The Internet of Things is finding its way into a host of industries, from transportation to health care to factory maintenance.
Many companies are still engaged in proofs of concept to see where the Internet of Things (IoT) can bring value to their operations and strategies, but a number of IoT apps have already taken root in a cross-section of industry sectors and are producing favorable business impact. Here are 10 good examples.
1: Transportation infrastructure
The insertion of sensors at key points of highways and railways is enabling cities to monitor the wellness of their transportation infrastructures, along with events like traffic flow and congestion. The information these IoT sensors send back to headquarters is used to notify motorists of heavy congestion points and alternate routes. It also serves as a predictive means of showing where equipment failures are imminent, so repair crews can be dispatched to fix vulnerable equipment before actual failures (and traffic stoppages) result.
2: Safety of sensitive goods during transport
Foodstuffs and medical supplies often require stringent temperature and humidity controls during storage and shipment. To facilitate climate control, logistics companies use environmentally controlled, sealed containers. The containers are equipped with sensors that emit status reports to a central network so they can be monitored for adherence to humidity and temperature controls. If the environmentals within a container begin to fail or if tampering with a closed container seal is detected, the sensors immediately send out alerts to the central network so appropriate steps can be taken. The use of IoT reduces spoilage of sensitive goods and also prevents tampering.
3: Logistics tracking and performance
Major logistics carriers now use trucks that are sensor equipped so shipments can be tracked along routes, optimum delivery routes can be used, and timeliness can be tracked. In some cases, sensors are also used to track speeds, braking habits, etc., of drivers to ensure that the safest and most environmentally friendly driving practices are used.
4: Equipment diagnostics and preventive maintenance on the factory floor
As manufacturers adopt new 21st century practices, equipment within the factory is being outfitted with sensors that automatically flash an alert into the central factory operations monitoring network when a weakening component or other failure-inducing condition is detected. In this way, manufacturers can take a machine offline, reroute manufacturing operations and repair the faulty equipment before a total failure occurs that stops production.
5: Smart street lights
Street lights with IoT capability now "communicate" with city utility managers who are miles away, sending IoT data on energy usage and enabling remote adjustments to lighting to compensate for local environmental conditions—such as dimming the lights on a moonlit night or increasing lighting during rainstorms and fog. The ability to climate-adjust street lighting economizes energy usage and reduces energy costs.
6: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
Aerial drones equipped with IoT sensors are being used by oil and gas exploration companies, mining companies, and agribusiness to chart and monitor remote, difficult to access areas and to measure elements such as soil composition and moisture content. The ability to perform these operations remotely saves field time and reduces the safety risk incurred when personnel are dispatched to remote and uncharted areas.
7: Inventory tracking during shipment
In areas of the world where the theft of inventory from trucks in transit for sale on the black market is widespread, transportation companies are attaching IoT sensors to packages and are making the practice known to locals. In one case, a transporter reported that the theft rate had fallen from 50% of inventory to 4% after IoT sensors were installed.
8: Home and business energy monitoring
Homeowners and companies are employing environmental energy monitoring with the help of IoT sensors. The devices assist them in controlling energy consumption—whether it be for an individual home, a business, or a data center.
9: Mobile device tracking
In 2014 alone, more than 10 million mobile devices were lost in the UK. The worldwide total of lost or stolen mobile devices is undoubtedly staggering. Enter IoT sensors that can be activated on these devices to at least prevent data breaches—and to possibly facilitate device retrievals.
10: Safety monitoring/tracking of Alzheimer's patients
Individuals suffering from Alzheimer's or other mentally debilitating disorders can now be tracked via IoT sensors in case they leave the home and can't find their way back. In addition, IoT sensors can serve as a safety net for potentially dangerous situations. For example they can be attached to stove gas burners in case a burner is turned on and left unattended.
It's time to think hard about the attitudes of technology companies towards privacy and security.
Apple has announced it is fighting a court order in the US which would allow authorities to gain access to the contents of an iPhone as part of a terrorist investigation.
It amazes me that technology companies can put in place encryption that prevent these type of investigations — yet under similar circumstances a warrant can allow authorities access to homes, cars and personal effects without condition or compromise.
But this incident is just one of many that involves tech companies and privacy.
And the flip side is that so many other tech companies cite the importance of privacy and security when it suits them but yet collect, aggregate, sell, decipher and use personal data to forward their own strategic and financial goals.
They track location, usage behavior, habits and desires in order to benefit advertisers and support their own business and application development. Their privacy policies even mitigate their liability from the collection and security of this data and in some cases limit their responsibility for securing customer information.
