Ina Fried of AllThingsD has conducted a phone interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, and Senior Vice President of iOS Software Scott Forstall, during which the Apple executives a number of comments relating to the iOS location data issue, as well as the white iPhone. For the most part, the executives simply reiterated points the company made in its earlier Q&A document, but Jobs did reveal that he expected Apple to testify before Congress about such technologies, and that he thinks it is “great that they are investigating this.” He also briefly mentioned the traffic service alluded to in the aforementioned Q&A document, saying “that is all we are going to mention at this point in time before we have something to announce,” and brushed aside a question about his timeline for returning to work full-time at the company.
Discussing the white iPhone 4, Schiller described the process of making the handset as “challenging,” saying, “it’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it–how it holds up over time… but also in how it all works with the sensors.” He added that while there were unexpected interactions between the color and various internal components, the white paint also required more UV protection than the black model.
“We thought we were there a year ago, or less than that, when we launched the iPhone 4 and we weren’t,” Schiller said, adding that the wait allowed them to deliver a product that was up to expectations. Jobs also noted that the work necessary to bring the white iPhone 4 to market benefitted the company in other areas, saying, “[w]e obviously think about this in a generic way because you have a white iPad.” Apple will launch the white iPhone 4 tomorrow.
