Steve Jobs Rigged The First iPhone Demo
Steve Jobs Rigged The First iPhone Demo
The late Steve Jobs, renowned for his innovative vision at Apple Inc., faced a unique challenge in 2007 with the first iPhone presentation. The device was a groundbreaking concept, but it wasn't ready for a public debut. Jobs, known for pushing boundaries, orchestrated a presentation that was more o...
Steve Jobs Rigged The First iPhone Demo::The late Steve Jobs, renowned for his innovative vision at Apple Inc., faced a unique challenge in 2007 with the first iPhone presentation. The device was a groundbreaking concept, but it wasn't ready for a public debut. Jobs, known for pushing boundaries, orchestrated a presentation that was more of an artful illusion than a demonstration of a fully functional product. Jobs insisted on a live presentation, deviating from the norm of prerecorded demonstrations common in Silicon Valley. To ensure
This is hardly news.
It belongs in TIL
Original story 3 links deep, from 2013:
Hardly anything new. This happens in product demos all the time. Not just Apple. Wait till you learn about concept cars.
Not even just concept cars, even just low volume pre-production cars. They’ll often be the final design, but won’t have all the intended features working yet, or with some things not all prettied up.
Aside from the “well duh” factor, and the fact that this wasn’t even a secret, The demo had to happen long before it was ready to ship because the FCC filings were slated to go public and they didn’t want the world to find out about the phone from that source.
This wasn’t the demo of a defective unit shipped to customers, it was the demo of incomplete software and hardware. The reception of the first iPhone was overwhelmingly positive. So much so that Google abandoned their plans for Android being a BlackBerry knockoff.
Reminds me of movies portraying early Apple and the issues with playing media and the adding of more RAM to the first Mac to get through a similar presentation.
The Macs being presented would never have that much memory when sold in the market but it was portrayed as those production models.
Not sure if it really mattered in the end as the consumer received that new Apple experience they coveted. I still recall those Macs were easier to use than the Apple IIc they replaced in my high school at the time.