The fact is these tech companies survive and grow on disseminating personal information where is suits them, yet seem to want to be community activists when it doesn't.
They can achieve this through slick PR campaigns around encryption and fighting authorities on information disclosure — to offset the multiple legal battles in European courts and beyond that deal with customer privacy.
Years ago at a symposium a question was posed when Google was in its formative stages. Do you fear Google? It was an interesting question with even more interesting answers. I stood up and said 'Yes, because the moment you don't fear them you could regret it. By fearing them you recognize their ability to be too big and too influential within the fabric of our lives.'
Regardless of your geopolitical opinions these are fundamental question that needs to be asked. Are we now at the point where we have allowed these companies to own too much of our data without the recourse to reign them in?
As IT leaders within organizations that invariably collect information it is our duty to ask those questions of ourselves, too.
Information is valuable yet we need to be able to balance the need to understand our customers better with the basics of protecting their privacy.
At what point do we cross the line between collecting information to better inform decisions on business needs, and storing and analyzing data on individuals that compromises their understanding of what is appropriate?
The Naked CIO is an anonymous technology executive.
The letter argues that the FBI's motion to compel Apple to help unlock one of the San Bernardino terrorists' phones will "open the floodgates" to the same demands down the line.
FBI director James Comey, embroiled in a row over security and encryption
A US lawmaker has asked the FBI to drop its lawsuit compelling Apple to help unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA, 33rd) said in a letter to FBI director James Comey on Tuesday that the motion should be "withdrawn," rather than let the case "circumvent the critical and necessary policy discussions."
Lieu argued that Congress should be charged with legislating on the matter to debate "these exact issues."
It's the latest move by a member of Congress in the long-running battle between tech companies and the government on matters of encryption.
Lieu's office confirmed that the FBI had acknowledged receipt of the letter. Apple did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment, but referred back to comments Comey made on Sunday about "victims and justice."
The battle came to a head earlier this month when the FBI sought and won a motion to compel Apple to write new software that would allow federal agents to beat the security feature that erases the data on the subject phone.
The phone was used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, murdered 14 people in San Bernardino, California in December 2015.
But Apple chief executive Tim Cook said the "unprecedented" move would "undeniably create a backdoor" to its products, and would have "implications far beyond the legal case at hand."
The company said it would oppose the order. Apple has until Friday to respond to the motion.
Two lawmakers are expected to release more details on Wednesday on a draft bill that would aim to set up a national commission on balancing personal privacy with law enforcement interests.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX, 10th) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) are expected to reveal more about the proposal, which aims to go "beyond the partisan back and forth and establish this as a national priority."
Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the committee's ranking member, are said to be working on legislation that would compel tech companies to comply with orders that seek encrypted data.
A spokesperson for Burr said, however, that the draft proposals will not include criminal penalties against companies who refuse.
Lieu himself also introduced legislation, the ENCRYPT Act, earlier this month in response to state efforts by New York and California legisaltures to ban the state-wide sale of encrypted smartphones.
The next hearing in the case is expected on March 22. Apple is expected to appeal to the Ninth Circuit appeals court.
SupportPay wants to be part of your life, even if your ex doesn't.
Sheri Atwood is the rare Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose pitch includes intimate details about her family—namely, how it was broken up. Twice.
“My parents had a horrific divorce,” says the 36-year-old former Symantec Corp. executive. “It felt like the only time they communicated was in court—and when it had to do with money.”
Atwood.
Her own divorce years later, and the fact money became a constant refrain in its aftermath, gave her the idea for SupportPay. The app helps parents split the costs of raising children and review expenses productively when they disagree, rather than, say, having it out on the front lawn.
Divorced right after her 12-year-old daughter was born, Atwood recalls being surprised by how even minor money matters could fray dealings with her ex-husband. Her daughter’s school levies fines on parents whose kids aren't picked up on time—$5 for every five minutes after 6 p.m. and an additional $5 for every tardy minute after 6:15 p.m. While tuition is her responsibility, school pick-ups are his. The cost of too many late arrivals, like other incidentals, could quickly become infuriating, she says.
With SupportPay, parents can upload a receipt, send the ex a bill, and “never have a conversation,” Atwood says. The app is designed to forestall the resentment that can quietly build between divorced parents who might otherwise be on the same page, at least as far as the kids are concerned.
Child-support agreements typically require one parent to pay the other a set amount—often twice a month—for such basics as food, clothing, and shelter. SupportPay can automatically manage those payments through PayPal. Legal agreements usually require parents to split further costs, from extracurricular activities and child care to medical expenses, as they arise. These can create the most conflict: Does little Liam really need a math tutor? Is his soccer summer camp worth $700 a week?
