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What is the history of the Apple iPhone?

History of Apple Inc.: In iPhone advertisements, why is the time always set to 9:42 a.m. on the clock?

  • Answer:

    Very little is left to randomness in Apple marketing.  In fact, a great deal of insight can be gathered from looking at things a little deeper and perhaps thinking different. The Momentum of a Perfectly-Delivered Keynote Presentation Steve Jobs worked very hard to create great drama and excitement in his product launch keynote presentations.  From the classic “…and one more thing” to the great use of the Keynote software to maximum effect, Steve commanded the stage and his audience.  There simply is no executive in technology or just about any business category that has come close to his use of excitement, humor, and drama.  None of what Steve did on stage was unplanned, in fact everything was planned to just about the minute. On January 9, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. Steve Jobs took the stage at the 2007 Macworld Conference & Expo and just about 35 minutes into his presentation he said, “This is a day I have been looking forward to for two and a half years…” And at just about 9:42 a.m. Steve announced the iPhone.  Thus frozen in time is the near exact time the iPhone was officially announced. From Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software: We design the product launch keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation. When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience's watches. But we know we won't hit 40 minutes exactly. And for the iPhone, we made it 42 minutes. It turned out we were pretty accurate with that estimate, so for the iPad, we made it 41 minutes. And there you are—the secret of the magic time. As a corollary, the Calendar app on the iPhone is set to "Tuesday 9", that would be Tuesday, January 9th, 2007, the day that Steve gave the Keynote presentation.

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For information can be found here - 9:41 (or 9:42 in some older images) was quite deliberate, as Business Insider discovered. Former Apple exec Bob Borcher — because, let’s face it, nobody inside Apple is likely to confirm this — states that it’s because they’re set to run at around the time Apple expects the unveiling of a new iPhone to actually happen at a keynote. They can’t pick it precisely — which is why it’s wobbled between 9:41 and 9:42 — but the idea is that when a new iGadget is unveiled, the screenshots should match up with the time of the presentation. [Source - http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/02/why-are-apples-iphones-always-on-941/%5D

Vikram Deo

I have heard of this strange fact that it was at that time(9:42)  in Moscone centre in San francisco, California the very first apple iPhone was launched in 2007. It is the tradition of apple inc to interconnect their work and life situations with the product which they launch. For e.g., Apple lisa computer was named after Steve Jobs daughter Lisa Brennan Jobs. Similarly if you see the clock app in iPhone with iOS8 you can see the clock ticking. These are all the elements which makes the iPhone one of the best phones in the market. It has many hidden features which makes its customers to explore.

Siva Rajan

42, as everyone knows deep down, is the answer to life, the universe and everything, and if you add 9 to any natural number, its sum of digits remain the same, i.e. 9 is a null operator. That's explains it well enough. If you want to delve deeper you have to add all the characters together modulo 10, including the numbers of the letters, "a" and "m", with "a" being zero, and you get 9. So it's all null! This is the message of life and the iPhone. After you get your iPhone you will still be the same person, but this message cannot be passed on as a message, you have to get an iPhone to truly know. So it is marketing after all.

Joe Mc Swiney

Interesting to note, the current mockups say "41" for iPhone and not "42" and the calendar date is wrong. They stopped doing for the 4S and I've never been sure why

Julian Ozen

Pratham Agarwal

It reflects the minutes into the product launch announcement that they do the big reveal, usually 41-42 minutes in.

Peter Enzerink

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