Today in "weird internet glitches": the french internet sphere seems convinced that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Hullot … is responsible for giving Jobs the idea for the iPhone. Multiple newspaper articles mention that fact. No english source corroborates. Turns out it's all circular sources.
Note for example that the EN Wikipedia page for Hullot doesn't mention anything about the iPhone. The FR page however claims he inspired Steve Jobs to create the iPhone, citing 3 different references (2 newspapers, 1 blog).pic.twitter.com/WoqKpU8lgN
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An article in Le Monde's online publication mentions he "created the iPhone in a secret lab with 20 engineers in Paris":https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/binaire/2019/06/20/jean-marie-hullot-informaticien-visionnaire-technologiste-exceptionnel/ …
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zdnet calls him one of the "fathers of the iPhone" https://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/deces-de-jean-marie-hullot-l-un-des-peres-de-l-iphone-39886417.htm … BFMTV: "With a team of 20 engineers, he imagined and developed a smartphone."https://www.bfmtv.com/tech/qui-etait-jean-marie-hullot-ce-francais-qui-parlait-a-l-oreille-de-steve-jobs-1717030.html …
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In reality, I think the original source for all this is this interview, greatly amplified: https://www.inria.fr/actualite/actualites-inria/jean-marie-hullot-des-cartes-perforees-a-l-iphone … In it, Hullot claims to have talked to Jobs in 2000 (!) about the idea of building a smartphone. Before the iPod even released.
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Hullot then ended up leading the iSync team at Apple Paris, building cloud synchronization mechanisms for data on Apple devices. He then mentions further in the interview that when in 2006 Jobs started the iPhone project, Paris was left out entirely.
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TL;DR: french journalists just randomly repeat and distort signal until only noise remain. No fact checking whatsoever.
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End of conversation
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