Comment by jandrese

> Jobs isn't the only guy who could have negotiated that kind of deal

This is a debatable claim.

> Apple was a second run computer company that had almost no previous phone experience. They were not exactly negotiating from a position of strength

The iPhone was not a mobile Mac. It was an iPod with an inbuilt cellphone. iPod was HUGE. That was their upper hand.

Apple in 2006 wasn’t a computer company, they were the iPod company.

It was huge as a consumer product. And that was the only thing that could convince a carrier to take a bet with Apple: they wanted exclusivity on the “next iPod”.

I would expect that being a computer company gave Apple more leverage than the handset makers. Apple could afford to have none of the providers say yes.

Moreover, Apple had prestige. It wasn't that big but it already the high-end computer maker. And Apple had the already successful ipod which served as the basis for the original iphone. And the handset makers had been fundamentally dependent on carriers in determining what features made it to the final phones - which would have had to made them essentially weaklings.

Which is to say, I think there's reason to think Apple had strength in it's negotiation position relative to a random handset maker.

Steve Jobs could say that but as the old saying goes, you are not Steve Jobs.

By the time that the iPhone was introduced, Apple was riding high on the iPod.