Motorola Invented the iPhone

The iPhone is often incorrectly remembered as a pure Apple invention, but its origin story is tangled up with a failed Motorola partnership that accidentally pushed Apple toward creating a phone of its own. This video walks through how one awkward collaboration, one flawed phone, and one perfectly timed insight helped spark the beginning of the modern smartphone era:

This is the story of how Motorola was instrumental in the creation of the original iPhone.

It all started way back in 2004. Usher was topping the charts, everyone was listening to him on their Apple iPods, and the Motorola Razr was the best selling phone in history.

Based on customer feedback, Motorola discovered that their customers wanted better music options on their phones. A few Motorola phones had limited music functionality on them, but customers were not entirely satisfied.

Ed Zander, the president of Motorola at the time, saw the opportunity to possibly merge iPod functionality into their Razr phone. He met with Steve Jobs from Apple to pitch the idea. Steve wasn’t really interested in the idea at first.

Then Ed said something that would stick with Steve forever. He said:

“When you leave your house there are three things you take with you every time: your keys, wallet, and cell phone. Your iPod is not on this list.”

At that point Steve understood the idea and immediately agreed to a partnership.

It wasn’t long, however, before problems began to arise. Steve was extremely unsatisfied with the “design by committee” approach that Motorola was taking. With so many designers working on what was dubbed the iTunes phone, the project lacked any real plan or vision.

Within just a couple of months into the Motorola project, Apple began to gather a team of engineers together to work on a highly secretive project of their own called Project Purple. This project grew quickly and eventually included over 1,000 employees.

Eventually the iTunes phone was released on September 7th, 2005 as the Motorola Rokr E1. Being the first phone to work with iTunes was certainly a revolutionary concept at the time, yet the phone itself was incredibly flawed.

The lack of vision and direction for the product was really on display. The phone was basically a rebranded Motorola E398 phone. The phone could only hold 100 songs at a time, and the lack of high speed USB support made transfers extremely slow.

What really frustrated Steve Jobs the most, however, was the poor user interface. Like most phones of the time, the interface was clunky and not at all intuitive.

The Motorola Rokr was marketed quite heavily, but sales were lackluster.

Luckily Project Purple was already underway. Though still in somewhat early stages, Apple was able to learn from many of the mistakes of the Rokr and incorporate those lessons while designing the original iPhone OS operating system.

After nearly 30 months of development, a 150 million dollar budget, and the tireless work of over 1,000 employees, the first generation iPhone was revealed to the public on January 9th, 2007.

Initial reactions to the reveal ranged from intense excitement and high expectations to a healthy dose of skepticism. The sleek design and large touchscreen interface was a big departure from the Motorola Rokr E1 and other phones of the day.

People were lining up in anticipation of getting their hands on this radical new device. Apple’s competitors, as well as a number of tech experts, were far more skeptical about the iPhone’s prospects.

Many doubted that Apple would be able to successfully break into the smartphone market already dominated by established companies like Nokia, Motorola, and BlackBerry.

Also, before the release, there was much debate concerning the initial price of the iPhone. Starting at 499 dollars and requiring a 2 year contract, it was considerably more expensive than other mobile phones at the time. While that cost may seem like a bargain today, most mobile phones back then were available for free or at a very low upfront price with a contract.

The concerns, however, proved to be mostly unfounded. The iPhone quickly gained popularity on release thanks to its radical design and user friendly interface. The phone became a huge success, and further releases helped to eventually increase Apple’s market share to over 20 percent of the worldwide mobile phone market.

What would the iPhone look like today if it wasn’t for the early missteps of the Motorola Rokr? Would the interface still look the same? Would there even be an iPhone at all?

The original iPhone played a pivotal role in reshaping not only the stagnant mobile phone industry but the way people interact with technology in general.

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Did you own an original iPhone or one of the earliest models? If so, let us know in the video comments!