Steve Jobs’ vision originally was to create an iPhone completely free of carriers, MacWorld reports.
According to the Silicon Valley legend, John Stanton, who spoke with Steve Jobs during the process of creating the first iPhone, the late Apple CEO was looking at developing its own network, operating on Wi-Fi spectrum.
“He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision,” Stanton revealed.
Stanton, who himself was a pillar of major carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile, spoke recently at the Law Seminars International event in Seattle, revealing the discussions he had with Steve Jobs.
The discussions the two industry legends had between 2005 and 2007 focused on the possibility of a company like Apple eliminating the existing wireless operators from the equation. Even though the original iPhone needed AT&T to conquer the market, a significant shift of power occurred in 2007.
Previously, the smartphone makers included carriers in the development process and allowed them to add features and software to the new products. Apple then decided to take control of the whole phone development process and AT&T was happy to sell merely sell the iPhone without being much involved with prototypes. Later, Android and other mobile platform handset manufacturers followed this wind of freedom and started to develop products without much carrier involvement.