While a judge has final say, the app is designed to prevent such squabbles from going that far. It lets parents dispute expenses before paying them, although they have to provide reasons and propose alternatives. Olivia Haugher, a mother of three who uses SupportPay, says her ex-husband makes use of the dispute function, though the issue “usually does get resolved.” She contends that he objected to a bill for their 17-year-old son’s school trip to Costa Rica. They had agreed to split the cost, but it ended up totaling more than she had calculated. Once she used the app to explain the reasons—her son needed spending money and a stipend for his sponsor family—her ex sent the money.
The app stops such fights from happening near the kids, Haugher said—and ends the frustration when someone forgets their checkbook or misses an e-mail. “It basically has helped us communicate better,” she says. And because she can send receipts and other detailed information through the app, “he gets to see how expensive the kids are.''
The SupportPay app
When parents don’t pay child support, “it’s usually not about money,” says Ryan Falvey, managing director at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Last year, the Chicago-based nonprofit named SupportPay winner of a competition among digital services that help low- and middle-income families better manage finances. When it comes to child support, Falvey says parents often just want to know where the money is going, in order to make sure it’s going to their kids. “This might be where technology can solve things in a big way, just by connecting people to information,” he says.
Launched two years ago, SupportPay had 36,000 parent users in January, up from 12,000 in March 2015. It’s currently the only product of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Ittavi Inc., which has nine full-time employees and four contractors. The company, which expects former couples to send $900 million through the platform this year, was started with $3 million in seed money from venture capital firms that include Draper Associates, Salesforce, Aspect Ventures, and Fenway Summer Ventures. It's currently raising as much as $5 million in series A funding aimed at sustaining the company until it’s profitable, said Atwood, who is chief executive officer.
Use of SupportPay was free until September, when the company started charging. Some 23 percent of users chose to pay for premium versions starting at $120 a year, the company says. Paying that much allows them to dispute an ex's expenses and store records over the long term. Another $36 a year gets users the “legal” version, which lets them make records available to divorce attorneys or mediators. A “lite” version, which keeps only six months of records, is still free.
Records are crucial if divorced couples end up back in court. Payers of child support must be able to prove they've made every required payment, or judges can demand they catch up or even garnish their wages, says Derek Austin, a divorce attorney with Austin & Plate P.C. in San Jose, Calif., who has advised SupportPay.
SupportPay is hoping to become part of the divorce court infrastructure, getting itself included as part of child-support agreements. To that end, the company has built a “family law network” of more than 3,200 divorce attorneys, mediators, judges, and financial advisers, up from about 500 in March. Austin touts the app as a less-harsh alternative to wage garnishment, but one that still ensures the money will arrive on time. “When people have had a relationship and don’t any longer, paying money can be very hard to do,” Austin says. “I use it as a tool to manage relationships.”
For many divorced couples, however, SupportPay is less a way to resolve disputes than a tool to organize lives complicated by a failed marriage. Andrew Williams, a father of four from Modesto, Calif., gets along well with his ex-wife but uses SupportPay to store and organize everything they share, including their divorce agreement and their children’s report cards and school bills. “Now everything is centralized,” he says. “There is no worry about losing a file,” as could have happened when his former spouse’s computer crashed recently.
Atwood says SupportPay is designed so parents can share as much or as little as they want with their exes. One planned enhancement would offer an easier way for parents to save together, connecting financial accounts to SupportPay while sharing only certain details. “How do you save for college together when you don’t like each other?” Atwood asks.
Williams says he plans to remain a SupportPay customer even after July, when his youngest son turns 18 and child-support payments end. He and his ex will still be sharing the cost of the family dogs—a nine-year-old Pug and a five-year-old German Shepherd, both of which live with him.
For now, he says, “I’m paying her child support, and she’s paying dog support."
Mark Kaelin has been playing video games since the 1970s. Despite the typical gamer stereotype, he thinks gaming can teach some important career skills.
I have been playing computer video games for more than 30 years now—it is one of my favorite hobbies. The interesting thing about playing games for so long is that through games I have trained my brain to process complex, sometimes seemingly unrelated data into actionable information—a skill that has proven invaluable for my career.
As Steve Johnson explained in Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, playing games provides tools needed for a successful career in information technology. Along the way, games have also taught me many lessons about life, work, and problem solving. Here are 10 things I learned from being a gamer all these years.
1: There is no such thing as it can't be done
At one point or another in our interactions with colleagues within an enterprise we have all heard the dreaded phrase: "It can't be done!" Of course, this is a lie because anything can be done. If games teach us anything, it is that anything is possible.
