A video of the full iPhone 4 Antennagate press conference Q&A with Steve Jobs has surfaced on YouTube after 16 years. The 47-minute recording shows Jobs, Tim Cook and Bob Mansfield answering reporters’ questions about the iPhone 4 antenna, and as far as the writer who found it knows, video of that part of the event had never been public.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who attended the July 16, 2010 event, wrote about the video on Wednesday. The video appeared on a channel called “Sir Mix-A-Lot Rare Music” out of nowhere.
Apple Never Published the Q&A Section
The story behind this presentation goes like this. Due to the iPhone 4 antennagate, Apple called the press conference with just one day of notice, and it took place in the Town Hall auditorium at its old Infinite Loop headquarters. Jobs said his presentation would run 15 minutes and it ran 30, and then Cook and Mansfield joined him on stage to take questions. Apple used the event to promise iPhone 4 buyers a free case, or a refund for anyone who was unhappy. The company also called out rivals’s devices as having similar antenna issues. Nokia and RIM pushed back, as we covered back in the day. Apple later posted a Droid X antenna video of its own.
Apple hosted a video of the presentation without the Q&A for a while and later took it down. The only surviving copy on YouTube stops right as Cook and Mansfield walk out. Written reports and photographs of the Q&A exist, but as per Gruber, a video of it was never public before now.
The Q&A is a masterclass in how Steve Jobs was able to manage different situations. He took the questions head-on, alongside his team, and took his time to properly answer everyone. There were some tough questions by the press, directly to Jobs and his executive leadership team and they openly answered them. This was something you do not see anymore from any of the large smartphone companies around the world
Late in the Q&A, Jobs restates an idea that analyst Horace Dediu later named the Cook Doctrine. Apple avoids businesses where it does not own or control the primary technology, because a company that does own it can beat you in the end. Jobs said the insight arrived about eight years earlier, when software was becoming the most important component in consumer electronics, which suited Apple’s strengths.
Apple’s move toward its own C-series modems, covered in the Qualcomm license renewal, is a recent example of the same idea.
The full Q&A video runs about 47 minutes, and we recommend that you grab a cup of coffee and check out the full thing.
