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.

  • msbeta1421@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4012·
    11 months ago

    Slow down your thinking and consider this: why would any practical person fully develop something without getting market feedback and understanding demand?

    This is by the book “Preto-typing”. You can frame it as lying, but the reality is Apple had faith that all of the “faked” features in the demonstration would be fully developed before launch.

    IBM did something similar before voice-to-text existed. They faked the technology during market research and discovered that people didn’t enjoy speaking to their computer as much as initially thought. It showed them that they could better invest that money elsewhere.

    It would make zero sense and be a foolish use of capital to fully develop a product that complex and expensive without understanding market preferences.

    This is a non-story, rage-bait headline.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      99.5% of all on-stage demos have fake elements. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

    • darkpanda@lemmy.caEnglish
      74·
      11 months ago

      It’s also been a known thing ever since the demo occurred. This isn’t news, it’s been a known thing for basically the last 15 years.

    • Isthisreddit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      11 months ago

      The problem in all this for me, is that examples like Jobs are pointed to as examples of why this should be done (your entire post basically), and then we have examples like Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos who basically couldn’t deliver the technology and kept the “lie” going.

      How does one know they can eventually deliver? In your post, you basically assume the problem is solvable with capital. With some promised tech (like Theranos), at what point does “there is a necessary need to gauge the publics interest in a product to evaluate if capital needs to be invested in this space” turn into fraud if the product turns out to be unattainable? (Think cancer cures, limb regeneration, etc)