WSJ Tick-Tock on Apple's iPhone/Cingular Deal
The weekend WSJ has a
tick-tock on Apple's deal for iPhone with Cingular. Some highlights:
- Cingular's CEO only saw the iPhone for the first time two weeks before launch, and Steve Jobs seemingly didn't let him touch it
- Only three Cingular execs ever saw iPhone before launch
- Apple shares a portion of the monthly subscriber revenues
- Steve repeatedly told Cingular execs during negotiations that they would never understand the Web and entertainment the way Apple did
- Jobs first pitched iPhone to Cingular in early 2005
- Jobs was adamant from the start that it be a touchscreen device
- The Cingular deal was finalized in July of 2006
- Cingular network engineers were only allowed to test a dummy phone, nothing like the real thing
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