Ever since 1997 when he returned to Apple, Steve Jobs has used Apple's annual Macworld convention  to launch his biggest products. Last year, as the whole world now knows, the show saw the unveiling of the iPhone. Now, in an article published this month, WIRED writer Fred Vogelstein has painted a fascinating picture of the background to that historic announcement.

Vogelstein's article give Jobs full credit for singlehandedly changing the wireless industry for the good of consumers everywhere by being the first company ever to obtain a great deal from a telecom giant like AT&T, squeezing favorable terms from "one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry":

"After a year and a half of secret meetings, Jobs had finally negotiated terms with the wireless division of the telecom giant (Cingular at the time) to be the iPhone's carrier. In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone."

Vogelstein goes on to reveal that only 30 high-level employees even saw the iPhone before Jobs revealed it in public at last year's Macworld..

Read the full article.