Steve Jobs.

I really don't mean for that to sound in any way snarky or whatever. I'm also not trying to diminish the role Jobs played as a visionary, driving the company to create the right product. Not a Jobs cultist, and I'm also not wishing to denigrate him. It's just that, in light of the point being made, I think it really illustrates that point so well that there are only two names that I feel are championed as the heroes of the iPhone & iOS—Jobs and Ive. Sure, there are other execs who show up in keynotes/events, and they get some praise for their roles/departments ... and I think that really drives the point home. People doing the work aren't highlighted and recognized. It's the execs who get the praise, accolades, awards, etc. Maybe there are individual contributor names on patents or something, but nobody really seems to know who they are.

It comes down to a cognitive trade off. No one can or wants to remember or contemplate the tens, hundreds or thousands of people whose efforts went into completing something. It's just easier, calorically speaking, to give the attention to a few.

There's a recent book called Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda which details how the iPhone touch keyboard was built. So there's bits and pieces here and there.

There isn't a Homeric saga which details all the subsystems and who built them however.