Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Christie’s team devised many iPhone features, such as swiping to unlock the phone, placing calls from the address book, and a touch-based music player. The iPhone ditched the keyboard then common on advanced phones for a display that covered the device’s entire surface, and it ran software that more closely resembled personal-computer programs.

Mr. Christie has never publicly discussed the early development of the iPhone. But Apple made him available on the eve of a new patent-infringement trial against Samsung Electronics Co. to highlight a key element of its legal strategy—just how innovative the iPhone was in 2007, when it arrived.

Interesting to see Apple allowing more execs to talk to the media and opening the kimono a little bit more. (Story is behind a paywall but if you search for the headline in Google, an online free version is available)