Apple co-founder Steve Jobs came up with the idea for the revolutionary iPhone because he “hated this guy at Microsoft,” according to Scott Forstall, the co-inventor of the product .
While the tech leader and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had an amicable rivalry that included mutual respect, Jobs really detested one Microsoft employee who was the spouse of his wife’s friend. Due to their significant others’ relationship, they were often forced to attend the same parties and events.
“Steve hated this guy at Microsoft,” Forstall said Tuesday night at the Computer History Museum in California, according to Business Insider. “Anytime he had any kind of social interaction with that guy, he’d come back pissed off.”
At one point, the Microsoft worker brazenly told Jobs that they had “solved computing” with its new Tablet PC. The devices required a stylus, a pen-like instrument used to make commands directly on the surface of the screen.
“First thing is, they’re idiots. You don’t use a stylus,” Jobs said, according to Forstall, since he felt they were not practical and people can lose them. “We’re born with 10 styluses!” he continued, allegedly around the same time he let out “a set of expletives.” (RELATED: Apple Targets Google In New Ad Campaign)
Jobs, with Forstall, would then set out to beat Microsoft by developing the best tablet. While the two were visiting a coffee shop, Jobs reportedly realized that several people didn’t seem too pleased with their phones and its capabilities.
He then asked Forstall if the technology for the tablet could fit into a smaller display, around the size of a phone. And thus the iPhone was born.
“There was no question,” Forstall said, according to Business Insider. “This is how phones need to be made.” (RELATED: What Is The ‘HomePod,’ And Why Is Apple Pegging Its Future On It?)
Ironically, roughly a few years after Jobs passed away in 2011, the company launched the Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro tablet.
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