Steve Jobs Rigged The First iPhone Demo By Faking Full Signal Strength And Secretly Swapping Devices Because Of Fragile Prototypes And Bug-Riddled Software — The Engineers Were So Nervous They Got Drunk During Presentation To Calm Their Nerves
finance.yahoo.com
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

• Steve Jobs faked full signal strength and swapped devices during the first iPhone demo due to fragile prototypes and bug-riddled software.

• Engineers got drunk during the presentation to calm their nerves.

• Despite the challenges, Jobs successfully completed the 90-minute demonstration without any noticeable issues.

  • gradyp@awful.systemsEnglish
    312·
    11 months ago

    I agree, but what’s more, I am not trying to defend the behavior of Jobs here. But…to me anyway there is a material difference between say this, where the product did live up to the demo ultimately. In this case the demo was done on pre-release versions and so problems were expected and planned for.

    Contrast this with say the cyber truck launch. Similar situation but 1. they failed to properly anticipate and plan for failure (broken window?) and 2. they made promises about wishes and desires, because the delivered product thus far does not live up to the promises.

    The whole behavior is shitty to be sure, but I’d be ok going back to demos about planned yet achievable and deliverable features.

      • dave881@lemmy.worldEnglish
        72·
        11 months ago

        I think that’s kind of rhe point of these sorts to demos to begin with.

        The company says we’re developing a product that, we are not ready to ship today, but will be this awesome. Give us some money and you can see how awesome it will be.

        I generally assume that anything a company says about a product/service that is not shipping today is the best possible spin on the best version of what they’d like to sell. What you buy probably won’t be what is shown as an early demo

        • 1847953620@lemmy.worldEnglish
          51·
          11 months ago

          Just because you’ve adapted to the lies doesn’t make them ok, nor the best version of what is possible