Published in Graphite XIII: Omen in May 2022

iPhone 1 - Steve Jobs Macworld keynote in 2007 - Full Presentation, 80 mins

The mouse types into YouTube: steve jobs iphone, scrolls down to the fifth option steve jobs iphone presentation, clicks, and selects the second result. A 1 hour 19 minute long video with 8.1 million views. Posted on May 16th, 2013, taken on January 9th, 2007. The MacWorld Convention in San Francisco. Steve Jobs is unveiling the first iPhone. 

About 15 minutes into the talk he takes a sip from a Smart Water bottle with a sippy-sports cap and walks over to the podium where an iPhone is hooked up to a massive projector screen hanging behind him. He pushes the Sleep/Wake Button on the top of the iPhone, the screen lights up, a pair of clownfish look out at the audience from their green sea anemone home, he uses his pointer finger to slide a grey arrow across the bottom of the screen to unlock the phone. The audience cheers. You wanna see that again? He pushes the top button, the screen returns to black, he pushes the button again and slides open the iPhone as the audience cheers louder. Still using his pointer finger, he presses the orange iPod icon on the bottom right of the screen, a list of artists appears, he demonstrates that he can press the Home Button to return to the home screen and then he presses the iPod icon again and returns to his music library. He demonstrates how he can use his finger to scroll through the list of artists. 

The top comment on this video is from 2020 by a subscriber named Ben Mortimer: Watching everyone get excited about touchscreen is weirdly wholesome. 

The audience giggles and cheers louder as he scrolls up and down the list. He narrates his actions as he selects the Beatles and taps on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He plays “With a Little Help from my Friends” and remarks on the gorgeous album art. 

Another comment on the video is from 2021 by a subscriber named Joshua: I love this part because Sgt. Pepper’s is considered the first true album in music and the album that began the album era. Exactly 40 years later, Steve Jobs unveils the device that would essentially start the streaming era of music, and the first thing he plays on the device that would end the album era, is the one that started it.

Also in 2021, three people were eating dinner at a vegan Japanese restaurant in Culver City and talking about this video. The middle aged person in the group looked at the younger person and said softly: That was the day when the map...became more important than the territory. The younger person looked at the middle aged person, wide-eyed: I need to write that down. They pulled out an iPhone 11 and typed into the notes app. The oldest person at the table asked what they meant by that.

18 or so minutes into the video, Steve Jobs finishes up his set with “Take me to the River” by the Talking Heads. Then he shows that the iPhone can play video. He flips the phone to landscape mode and plays a scene from the Office. In the scene Jim has transferred to another branch, he took a box of Dwight's stationary with him, and he is now sending Dwight messages from himself, from the future. He reads one of these messages: Dwight, at 8am this morning someone poisoned the coffee. Don’t drink the coffee. More instructions will follow. Cordially, Future Dwight. The audience laughs and Steve Jobs continues with his demo. The mouse pauses the video, scrolls down to the comment section and begins to type: It’s so crazy that Steve Jobs picked that clip from the Office...about sending messages from the future…? What message would a future Jobs fax himself re the iPhone if he was alive today? The cursor deletes the comment and presses play on the video.  

Around 45 minutes into the presentation Steve Jobs demos the Google Maps app on the iPhone. He says that he certainly will need a coffee after this and types Starbucks into Google Maps. The audience laughs and cheers when the map displays a spattering of red pins indicating nearby Starbucks. He clicks on one of the pins. Let’s give them a call. After two rings an employee answers the phone: Good morning this is Starbucks, how can I help you? Yes, I’d like to order 4,000 lattes to go please. The crowd erupts into laughter and Steve says: Just kidding, wrong number, thank you and hangs up. The mouse pauses the video and scrolls down to the comment section. There are many comments about this part of the presentation. Imagine being the woman that picked up that phone at Starbucks that day😂😂😂😂 and 46:58 Steve just did the first prank call on an iPhone. Revolutionary. The mouse scrolls up and plays the video. 

Back in the vegan Japanese restaurant in Culver City, the middle aged person looked at the oldest person: What do I mean that? By the map becoming more important than the territory? The oldest person nodded their head. I mean that there was a time when the territory, the physical world, was more important, more trusted even, than  representations of---The waiter arrived: More water? They looked at their nearly full glasses and nodded: Thanks.