What the "can't be done" crowd is really saying is "We have never done it that way before so we are reluctant to try something new." As a seasoned gamer, I know that attitude is a recipe for failure. The real question is not "can" something be done, but rather "should" it be done.
2: The obvious solution is not always the best solution
When solving a problem, there is often an obvious, safe, and conventional solution. I remember an old saying in IT: No one ever lost their job by buying equipment from IBM. But that doesn't mean the safe answer is always the best answer. Sometimes you have to take a chance on the unconventional answer, on the answer that requires a certain amount of risk. Whether it is a computer game or the game of life, the riskier solution is often the most rewarding.
3: You should observe before you act
This lesson may seem counter to the previous one, but they go hand in hand. Choosing a solution with more risk is advisable only after you have taken the time to observe and study the possible outcomes. Bad things happen when you act impulsively. Taking time to contemplate all the potential outcomes allows you to make informed decisions that have predictable outcomes. Taking risks is important, but they should always be calculated risks.
4: Sometimes it is better to say nothing
Often when playing a role-playing game there is an option to say nothing as another character goes on a rant. In fact, saying nothing is often the best option. This is true in the enterprise environment as well.
Letting your boss or your coworker blow off steam without any input, encouragement, or discouragement from you can be your best choice. In many cases there is no reason for you to insert yourself into the situation. Your wisest choice is to observe, listen, and let it play out.
5: It's important to pick your battles
Just like in a game world, in the enterprise environment part of your worth is measured in your reputation with your colleagues. You spend time and effort every day building up a rapport with the people your work with. This goodwill should be spent only on important battles within the organization.
Realizing that some battles can't be won and that other battles are not worth fighting in the first place can help you preserve your goodwill for later, more meaningful battles. Swallow your pride and pick your battles wisely.
6: It's best to stay true to your character
One of the first choices you have to make in a role-playing game is how your character will present itself to the world. Will you be a hero with noble intentions of righting wrongs or will you be a brooding anti-hero who solves problems with noticeable indifference?
Working in an enterprise also requires you to decide how you will interact with your colleagues. In the long term, the choices you make for the enterprise should reflect your true personality. If you are the helpful type, you should be true to your character and be helpful. However, if your personality is a bit prickly, you might have to adopt a more appropriate role within the organization—a role that matches your natural predilections.
7: A strategic plan will help guide your decisions
When you play a game there is almost always an overarching storyline, quest, or goal. All the smaller storylines, quests, and goals you encounter along the way are there to move you toward that ultimate goal. There is always a strategic plan.
Enterprises also have overarching strategic plans. All the decisions you make in an enterprise, no matter your level within the organization, should be made with that strategic plan in mind. It doesn't matter whether you are in charge of buying staples or buying billion dollar pieces of equipment—you should always make decisions based on the strategic plan.
8: A tactical plan will help get things done
While keeping the strategic plan in mind is all well and good, actually getting something done requires a tactical plan. When we talk about teamwork and collaboration in the enterprise we are really talking about the implementation of a tactical plan.
By forming a tactical plan, everyone knows what is expected of them, and more important, what is expected of everyone else. The key to any plan is that everyone involved accomplishes their assigned task. Creating a workable tactical plan is the bedrock for getting things done whether in a game or in an enterprise.
9: Plans never survive intact
This lesson tends to cause tremendous amounts of frustration for many gamers and enterprise employees alike. Simply put: No plan, no matter how well thought out, will survive its implementation intact. This is probably the most difficult lesson to accept.
As your tactical or strategic plan is implemented, facts and circumstances are going to change. Results that seemed self-evident at the start will fail to materialize and events that seemed impossible during planning will take place like they were always meant to be. This is how life (and games) works and you must learn to prepare for it and embrace it.
10. Having fun is essential
The last lesson is a follow up to the previous one. Life is going to throw you a curve ball from time to time. There will be obstacles to overcome, there will be hardships, and there will be moments of frustration, but you must keep your perspective. You can't take yourself too seriously.
All these obstacles are what make the game interesting. It doesn't matter whether the game is on your computer or not. Life, real or imagined, is unpredictable. Overcoming life's twist and turns is what makes it engaging. That is the fun part.
A visit with Cupertino’s chief chipmaker, Johny Srouji.
A little over a year ago, Apple had a problem: The iPad Pro was behind schedule. Elements of the hardware, software, and accompanying stylus weren’t going to be ready for a release in the spring. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and his top lieutenants had to delay the unveiling until the fall. That gave most of Apple’s engineers more time. It gave a little-known executive named Johny Srouji much less.
