Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians trilogy, reviews Brian Merchant's origin story of the iPhone, called The One Device, in the NY Times:
Snip:
If you've ever worked on a hopeless project that felt like it was going nowhere, you will draw spiritual strength from Merchant's account of life in the Purple trenches. It includes fascinating dead ends and might-have- beens (a prototype based on the original iPod's click wheel, backlit in blue and orange); personal sacrifices ("The iPhone is the reason I'm divorced"); obscure technical hurdles (the phone's infrared proximity sensor, which turns the screen off when it's near your head, wouldn't recognize dark hair); backstage tension at the launch (I was actually there, watching Jobs rehearse the famous iPhone keynote, but apparently missed everything); even a symbolic onstage assassination (when Jobs publicly demonstrated swiping to delete a contact, he used Apple vice president Tony Fadell's name, foreshadowing Fadell's imminent departure).