Apple’s resident master of the tap, the pinch and the zoom, Scott Forstall, has just come in second on Fast Company’s Most Creative People In Business Awards. But how did Apple’s VP of iPhone Software get an award that Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive weren’t up for?
Why’d Forstall get the award? Fast Company makes an eloquently stated case for the recognition:
Jonathan Ive’s slick designs may grab the headlines whenever Steve Jobs introduces a new product, but it’s Scott Forstall’s smart software that fills Apple’s coffers. As senior VP of iPhone software, Forstall is the chief architect of iOS, the industry-defining operating system that runs on more than 160 million iPhones, iPads, and iPods. The popularity of that tap, pinch, and swipe interface has sent Cupertino’s earnings rocketing: Revenue hit a record $26.7 billion in the last quarter of 2010; 65% of it came from sales of iOS devices. Apple’s Mac operating system is now being remodeled around Forstall’s baby, with this summer’s OS X Lion update set to include numerous features borrowed from iOS, including multitouch controls.
It’s true. While the appearance of Apple’s products often gets most of the glory, it’s the software that is really the aspect of the Apple experience that the competition still can’t come close to touching.
Many other people on Fast Company’s list actually owe their businesses to the iOS operating system. Other recipients of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People In Business Awards” include Jack Dorsey [Square, Twitter], Marcos Weskamp [Flipboard], Aaron Levie [Box.net], Kevin Systrom [Instagram], Dong Minghzhu [Gree] and Mikael Hed [Rovio]. It’s nice to see all of these guys get some recognition, not as just app devs, but shrewed, forward-thinking businessmen.
