The history of Apple’s iPhone may be coming to a TV screen — or the iPhone on which you’re reading this story — near you.
Echo Lake Entertainment has optioned author Brian Merchant’s The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone with an eye toward developing a limited series. No studio or outlet is attached yet.
The book tells the story of the creation of the iPhone, which Apple’s Steve Jobs referred to as “the one device,” via interviews with engineers, developers and inventors who worked on the project. It also delves into how the then-novel ideas of touch screens, motion trackers and AI have become commonplace in the decade since the iPhone launched.
“Brian has written the definitive story about the creation of the iPhone,” said Echo Lake principals Doug Mankoff and Andy Spaulding. “It was developed by dynamic men and women who worked in secret, often jeopardizing marriages, friendships, health and integrity. And when they were done, they had created the most successful product in history. Brian’s story makes you look at your iPhone in an entirely new way.”
James Engle and Adam Riback, who brought the book to Echo Lake, will produce the project with Mankoff and Spaulding.
Echo Lake’s films include Nebraska, Truth and Away From Her; it also produces the Syfy series Van Helsing, whose third season premieres in the fall.
Merchant, an editor at Vice Media’s Motherboard, is repped by Eric Lupfer at Fletcher & Company.
