Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

I heard an interesting story this weekend that I hadn’t heard before: Why the the iPhone has a glass screen, who makes it, and how it came into being. The kernel of the tale is this:

Steve scratches his iPhone at a game. Steve demands glass, and Apple’s engineers can’t make it happen. They’ve tried, called everyone in Japan, Germany, China and elsewhere. Nobody’s making glass with the right combination of thin, hard, transmissive, and able to be shaped and cut to precise shapes/specifications. Finally Steve personally phones the CEO of Corning, and after convincing him that it’s actually Steve Jobs, he says he’ll call back in 15.

15 minutes later, he returns Steve’s call and says they’ve got some prototype glass that’s not quite ready for the market yet, but maybe things can be worked out.

Things do get worked out, and Steve doesn’t have to make good on his threat to stop the launch of the iPhone.

Not sure if this story has any truth to it, but it’s certainly interesting. I wonder if/when/ever this will be noted in Corning’s quarterly reports.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

Climbed an 11a yesterday, with overhang. Janet was on belay, and she didn’t pull me up the wall.

Bouldering V2/3 pretty consistently too.

Love it. Love it.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

No signs, the sidewalk was not roped off.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

At this point, hacking the iPhone is pretty easy, provided you have a reasonable grasp of UNIX, Google-fu, and patience. I finally got MobileTerminal running this evening, after mucking around with various source and binary installs of the iPhone toolchain, binkit, iPHUC and other bits. The real kicker was the 1970s-era shell that you’re forced to use until you take care of the necessary bits to install Bash. Things of note:

• All the usual bin utils run fine.
• SCP, once you get it working, works fine.
• You can start graphical apps remotely, and they come up on the screen.
• You can kill them like any other process.

For the most part it’s just like any other UNIX box. I can’t wait to start mucking with UIKit.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in August 2007.