Tony Fadell

Tony Fadell steps down as Nest CEO

Tony Fadell is stepping down as CEO of Nest, he announced in a blog post on Friday. The former Apple engineer and founder of the smart thermostat/device company, which was purchased by Google in 2014 for $3 billion, says he’s moving into an “advisor” role to Alphabet and CEO Larry Page.

Despite recent reports of turmoil within the company, Fadell insists that the move is amicable and the transition has been in progress since late last year. He says he’s leaving the company to new CEO Marwan Fawaz, who was previously CTO of cable company Charter, with a two-year roadmap in place.

How a journalist convinced Jobs to bring iTunes to PCs and other tidbits from Tony Fadell interview

It was The Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, one of Steve Jobs’s favorite reviewers, of all people who has finally managed to persuade then Apple CEO to expand the addressable market for iPods by bringing iTunes to Windows PCs.

Jobs, Nest founder Tony Fadell and then Apple executive charged with iPod and iPhone development recalls, long insisted that the iPod be used as a vehicle to increase Mac sales. “Steve, the iPod is $399. But really it’s not. Because you have to buy a Mac!” We had to give people a taste,” Fadell recalls telling Jobs, to no avail.

He eventually relented and agreed that Apple should bring iTunes to Windows, under one condition: the software was to be tested by journalist Walt Mossberg. “We’re going to build these and run it by Mossberg,” Jobs reportedly said. “And if Mossberg says it’s good enough to ship, then we’ll ship it.”

Walt reportedly said, “Not bad. I’d ship it,” and the rest is history.

Steve Jobs considered Apple car eight years ago

According to the famous iPod creator, former Apple engineer and Nest founder Tony Fadell, Steve Jobs did consider an idea of Apple building a car as far back as 2008, but ultimately decided not to move forward because he had other projects on his mind.

In a video interview with Bloomberg, Fadell said that Jobs and himself discussed how a hypothetical Apple car would we build, what features it would have, what a dashboard would be like and so forth.

Why Google Glass as we know it is dead

Nick Bilton of the New York Times is out with a fantastic piece detailing why Google Glass as we know it has been killed off by the Mountain View based company. Born out of the futuristic Google X lab, the headset was not only plagued by problems, but it was receiving attention from the mass-market that Google just wasn’t ready for. 

Tony Fadell on Nest deal, relationship with Apple, Google data sharing, home automation and more

The iPod Godfather and Nest Labs co-founder and CEO, Tony Fadell, sat down with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to talk specifics of the recently announced $3.2 billion Google deal, why he sold to the search monster, Nest’s relationship with Apple, the future of controlling household products and a few other topics of interests, here are your soundbites…

Nest founder Tony Faddell spotted with Jony Ive’s (RED) Mac Pro

Remember last month when we told you that Jony Ive’s one-of-a-kind Mac Pro sold for nearly $1 million at his Product (RED) auction? And do you remember thinking who in the world would pay that much money for a computer? Well it looks like the answer is Tony Faddell.

Photographer Kevin Abosch posted a handful of tweets this afternoon with photos of the ‘father of the iPod’ and Nest founder posing next to the (RED) Mac Pro, as well as the solid gold EarPods from the same auction. The two items combined sold for close to $1.5 million…

iPod Godfather says Apple built Google Glass style eyewear prototypes

Tony Fadell, the brains behind the popular Nest thermostat, used to work at Apple where he’d helped engineer the iPod music player, earning him a nickname of the iPod Godfather. He also led the development of the first eighteen iterations of the original iPhone. In a recent interview, the famous engineer revealed that Apple in the past had experimented with the idea of a virtual reality headset and has actually built a few prototypes of a Google Glass-style device.

“The craziest thing we talked about was something like Google glass,” says former Senior VP of iPod division…

iPod Godfather explains Apple’s secret design sauce

Tony Fadell needs no introduction. The brains behind the Nest thermostat, this former Apple engineer also helped engineer the iPod music player and led the development of the first eighteen iterations of the iPhone. He recently talked Apple, Steve Jobs and secrecy inside the walls of Apple’s Cupertino HQ.

He also commented on Forstall’s departure in an interview with BBC and told Bloomberg that he is “not that dumb” to compete directly with his former employer. And now, Fadell at the Bloomberg Design conference this week once more tried to explain Apple’s secret sauce which results in the sexy gadgets people lust after. He also explained the difference between designing products at Apple and Phillips, here are some highlights…