United States, San Francisco, Silicon Valley.
Micfor Corporation.
After years of hard work, Micfor had once again reclaid the glory that Redfruit once enjoyed at its peak.
And under the leadership of Myron Case, the company was continuing to climb toward even greater heights.
At that very mont, Myron Case was in a cleanroom, fully suited in a dust-proof uniform, intensely overseeing the developnt of a new product.
He hadn't slept in three days and three nights.
But he seed to have boundless energy, tirelessly focused on the product's developnt.
For his employees, this was anything but easy. If the boss wasn't leaving, they didn't dare to either. Besides, with the kind of generous salary Myron Case offered, no one had the heart to just clock out.
...
Right now, in front of them, sat a mobile phone prototype completely unlike anything before it.
This was the 63rd iteration.
There had already been sixty-two previous prototypes—each tested by Myron Case personally, and each one rejected and sent back for redevelopnt.
He was a perfectionist—utterly uncompromising with even the tiniest of flaws, almost obsessively so.
Even the internal structure of the phone had to et his exact specifications. He insisted it be arranged in the most efficient layout, one he and his designers had developed through years of research.
He also proposed that the phone be fully integrated, with a built-in battery, and as simple and clean in design as possible—just like Micfor's current portable music players. Myron wanted this device to have virtually no physical buttons at all.
Of course, that wasn't entirely feasible.
But this was his lifelong ambition.
He had long predicted that the future would belong to mobile internet.
It was an incredibly forward-thinking vision, one that ca to him the mont he began exploring the internet personally.
Creating a phone that could access the internet had beco his life's dream.
But dreams don't always go smoothly.
Just when he was soaring at Redfruit, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt appeared.
With unstoppable montum, they took over the U.S. market.
At the ti, Myron Case had just completed the developnt of a small portable device and was preparing to mass-produce it and test market response.
But Gastar's sudden explosion into popularity caused a huge rift among Redfruit's shareholders.
Caught off guard by Gastar's rise, many investors began to panic.
Then ca a string of bad news—Redfruit's product market share was plumting.
Their PC division suffered due to the rise of ho consoles.
More and more consurs just wanted to play gas, and ga consoles only cost a few hundred dollars, while Redfruit PCs were priced at over a thousand. Given the choice, people naturally opted for the cheaper, more enjoyable option.
With shrinking product lines, Redfruit soon found itself in financial trouble.
Myron had invested heavily into developing new products.
But with the existing product line collapsing and new products still unfinished, the company was in a bind.
The shareholders began to panic. They demanded that Myron save the existing market, while he insisted on launching a new music player to open up new markets.
To the board, that sounded too risky.
Why gamble on a new market when the current one could still be salvaged?
After all, they had no foresight—they couldn't see which products would succeed in the future. They only saw the present.
At the ti, Surei Electronics's portable players were already popular. They feared Redfruit's new player would be crushed in comparison. Better to stay in their lane.
So shareholders even wanted to pivot into video gas, seeing how lucrative they were.
Myron argued passionately to stick with his plan.
But the company had grown too large—he no longer had full control.
He was forced to focus on preserving the existing market and begin developnt on a ga console.
In the end, Redfruit lost its market anyway, and Myron was blad for mismanagent and expelled from his own company.
It was a humiliation.
Anyone else might've collapsed.
But Myron wasn't like most people. He picked himself up quickly, built a new company from scratch, and this ti he was more cautious—only accepting investors if he could maintain full control.
And now, he had regained success, while Redfruit had completely vanished.
When Redfruit officially filed for bankruptcy and no one ca to bail it out, Myron was heartbroken.
It was like watching his own child die.
But there was nothing he could do. At the ti, trying to save Redfruit would've risked destroying his new company too.
So he had to watch as Redfruit disappeared—and in the end, he salvaged what remained: Redfruit's core PC developnt team, which he brought into Micfor to build new products.
After years of patient planning, he was finally seeing the results—and his long-held dream was about to be fulfilled.
In front of him stood the 63rd prototype of a mobile internet communication device.
A mobile phone. Or, as so companies were beginning to call it—a smartphone.
It was a simple and intuitive na, and quite accurate.
This device was his first strike into the future.
And he was extrely confident that it would succeed.
He picked up the 63rd prototype and pressed the side button. The screen lit up slowly.
On the screen, a partially bitten circular logo appeared—a symbol of imperfect beauty, a reminder that perfection was always just out of reach, yet always worth pursuing.
The phone entered the ho screen. A series of circular icons appeared.
Myron gently slid his thumb across the screen, and the interface responded instantly, following his touch in real ti.
The touch controls were flawless, the UI elegant, everything just felt right.
It was breathtaking.
Touchscreens were truly revolutionary.
Gastar Electronic Entertainnt had been remarkably forward-thinking, incorporating touchscreen technology into their gas. That had inspired Myron—he realized that touch was the future of phone interaction too.
Co to think of it, he should probably thank Gastar.
If it weren't for them, this product might never have co to life.
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