Srouji is the senior vice president for hardware technologies at Apple. He runs the division that makes processor chips, the silicon brains inside the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. The original plan was to introduce the iPad Pro with Apple’s tablet chip, the A8X, the same processor that powered the iPad Air 2, introduced in 2014. But delaying until fall meant that the Pro would make its debut alongside the iPhone 6s, which was going to use a newer, faster phone chip called the A9.
This is the stuff that keeps technology executives up at night. The iPad Pro was important: It was Apple’s attempt to sell tablets to business customers. And it would look feeble next to the iPhone 6s. So Srouji put his engineers on a crash program to move up the rollout of a new tablet processor, the A9X, by half a year. The engineers finished in time, and the Pro hit the market with the faster chip and a 12.9-inch display packed with 5.6 million pixels.
Srouji was nicely rewarded for his efforts. In December he became the newest member of Cook’s management team and received about 90,000 additional shares of Apple stock, which vest over a four-year period.
He also stepped into the kind of spotlight he’s avoided since joining Apple in 2008. Srouji runs what is probably the most important and least understood division inside the world’s most profitable company. Since 2010, when his team produced the A4 chip for the original iPad, Apple has immersed itself in the costly and complex science of silicon. It develops specialized microprocessors as a way to distinguish its products from the competition. The Apple-designed circuits allow the company to customize products to perfectly match the features of its software, while tightly controlling the critical trade-off between speed and battery consumption. Among the components on its chip (technically called a “system on a chip,” or SOC) are an image signal processor and a storage controller, which let Apple tailor useful functions for taking and storing photos, such as the rapid-fire “burst mode” introduced with the iPhone 5s. Engineers and designers can work on features like that years in advance without prematurely notifying vendors—especially Samsung, which manufactures many of Apple’s chips.
At the center of all this is Srouji, 51, an Israeli who joined Apple after jobs at Intel and IBM. He’s compact, he’s intense, and he speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and French. His English is lightly accented and, when the subject has anything to do with Apple, nonspecific bordering on koanlike. “Hard is good. Easy is a waste of time,” he says when asked about increasingly thin iPhone designs. “The chip architects at Apple are artists, the engineers are wizards,” he answers another question. He’ll elaborate a bit when the topic is general. “When designers say, ‘This is hard,’ ” he says, “my rule of thumb is if it’s not gated by physics, that means it’s hard but doable.”
Srouji recently spent several hours with Bloomberg Businessweek over several days and guided a tour of Apple chip facilities in Cupertino, Calif., and Herzliya, Israel. This was, no doubt, strategic. Investors have battered Apple stock over the past year, sending it down more than 25 percent. Most people are already pretty satisfied with their phones, the criticism goes, and aren’t compelled to spend an additional few hundred bucks on an upgrade. (In March, Apple intends to announce an updated iPad and smaller-screen iPhone featuring the latest A9x and A9 chips, according to a person familiar with the plans, who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly.)
Apple’s usual response is to point to Jony Ive and his team of fastidiously cool, Wallabee-shod industrial designers, or to highlight elegantly tooled aluminum or an app or some new feature or gadget. There’s always something new to show off. But none of that has ever explained anything about a crucial part of Apple’s profit machine: its chips.
“I think it’s too good of a story not to be told at this stage,” Srouji says. “Hopefully, we won’t reveal too much.”
This is the stuff that keeps technology executives up at night. The iPad Pro was important: It was Apple’s attempt to sell tablets to business customers. And it would look feeble next to theiPhone 6s. So Srouji put his engineers on a crash program to move up the rollout of a new tablet processor, the A9X, by half a year. The engineers finished in time, and the Pro hit the market with the faster chip and a 12.9-inch display packed with 5.6 million pixels.
Srouji was nicely rewarded for his efforts. In December he became the newest member ofCook’s management team and received about 90,000 additional shares of Apple stock, which vest over a four-year period.
He also stepped into the kind of spotlight he’s avoided since joining Apple in 2008. Srouji runs what is probably the most important and least understood division inside the world’s most profitable company. Since 2010, when his team produced the A4 chip for the original iPad, Apple has immersed itself in the costly and complex science of silicon. It develops specialized microprocessors as a way to distinguish its products from the competition. The Apple-designed circuits allow the company to customize products to perfectly match the features of its software, while tightly controlling the critical trade-off between speed and battery consumption. Among the components on its chip (technically called a “system on a chip,” or SOC) are an image signal processor and a storage controller, which let Apple tailor useful functions for taking and storing photos, such as the rapid-fire “burst mode” introduced with the iPhone 5s. Engineers and designers can work on features like that years in advance without prematurely notifying vendors—especially Samsung, which manufactures many of Apple’s chips.
