Behind the curtain
There’s a reason Apple is mentioned frequently in this blog. A few reasons, actually. First, Steve Jobs and company make the equipment that we employ for our own creative endeavors—ad agencies and design shops are historically and almost exclusively Mac-centric. Then there’s the way Apple is shaking up the advertising paradigm, introducing fresh marketing opportunities with products like the iPhone and iPad, not to mention their brand-new mobile advertising service, iAd. In addition, as creative professionals, we have a keen appreciation for Apple’s design aesthetic, from the form factor of the hardware to the user-focused simplicity of the software. We admire their marketing and business savvy, too, and the strength of the brand that has resulted. It’s a brand like no other—there’s a real mystique around Apple, not only in terms of what they make but also how they make it. That mystique is due in part to Apple’s success in maintaining almost unprecedented secrecy. Rumors always abound about new products, speculation is endless, but nothing is ever certain until Mr. Jobs, in his black mock-turtleneck and jeans, takes the stage with new release in hand, ready (or nearly so) to go to market.
Well, guess what? Nobody’s perfect.
As you may have heard, given the amount of news coverage in not only in the tech blogosphere but in the mainstream media as well, Apple had a leak. And not just any old leak. This slip concerned what is now arguably Apple’s signature product, the iPhone. The rumor cycle was already spiking again, since the next generation of the device typically appears in June each year, which is of course fast approaching. The tech media was running its usual list of guesses as to new features. And then, lo and behold, photos of the next-gen iPhone show up on the tech blog Gizmodo. And not the kind of blurry, unverifiable photos such sites frequently display, submitted by unknown sources and of dubious authenticity. This was presented as the real deal, an almost-finalized prototype, crisply photographed (and videoed) in the Gizmodo offices.
How did they get their hands on it? Well, as the story goes (and this has all been pretty much confirmed—we’ve even seen a letter from an Apple attorney requesting the phone’s return), an Apple engineer abandoned the device in a bar not too far away from Apple’s Cupertino campus. Seems the young man was out celebrating his birthday, and after a few beers, simply left the phone on the barstool next to his. A third party picked it up, allegedly attempted to call Apple after noticing that this was a model not currently on the market, but had trouble persuading anyone that his tale was legit. Next thing you know, he’s selling the prototype to Gizmodo for $5,000. The tech-heads there thoroughly inspect it, tear the device down, hook it up to a Mac, and basically validate that this not a fake or knock-off—this is a genuine Apple-manufactured product, one that no one has seen before. Now the images and the breakdown (new features like a front-facing camera and a larger, improved camera-with-flash on the back) are all over the web. And in most of the traditional media outlets, too.
So, then, a chink in Apple’s armor? Perhaps. A displeased Steve Jobs? Almost certainly. But the mystique remains. The brand is strong as ever. And just look at all the free promotion for the next iPhone. Sales will likely be through the roof.
Photo available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license; author: Acaben, originally posted on Flickr.