• 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.

    • azerial@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      Can confirm. Worked at BioWare for ten years. They did a presentation at some big release event and they had the pc off stage with a pan of ice and a fan directly blowing on the open pc. Mmmhm it totally won’t melt your pc! They eventually fixed it, but video game announcement trailers are total smoke and mirrors typically.

  • serial_crusher@lemmy.basedcount.com
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    7 months ago

    Every tech demo ever is fake, with the possible exception of the original Cybertruck demo, but I suspect even that one just wasn’t faked very well.

  • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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    7 months ago

    “Demo magic”, it’s everywhere. Always has been, always will be.

  • samus7070@programming.dev
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    7 months ago

    People laughed their assess off at Bill Gates’s epic failed demo of usb on windows 95. Live on stage he plugged in a peripheral and the machine blue screened. No way in hell would Jobs have taken that risk.

  • binboupan@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I think it is normal since the software wasnt ready for production yet; at work we also have forks and forks of forks just to demo new features for people. At the end he did deliver a working product unlike many game devs these days.

  • Dra@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    This is how all demos used to be. If the author/publisher of the ai prompt wasnt born less than 20 years ago they would know this

    • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      I have a hard time even figuring out what the issue here is? it’d be one thing if the first iPhone shipped and was riddled with bugs and promised/demoed features weren’t there, but that wasn’t the case. Launched more or less rock solid, and iPhoneOS 1.0 (as it was called then) was far from the buggiest wide release.

  • Max_Power@feddit.de
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    7 months ago

    I didn’t like him either but not for such shenanigans. Any entrepreneur with half a brain would do the same in this situation and then nevertheless try to deliver a sound product after the presentation.

  • Norgur@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    Okay, how are we all seeing some moral downfall of Steve Jobs here? I mean… Perhaps we should just see what’s shown at such events realistically. I mean, who wouldn’t show their product from the best side possible? So they faked some reception. Of course they want younto see the “optimal case”, right? Same goes for swapping Devices in case of some failure. When they show their device, they want to show what it will be like, so they will not let you see a ton of bugs that are about to be fixed for the release anyway.

    Besides: they cannot deceptively, promise you fake stuff and people will be lead into erroneous decisions by them. Quite the opposite. Think about it: anyone who actually watches those presentations is not your standard customer, right? They’ll be invested or knowledgeable anyway. So if they promise you utter bullshit, people will notice your lies immediately. Tests will chide you for it, people will distrust you, sales will go down. So don’t assume that any beautification of the product at such presentations will lead poor, uninformed customers to buy the thing. Quite the opposite. They will more likely not hear too much about the presentation until the “they lied!” Cries start.

    • rodolfo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      no downfall for sj, pretty standard behavior from him. it was absolutely normal for him to deceive people. as for all billionaires. how do you think they make those riches?

    • Endorkend@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      Considering I was present at several Microsoft and other vendor events where they laughed their way through blue screens and other crashes, I’m perfectly OK saying Apple did something bad.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      7 months ago

      In my career, I’ve learnt the hard way that every crowning achievement starts with a bullshitter being cursed by a bunch of engineers - the very same engineers who years later laud the bullshitter as the person with the tenacity to drive them to achieve greatness.

  • aeronmelon@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Calling the stage units prototypes is being nice. The reality was that at that point the iPhone had barely gotten to a proof of concept stage. Months before this event, the developers were still using a giant desktop tower to simulate the phone’s hardware.

    That the photos of the phone were real and not concept art, that the stage units weren’t just unusable rubber dummies was a magic trick itself.

    When the developers revealed years later that the iPhone presentation (just the presentation, not even the actual launch) was a make or break moment for the company, they absolutely were not kidding.

    And then they went from “should not even be working” test units to fully functional production units in six months!

    Whatever your opinion of Jobs or Apple, credit where credit is due.

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    So basically that scammer woman that wanted to be Steve jobs did a better job at it that we had been led to believe?