The launch of an iPhone without a physical keyboard was one of the best decisions that Steve Jobs imposed on the engineers working on the development of this product. Although Steve Jobs won in the end, he did not impose his point of view very easily, and a former Apple employee describes the 4-month period in which the Apple co-founder argued with the engineers on this subject.
Steve Jobs argued with Apple engineers for several months to impose the development of the iPhone without a physical keyboard, and to win he had to use the power he had within Apple. Specifically, he asked the engineers who wanted a physical keyboard to leave the room where the ideas for development were being discussed and not to return until they accepted the idea.
One of the engineers was actually kicked out of that room by Steve Jobs so that his point of view was clearly included, and from that point of view everyone understood what he wanted. Basically, Steve Jobs forced his engineers to understand the best way to develop the iPhone, and in the end his way of working proved to be the winning one.
How Steve Jobs forced the creation of the iPhone without the physical keyboard
At that point, Steve Jobs saw Blackberry as the main competitor that he had to surpass in innovation, so the elimination of the physical keyboard was an essential point for them in the new iPhone. Of course, even though people stopped complaining, that doesn't mean that the opposing opinions disappeared, but the engineers worked to produce what Steve Jobs wanted.
"It was of course: Should the iPhone have a keyboard or not? That fight raged on for around four months. It was a very ugly situation." Jobs, who had his heart set on a touchscreen, became so incensed with people disagreeing with his ideas that he enforced a blunt policy. Until you can agree with us you can't come back in this room. One person got sent out of the room and everybody got the message and fell in line."
At that time it was difficult to develop a multi-touch touchscreen for the first time, but the stubbornness of Steve Jobs led to the launch of a truly revolutionary product.