At the center of all this is Srouji, 51, an Israeli who joined Apple after jobs at Intel and IBM. He’s compact, he’s intense, and he speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and French. His English is lightly accented and, when the subject has anything to do with Apple, nonspecific bordering on koanlike. “Hard is good. Easy is a waste of time,” he says when asked about increasingly thin iPhone designs. “The chip architects at Apple are artists, the engineers are wizards,” he answers another question. He’ll elaborate a bit when the topic is general. “When designers say, ‘This is hard,’ ” he says, “my rule of thumb is if it’s not gated by physics, that means it’s hard but doable.”
Srouji recently spent several hours with Bloomberg Businessweek over several days and guided a tour of Apple chip facilities in Cupertino, Calif., and Herzliya, Israel. This was, no doubt, strategic. Investors have battered Apple stock over the past year, sending it down more than 25 percent. Most people are already pretty satisfied with their phones, the criticism goes, and aren’t compelled to spend an additional few hundred bucks on an upgrade. (In March, Apple intends to announce an updated iPad and smaller-screen iPhone featuring the latest A9x and A9 chips, according to a person familiar with the plans, who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly.)
Apple’s usual response is to point to Jony Ive and his team of fastidiously cool, Wallabee-shod industrial designers, or to highlight elegantly tooled aluminum or an app or some new feature or gadget. There’s always something new to show off. But none of that has ever explained anything about a crucial part of Apple’s profit machine: its chips.
“I think it’s too good of a story not to be told at this stage,” Srouji says. “Hopefully, we won’t reveal too much.”
In Israel, Srouji (second from left) and Cook (right) with Apple employees.
When the original iPhone came out in 2007, Steve Jobs was well aware of its flaws. It had no front camera, measly battery life, and a slow 2G connection from AT&T. It was also underpowered. A former Apple engineer who worked on the device said that while the handset was a breakthrough technology, it was limited because it pieced together components from different vendors, including elements from a Samsung chip used in DVD players. “Steve came to the conclusion that the only way for Apple to really differentiate and deliver something truly unique and truly great, you have to own your own silicon,” Srouji says. “You have to control and own it.”
One of Jobs’s trusted advisers, Bob Mansfield, Apple’s top hardware executive at the time, recruited Srouji to lead that effort. Srouji, then at IBM, was a rising star in the arcane world of semiconductor engineering. Mansfield promised him an opportunity to build something from scratch.
The decision to design semiconductors was risky. About the size of a small postage stamp, the microprocessor is the most important component of any computing device. It does the work that makes playing games, posting to Facebook, sending texts, and taking pictures seem easy. Small currents of energy move from the battery through hundreds of millions of tiny transistors, triggering commands and responses in nanoseconds. It’s like an intricate city design that fits on the tip of your finger. When the chip isn’t doing its job efficiently, the device feels sluggish, crashes, or makes users want to throw it against a wall.
If there’s a bug in software, you simply release a corrected version. It’s different with hardware. “You get one transistor wrong, it’s done, game over,” Srouji says. “Each one of those transistors has to work. Silicon is very unforgiving.” Among computer and smartphone makers, industry practice is to leave the processors to specialists such as Intel, Qualcomm, or Samsung, which sink billions into getting the chips right and making them inexpensively. (Apple used to co-design processors for the Macintosh, but Jobs abandoned the work in 2005 in favor of more powerful models from Intel, whose chips still power all Macs.)
When Srouji joined Apple, the company had a group of about 40 engineers working on integrating chips from various vendors into the iPhone. That grew by about 150 people in April 2008, after Apple acquired a Silicon Valley chip startup called P.A. Semi, which had a power-efficient semiconductor design. Srouji’s team found itself interacting regularly with other departments, from software programmers, who wanted chip support for new features, to Ive’s industrial designers, who wanted help making the phones flatter and sleeker. An engineer who sat in on Srouji’s meetings remembers senior managers preparing extensively for presentations, because his support was critical for getting new features approved. He was known for peppering engineers with technically sophisticated questions, particularly about contingency options if something didn’t work out as planned. He’d ask, for example, if a different form of plastic could be used that wouldn’t interfere with another component.
“The only way for Apple to really differentiate and deliver something truly unique and truly great, you have to own your own silicon”
The first public signs of Srouji’s work came in 2010 with the debut of the iPad and iPhone 4. The processor, the A4, was a modified version of a design from ARM Holdings, a British company that licenses mobile technology. The A4 was designed to power the handset’s new high-definition “retina display.” Srouji says it was a race to get that first system-on-a-chip produced. “The airplane was taking off, and I was building the runway just in time,” he says.
