During the 1st live iPhone demo, Steve
Jobs was secretly switching phones
because they couldn’t even play a song
without crashing. Their displays were
rigged to show 5 bars of signal strength
and he had to use a portable cell tower
just so they would seem reliable enough
to make calls. One little mistake could’ve
ruined the entire presentation, but Jobs
got through it flawlessly, and the iPhone
was a hit before it ever actually worked.
SourceSource 2
I like how the narrative here is “master showman” and not “dumbass who made a phone that doesn’t work and lied about it.”
