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Ken Kocienda
@kocienda
Working on new projects. Past: Founder at Infactory, 15 years at , inventor of iPhone autocorrect, author of “Creative Selection”.
Joined May 2008
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  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Nov 6, 2022
    No. This is false. I helped to create two different billion-user projects at Apple: WebKit and iPhone. I was on these teams from the earliest stages and I never once came close to sleeping at the office. It’s not an essential part of doing great work.
    user avatar
    Nat Friedman
    @natfriedman
    Nov 6, 2022
    This is how great new things are built, more often than anyone has been willing to say during the last decade's cultural revolution in Silicon Valley.
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Aug 28, 2022
    I’ve tweeted about this before, but when we made the original iPhone, we didn’t have product managers. We had directly responsible individuals (DRIs). Each important piece of work had a single person charged with seeing to it that the work got done. 1/
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Jun 19, 2022
    Replying to @kocienda
    The curvature of your fingers makes you think you’re touching higher up the the screen than you are. So, touches are warped to account for this. That’s why—to this day—it’s hard to target taps when you hold your phone upside down.
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  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Jun 29, 2017
    Here are two iPhone prototypes. We called them Wallabies. I used these devices to make the software keyboard.
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  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    May 17, 2022
    I see so many tweets about agile, epics, scrums, story points, etc. and none of it matters. We didn’t use any of that to ship the best products years ago at Apple.
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Jun 19, 2022
    The original iPhone didn’t have cut/copy/paste. Infamous! The quickest explanation is that I didn’t have time to do it right. I had too much keyboard, autocorrection, and text system work to do. The design team didn’t have time either. So we passed on the feature for 1.0.
    user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Jun 19, 2022
    Replying to @kocienda
    The curvature of your fingers makes you think you’re touching higher up the the screen than you are. So, touches are warped to account for this. That’s why—to this day—it’s hard to target taps when you hold your phone upside down.
    Image
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Apr 15, 2022
    I use a Mac. It’s 2022. I can search the entire contents of the internet over the network faster and in greater detail than I can search the contents of the local files on my computer. Crazy, and true, and the quality gap is huge.
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Nov 6, 2022
    Replying to @kocienda
    Aim for high quality not merely high effort.
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    May 28, 2022
    People say Steve Jobs was a product genius. Some insist on claiming he was our iPhone “product manager” too. Let’s take a look at this. How did he work?
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Mar 21, 2021
    Some fun facts. The original design was 216 pixels tall. That makes four 54 pixel rows… great! However, I found I could make the bottom row shorter by 3 pixels. It was at the edge of the device, so it was easier to target. Each of the other rows benefitted from an extra pixel.
    user avatar
    Jordan Singer
    Mainframe
    @jsngr
    Mar 20, 2021
    infinity words per minute typing on this thing
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  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Nov 6, 2022
    Replying to @kocienda
    That said, I have no problem with people who want to devote themselves to their job even more than I do. Sleep at the office if you want to or think you must. But—it’s not a requirement to doing the best work.
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Nov 6, 2022
    Replying to @kocienda
    Yes, I worked hard back then at Apple. I still do at @Humane these days. Just yesterday (a Saturday) I spent four hours at the office, but I do this because of the joy I take in the work. Then I went home and got a good night’s sleep.
  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    Jun 19, 2022
    The original iPhone had no virtual memory. Some folks came up with a system named “jetsam”. Since we only showed one app at a time, we terminated background programs when memory got low. Those programs would relaunch rather than resume when brought back to the front.
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  • user avatar
    Ken Kocienda
    @kocienda
    May 17, 2022
    Replying to @kocienda
    Do you know what worked? A clear vision. Design-led development. Weekly demos to deciders who always made the call on what to do next. Clear communication between cross functional teams. Honest feedback. Managing risk as a function of the rate of actual progress toward goals.