy they could have doubled as blunt weapons. By comparison, the iPhone Steve Jobs had just unveiled looked remarkably refined. It featured a glossy black finish with silver trim, creating an elegant two-tone design. The aesthetic was sophisticated, and the vertical bezels made it appear quite slim when viewed from the front.

However, knowing what the iPhone would eventually become in the future, Yoo Jae-won felt a slight sense of disappointment. There was also something strangely familiar about it. It resembled the T-Touch Phone. Both were flat rectangles with rounded corners and similarly sized LCD modules, so some similarity was inevitable. But the placement of the power ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and volume buttons was remarkably close.

“The important thing isn’t the shape.”

What mattered was the innovation that Steve Jobs kept emphasizing on screen. Could this iPhone, released seven years ahead of schedule, truly live up to the smartphone class? Yoo Jae-won watched with keen curiosity.

A few days had passed since the iPhone’s release. Apple’s pace was frantic, as if someone were chasing them. The device went on sale across America immediately after the Comdex announcement. As a result, online communities had been buzzing about the iPhone for days.

The media responded to the online buzz by flooding coverage with iPhone stories. Some articles simply rewrote Apple’s press releases, while others offered detailed hands-on analyses. There were also pieces that properly explained what a smartphone was by comparing the reigning champion—T-Touch Phone—with the new challenger.

Among them, articles that directly pitted the iPhone against the T-Touch Phone racked up the highest click counts.

In terms of the most critical component—the mobile processor—there wasn’t much difference between the T-Touch Phone’s MAP2 and the ARM11 chip inside the iPhone. In fact, the earlier MAP2 actually had higher processing speed per second. The iPhone held an edge in power consumption, which should have translated to longer battery life, yet in practice the two were similar. The LCD module consumed far more power than the processor, and both devices had comparable battery capacities.

Where Apple truly led was in graphics performance and sensors. The iPhone included GPS, accelerometer, and tilt sensors absent from the T-Touch Phone, enabling basic navigation functions. Its graphics capabilities even drew a slight gasp of admiration from Yoo Jae-won; the proper 3D acceleration allowed polygon-based games to run smoothly.

As the articles pointed out, there was still a shortage of applications that could properly utilize those sensors or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠games that fully leveraged the 3D acceleration. But those were problems time would solve.

“Apple and Steve Jobs really sharpened their blades for this one.”

That was Yoo Jae-won’s assessment after obtaining and personally testing a unit. However, his acknowledgment alone didn’t mean the iPhone had succeeded. Whether ID Group’s view that smartphones were still premature or Apple’s belief that now was the time to strike would prove correct would ultimately be decided by consumers.

Of course, Yoo Jae-won had no intention of sitting idle while waiting for that verdict.

At ID Technology, ultra-precise reverse engineering of the iPhone was already underway. If Apple had used ID Group’s technology without permission in completing the device, they would be shown exactly how hot the flames of retribution could burn.

At the same time, preparations for the T-Touch Phone’s successor were in full swing. Whether the next model would be a true smartphone or merely an upgraded version now depended solely on Yoo Jae-won’s final decision.

Yet something reached him even faster than market reaction.

It was a call from Steve Jobs.