Meet the geeks and geniuses behind the new Apple iPhones

 By Richard Gray

Apple is notoriously protective of its employees and the inner workings of its research and development teams are highly secretive. 

However, examining patents and publicly available information can provide an intriguing insight into the engineers and designers behind the company's products. 

Here are some of the key figures who played a role in the development of the latest iPhones. 

Sir Jonathan Ive - the boss 

Sir Jonathan, or Jony as he likes to be called, is perhaps the most obvious person to mention. 

Until recently he was in charge of Apple’s industrial design team, a role he started in 1996. 

He is now the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple and oversees the design of all of Apple’s i-devices, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad. 

Born in Chingford, in London, he now lives in San Francisco with his wife Heather Pegg and their twin sons. 

Upon enrolling in the design program at Newcastle Polytechnic in 1985, his talent and drive quickly became obvious. 

During an internship with design consultancy Roberts Weaver Group, he created a pen that had a ball and clip mechanism on top, for no purpose other than to give the owner something to fiddle with. 

At Apple he has his own laboratory and design team, who he is extremely protective of. Other Apple employees are not allowed into the laboratory and it has tinted windows. 

Benjamin Pope - the Antarctic researcher 

The first of four Apple engineers who invented the Touch ID fingerprint scanning technology that appears on the iPhone 5S. 

Their patent initially envisaged the scanner, which is housed beneath the Home button, to be paired with another technology called near field communications. 

This has been hotly anticipated as a way of turning the iPhone into an electronic wallet. 

However, Apple chose not to include that aspect in its latest iPhone. 

Mr Pope is a mechanical engineer who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he played on the university soccer team. 

He has been working at Apple for five years. 

Prior to that he worked at Bose on their Project Sound – an attempt to produce a new type of car suspension that would reduce in car noise. 

A member of the Eagle Scouts, Mr Pope also spent a year working as a research assistant in Antarctica, based at McMurdo station. 

During his time there he helped conduct a census of Weddell seals and studied the diving habits of Emperor penguins. 

Speaking to Boys’ Life magazine, Mr Pope, said: "Ordinary tasks or knowledge that I take for granted, from being able to tie a square knot or a bowline to knowing to take your water bottle in your sleeping bag on a cold night so that it doesn't freeze, are things that are not necessarily common knowledge. 

"Scouting skills make staying alive here fairly easy, and camping experience certainly comes in handy all the time. 

“Plus, the work ethic and values that Scouting has grounded me in keep me focused on the task at hand and with a smile as often as possible." 

Mark Zimmer - the mathematician 

One of four engineers named on the patent behind Apple’s new Parallax technology that gives the wallpaper and screen a more three dimensional feel. 

He is named in a number of other patents including a number on the iPhone camera, including a method for boosting skin colour. 

A gifted mathematician, he is particularly focused on three dimensional form, spending his spare time producing three dimensional art. 

At the age of 16 he helped his father solve a number of problems on spherical trigonometry, which he says his father used in work on the Poseidon strategic submarine launched ballistic missile for defence company Lockheed. 

He said: “When I was 16 or so, I helped my dad understand and then solve specific problems in spherical trigonometry. 

“It eventually became clear to me that I was helping him verify circuitry specifically designed for suborbital mechanics: inertial guidance around the earth. 

“Later I found out in those years he was working on the Poseidon SLBM for Lockheed, so, without completely understanding it, I was actually working on weaponized computation.” 

Sometime later Mr Zimmer also developed a programme called Painter for the Macintosh, a piece of creative painting software which was eventually bought by Corel. 

Steve Jobs attempted to recruit him personally, phoning Mr Zimmer at home and giving him his own home number. 

Although he rebuffed these first advances, remaining unconvinced by Apple’s success in the stock market, he eventually joined Apple in 2004 after having shaved off his beard and ponytail. 

He runs a blog called Relativistic Observer, where he discusses technology along with more abstract subjects. Most recently he seems to have focused on rival firm Microsoft. 

Geoff Stahl - the TopGun instructor 

Another of the inventors named on a patent for Parallex, Mr Stahl is the director of graphics and imaging at Apple. 

He has worked for the company for eight and a half years and is responsible for much of the technical advancements in the new iOS 7 operating software. 

However, before joining Apple he apparenty was a Naval Flight Officer in the US Navy. 

He was a tactics instructor at the Strike Fighter Weapons School, teaching pilots about radar and air intercept tactics for the FA-18. 

His LinkedIn profiled claims he worked with TopGun graduates, who were also tactics instructors to teach advanced tactics to FA-18 squadrons prior to deployment. 

Nicholas Merz - the bell-tower restoration enthusiast 

A senior product designer at Apple who also worked on the fingerprint sensor, he studied at Stanford Univrsity and the California College of the Arts. 

While at Stanford in 1996, a Nick Merz took part in a restoration of the carillon in the University’s Hoover Tower – an automatic system of 48 bells that chimed across the campus. 

After University he joined Apple, but in 2000 he left with some colleagues to set up his own company OQO developing micro-sized laptops. 

However in 2009 they were forced to close the company after suffering financial difficulties. He appears to have subsequently rejoined Apple. 

Scott Myers 

Another of the engineers who worked on the fingerprint technology. Mr Myers has worked as a Design Engineer at Apple for seven years and prior to that worked with Nokia. 

He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. 

He is also credited with a patent for a wrap-around, flexible display. 

Daniel Jarvis - the linguist 

Another of the engineers who helped to invent the fingerprint recognition technology. He is a senior product design engineer at Apple, where he has worked for five years. 

He previously worked at Motorola where he helped to develop flip-design phones. 

He has a masters degree from Northwestern University in Product Development. A Japanese speaker, he also studied at Kyushu University as an exchange student.