Apple’s Jony Ive Says iPhone X Took Five Years To Develop

The iPhone X is the first smartphone from Apple to jump on the “bezel-less” bandwagon, however, the company didn’t just come up with it out of thin air after Android rivals started pushing out these handsets. At least that’s not what Apple’s design boss Jony Ive will have you believe. Ive says that it actually took Apple five years to make the iPhone X a reality, for it to go from the drawing board to the store shelves next month.

Ive said in an interview at the New Yorker TechFest that he and his team have been working on the iPhone X concept for the past five years. He mentioned that Apple had prototypes of a smartphone with a display that covers almost the entire front of the device.

“For 99% of the time, it didn’t work for us,” Ive said of the prototype processor, adding that “For the vast majority of the development cycle, all we had were things that failed. By definition, if they didn’t fail halfway through, then we’d be done.”

Apple took its time to work through those problems and was eventually able to unveil the iPhone X last month. We had been hearing rumors about a large OLED-display touting iPhone for a couple of years now so perhaps they were about those prototypes that Ive mentioned.

Apple is going to release the iPhone X next month. Supply is expected to be constrained initially due to production issues with certain components.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: iPhone X, jony ive