Over the next few years, Apple kept making improvements to its designs, introducing chips to accommodate fingerprint identification, video calling, and Siri, the iPhone’s voice-activated assistant, among other enhancements. When the companies using Google’s Android operating system started making tablets, they mostly used conventional mobile phone processors. Starting with the third-generation iPad in 2012, Srouji’s team designed specific chips (the A5x and A6x) to give the tablet the same pixel-packing high-definition screens as the iPhone.
These mysterious semiconductors coming from Apple were the curiosity of the tech industry, but it wasn’t until the release of the iPhone 5s in 2013 that rivals really started to pay attention. The phone featured the A7 processor, the first smartphone chip with 64 bits—double the 32-bit standard at the time. The new technology allowed for entirely new features, such as Apple Pay and the Touch ID fingerprint scanner. Developers had to rewrite applications to account for the new standard, but it gave way to smoother maps, cooler video games, and generally more responsive apps that don’t hog as much memory. (Apple’s control over hardware and software is also useful for encrypting everything on the device, a capability that has landed the company in a controversy: On Feb. 16, a judge ruled that Apple must help the FBI unlock an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple is fighting the order, saying it would set a precedent that would undermine the privacy of all its customers.)
Qualcomm, then as now the biggest designer of phone chips, made the expensive decision to scrap development of its 32-bit chips and put all its resources into catching up. Handset companies all “wanted the shiny new thing,” says Ryan Smith, the editor-in-chief of AnandTech, a website that publishes exhaustive reviews of semiconductor designs. “The A7 really turned the world upside down.”
Srouji can’t restrain a smile when recalling competitors’ reactions to Apple’s 64-bit surprise. “When we pick something,” he says, “it’s because we think there’s a problem that nobody can do, or there is some idea that’s so unique and differentiating that the best way to do it is you have to do it yourself.”
Chip-durability testing at an unmarked Apple lab in Cupertino.
Srouji was born in Haifa, a port city in northern Israel. He was the third child of four. His family was Christian Arab, a minority within a minority in the Jewish state. “Haifa is one of the most integrated cities in Israel,” he says. “You have Christians, you have Muslims, Jews, Bahá’ís, you have any religion you want, and everyone lives together in peaceful harmony. Integration worked for me.”
Srouji’s father owned a metal pattern-making business outside the city, and from age 10, Srouji spent weekends and summers helping him pattern wooden moldings that were used to make engine parts, medical equipment, and other machinery. His father had an unusual philosophy: He would undercharge customers for complicated work while overcharging for easier jobs. “If there was a very complex thing that he’d never done, he wanted to do it,” Srouji says.
His father, who died in 2000, constantly reminded him not to get comfortable in the family business. Education was more important. In high school, Srouji got perfect grades in math, physics, chemistry, and science. He was introduced to computers by an instructor who also taught at the nearby Technion Israel Institute of Technology, one of the world’s top engineering schools. “I fell in love,” Srouji says.
He enrolled at the Technion, spent late nights in the computer lab drafting out code in pencil, and earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in computer science. His master’s thesis was on new techniques for testing software and hardware systems. “At the time it was very progressive,” says Orna Berry, general manager of the EMC Center of Excellence in Israel and corporate vice president of innovation, who met Srouji at the Technion. “I’m not surprised he is where he is.”
After graduating, Srouji got a job with IBM, which had placed its largest non-U.S. research facility in Haifa, the better to attract the big brains coming out of the Technion and other Israeli universities. He researched distributed systems, an emerging field in which computers in different locations are networked together to complete computationally intensive assignments. Ensuring the machines communicated correctly required skill building hardware and writing software algorithms.
“Sometimes I wondered—when he got an assignment and within a day it was complete and perfect—if he was brilliant or just didn’t sleep at night,” says Srouji’s first boss, Oded Cohn, vice president and lab director for IBM Haifa Research. “In some cases, the conclusion was both.”
Although Israel grapples with Jewish-Arab tensions all the time, none of it mattered in Srouji’s world. Cohn, who remains friends with him, says their different backgrounds never came up. “Technical people treat technical people based on personality and technical ability,” he says. “You don’t think about it. You just work together. The rest goes away.”
In 1993, Srouji left IBM for Intel, where he created techniques for running simulations that test the strength of semiconductor designs. During a visit to the U.S. in 1999, he used a 20-minute car ride with a manager, fellow Israeli Uri Weiser, to lobby for a three-year stint at Intel’s research hub in Austin. Assuming Srouji was also Jewish, Weiser invited him to an Israeli Memorial Day celebration at a synagogue in Texas.
