

Harvard Biz Review: Steve Jobs's Disastrous iPhone 4 Press Conference - arpit
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/07/steve_jobss_disastrous_iphone.html

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vsingh
"Today, he was deep in his own personal maelstrom of defensiveness and
hostility. His head was frequently down; in fact his whole posture betrayed
his unhappiness. He frequently hid his hands behind his back — a classic
defensive posture — when he wasn't clasping them in front of his stomach
(another defensive posture)."

It was a defensive press conference, by nature. It's not like he's announcing
a new product or something. Do you expect, or even want Steve to summon fake
enthusiasm on command?

Say what you want about the "reality distortion field", but Steve is a
profoundly honest guy, in the sense that he won't convey any impression other
than that which he really feels. I bet he couldn't give a Stevenote about a
toaster no matter how hard he tried.

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radicaldreamer
The closest he came was when he introduced and demoed the Motorola ROKR. And
even then he was visibly displeased when it failed on him on stage.

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hop
"Apple is now a dominant player in the consumer technology market and it can't
afford this kind of ham-fisted performance. Jobs should remove himself from
the lineup and let someone else take over. Or he should get over himself and
cheer up. But Friday's press conference was not good corporate PR."

This is exactly the type of ivy league business exec extrodinaire that could
lead to Apple's demise in the post-Jobs era. Yeah, let's be all unicorns and
butterflies on stage when our crown jewel, the best cell phone ever made, is
being torn apart unfairly by the media. If you're not angry on stage, either
your product is defective or you're not being sincere.

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nixy
Strange, might have been the reality distortion field, but as I watched the
press conference I though to myself at several occasions "yeah, this will shut
the nay-sayers up."

I thought they made a pretty strong case with the data they presented. I
myself have never had a dropped call with the iPhone because of the reception
issue -- believe me, I have tried. However, the not-so-sensitive proximity
sensor has, on several occasions, caused me to inadvertently press the "End
call" button with my cheek.

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natch
Agree with the article's observations, but disagree with its conclusions.
Although the article correctly described Jobs' body language, tone, anger,
defensiveness, etc., the effect of all that was positive for Apple because it
was totally honest and matched the situation perfectly. People who watch the
video understand the Jobs has every right to have acted the way he did in the
press conference, and that understanding builds empathy for the company and
works in Apple's favor.

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sigzero
The media is making a mountain out of a mole hill here. Unfortunately for
Apple, right or wrong, people listen to the media.

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gigafemtonano
So this article goes from using the analogy "Yeah, well, Jimmy stole cookies
from the cookie jar, too!" to using beefy words like petulant and contrite.
I'm lead to believe that readers of the Harvard Business Review are linguistic
ninjas who are simultaneously somehow unable to analyze the simplest abstract
description. Or am I reading too much into this?

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megablast
His analogy is majorly flawed, unless everybody is stealing cookies from the
cookie jar.

He seems to be more analysing Job's body language and speech, rather than what
was said and what was shown.

If the media get another story to follow, they will leave it alone. If not,
then they may pursue it for a while longer.

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lancerp
Hacker News AKA anti-apple-circle-jerk. Seriously. Stop beating the long dead
anti-apple horse, it's starting to smell like reddit.

~~~
threepointone
Relax man, don't get so worked up over it. There's plenty of anti and pro
apple people here, and the objective is to discuss opinions and present facts.

Besides, reddit's programming, apple etc subreddits are rather sane.
Definitely more than their main ones.

Pretty sure there are a bunch of redditors here too. I'm also certain that
they LIKE reddit. This place just requires a different mindset when you enter.
And your comment, dear sir, is definitely the bad-reddit type.

~~~
dasil003
Yeah no doubt. The main reason I don't go to reddit anymore is not due to a
lack of good discussion. It's just because I don't want to scroll through a
50-comment long pun chain to get to it.

