The transcript from Steve Jobs' 2007 announcement of the original Apple iPhone.
https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/09/09/genius-annotated-with-genius/
So many lessons to learn from this announcement. Here are my personal notes.
Intro
This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two-and-a-half years.
Feel the gravity of 2.5 years. This is important.
Every once in a while, a revolutionary product
This took a lot of time, but revolutions are admirable, and everyone understands that revolutions take time.
comes along that changes everything.
Products are phenomenon. They occur. They come along - it is a reality that is much greater than a business trying to sell you a widget.
well, first of all, one’s very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate. It’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.
One is great - but we're a multiple of great.
In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry.
In 2001, we introduced the first iPod, and… it didn’t just – it didn’t just change the way we all listen to music, it changed the entire music industry.
In year, we introduced product brand, humble brag, changed entire industry.
More on product brand - Macintosh, not personal computer; iPod, not portable music player.
Well, today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class.
Sets of three's - Mac, iPod, new product. Then meta set of three's:
The first one: is a widescreen iPod with touch controls.
The second: is a revolutionary mobile phone.
And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.
Three's are very attractive.
So, three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device.
An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone … Are you getting it?
The tease. The crowd loves a good tease.
These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone.
This is its name.
Today, today Apple is going to reinvent the phone, and here it is.
This is why it exists.
No, actually here it is, but we’re gonna leave it there for now.
Bring it back to earth for a second.
So, before we get into it, let me uh talk about a category of things. The most advanced phones are called smart phones. So they say.
Commence framing exercise.
And uh they typically combine a phone plus some e-mail capability, plus they say it’s the Internet. It’s sort of the baby Internet, into one device, and they all have these plastic little keyboards on them.
a phone duh,
some email capability (setup for rich email),
baby Internet (setup for real Internet),
plastic little keyboards (setup for touch keyboard).
And the problem is that they’re not so smart and they’re not so easy to use, so if you kinda make a… Business School 101 graph of the smart axis and the easy-to-use axis, phones, regular cell phones are kinda right there, they’re not so smart, and they’re – you know – not so easy to use.
Easy is important. The competition is stuck on a Business School 101 graph.
Umm… But smart phones are definitely a little smarter, but they actually are harder to use. They’re really complicated. Just for the basic stuff a hard time figuring out how to use them.
Suggesting an easy smart phone for the basic stuff.
Well, we don’t wanna do either one of these things. What we wanna do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use.
Restate - way smarter, super-easy.
This is what iPhone is. OK?
So, we’re gonna reinvent the phone.
There it is again - reinvent.
Curiously, "reinvent" could prime the audience for "this is like nothing you've ever seen before, you're going to fear what you don't understand, but don't - invention is good.
Now, we’re gonna start… with a revolutionary user interface.. is the result of years of research and development, and of course, it’s an interplay of hardware and software.
Step 1 - This is how you're going to operate it.
Now, why do we need a revolutionary user interface? I mean, Here’s four smart phones, right? Motorola Q, the BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Nokia E62 – the usual suspects.
or… where the f*** is my keyboard? Appearance of smartphone is characterised by the presence of a QWERTY keyboard, and implied complexity.
And, what’s wrong with their user interfaces? Well, the problem with them is really sort of in the bottom 40 there. It’s, it’s this stuff right here. They all have these keyboards that are there whether you need them or not to be there.
Smartphones don't need keyboards.
And they all have these control buttons that are fixed in plastic and are the same for every application. Well, every application wants a slightly different user interface, a slightly optimized set of buttons, just for it. And what happens if you think of a great idea six months from now? You can’t run around and add a button to these things. They’re already shipped.
Hardware keyboards are lame.
So what do you do?
It doesn’t work because the buttons and the controls can’t change. They can’t change for each application, and they can’t change down the road if you think of another great idea you wanna add to this product.
Exercise for the audience - how would you solve it?
Well, how do you solve this? Hmm. It turns out, we have solved it!
Well lucky for you, we solved it!
We solved it in computers 20 years ago.
Don't be afraid of the solution - you're actually familiar with it.
We solved it with a bit-mapped screen that could display anything we want. Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. Right?
The average WIMP operator in the audience does not typically think in these terms, but is familiar with it.
We solved this problem. So how’re we gonna take this to a mobile device?
What we gonna do is get rid of all these buttons and just make a giant screen.
A giant screen.
Last concession before we take away your plastic little keyboard - you get a giant screen!