“He looked at me and said, ‘I’m a Christian Arab,’ ” recalls Weiser, who gave Srouji the Texas assignment. “I said, ‘Well, come and join and learn about your environment,’ and he said OK. He was there sitting with a kippah in the synagogue and following everything.”
Standing in an aisle, surrounded by exposed circuit boards and digital innards, is like being inside the Matrix. “No one has seen this before,” Srouji says
Srouji lives a few miles from Apple’s headquarters at One Infinite Loop, Cupertino. He drives a black Mercedes-Benz and relaxes by lifting weights and riding his bike on weekends. He smiles easily, warmly touches a reporter’s shoulder when sharing a laugh, blushes at compliments, and absolutely clams up when he’s asked about anything that could remotely be considered a corporate secret. “I don’t want to go into too much detail on that” is a common refrain.
Friends have noticed the heightened discretion. Srouji once invited his former Intel colleague, Weiser, to give a speech about chip development at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. After the presentation, an assistant escorted Weiser to Srouji’s empty office, where he noticed that the papers on the desk were all turned upside down. Then Srouji entered the room and told Weiser he had to move. “He said, ‘We are at Apple, you can’t sit here,’ ” Weiser recalls. “He offered me to sit with his secretary and said, ‘If you want to go to the bathroom, she will escort you.’ ”
One morning in February, Srouji conducts a brief tour of his domain, which is scattered in unmarked locations around Silicon Valley. A shuttle bus leaves One Infinite Loop and drives 10 minutes through a series of residential neighborhoods to a low-rise office building near the Santa Clara city limits.
One of his deputies greets Srouji at the bus and badges through several locked doors into a room where future chip designs are being tested. The building is eerily quiet and still, save for the hum of air conditioners and the blinking red and green lights of large dark boxes that are stacked together and resemble Zambonis. The room is Apple-white and clean, but not tidy; thick wires and large plugs lie around. Old, unused Macs are lined up on a shelf like books that have already been read. All the equipment is operated remotely. The boxes are running software that scans for possible flaws in the chip architecture. Testing proceeds for several days on one element of the chip, then moves on to the next, and then the next, until the process is done, which can take months. “We beat the silicon as much as we can,” Srouji says. “If you’re lucky and rigorous, you find the mistakes before you ship.”
In an adjacent room, circuit boards are wired together in milk carton-size stacks to simulate the capabilities of a future iPhone or iPad. Apple’s software programmers, sitting anywhere in the world, can remotely test how their code holds up against a future chip design.
Then the shuttle takes Srouji a few more miles away, to another unmarked building, where rows of customized Mac Minis are testing prototype chips under various temperature and pressure conditions. Standing in an aisle, surrounded by exposed circuit boards and digital innards, is like being inside the Matrix. “No one has seen this before,” Srouji says.
Everything looks exceedingly complicated. Srouji won’t discuss costs, but Apple’s research and development expenses hit $8.1 billion last year, up from $6 billion in 2014 and $4.5 billion in 2013. Many analysts attribute the rise in large part to chip development. All Srouji will say about his budget is that Cook doesn’t scrutinize it. “I run it very tight,” he says. “I truly believe that engineers will do their best when they are constrained by either money, tools, or resources. If you become sloppy because you have too much money, that’s the wrong mindset.”
Apple isn’t completely in charge of its own destiny. It remains in many ways a prisoner of its supply chain. Displays come from Samsung, and cellular modems from Qualcomm. Samsung and TSMC, based in Taiwan, still manufacture the processors. Apple’s ability to keep up with demand is in part dependent on the production capacity of those companies. It also lags behind Samsung in some areas of chip development, such as adding a modem to the central processor to conserve space and power and transitioning from a 20-nanometer chip design to a more compact 16-nanometer format, which means even more transistors can be crammed into a smaller space. “If I was just arguing hardware and not Apple’s marketing, I would say Samsung has the best processor,” says Mike Demler, a senior mobile chips analyst at the Linley Group, a technology consulting firm in Silicon Valley.
Or Apple could just be getting started. It relies on suppliers for Wi-Fi modems now, but will it forever? “I don’t want to go into Wi-Fi specifically,” Srouji says.
Apple could also take a page from Tesla’s playbook and start developing its own batteries. “I don’t want to get into batteries too deeply,” he says.
And since Apple is doing a fine job with mobile processors, it could conceivably decide to get into conventional chips and bump Intel out of its Mac laptops and desktops. Srouji, of course, won’t go there, though he does allow that his team’s mission is finite. “If we attempt to do everything on the planet,” he says, “I don’t think that would be very smart.”
