Communication Professor Reacts to Steve Jobs iPhone 1 Speech (1)
- I've received a lot of requests for this one.
I'll be giving my reaction and breakdown of the famous iPhone 1 presentation by Steve Jobs from 2007.
Jobs has always been a great speaker but this presentation is what made him a living legend when it came out to how to put out a new product to the world.
His presentation became the unofficial public speaking standard that all CEOs in Silicon Valley are now measured against.
After this, they all wanted to be like Steve Jobs.
We'll look at the first eight minutes of an 80-minute presentation.
I'll put links below to the original video and to other public speaking resources.
Big picture, there are unconfirmed reports that Steve Jobs practiced this presentation over 100 times.
Some people say he practiced as many as 200 times if you count all the times he practiced in the car, the elevator, the shower.
But the good news is for you, virtually everything that I will point out are skills that you can put into your own presentations.
We'll watch one chunk at a time.
I'll identify some strengths
and then I'll wrap up with one suggestion for improvement.
And since I teach college,
I'll give him a letter grade at the end.
But will you agree with my grade?
What grade would you give Jobs?
Let me know in the comments below.
So let's start right at the beginning of the presentation.
- This is a day I've been looking forward to
for two and a half years.
(audience cheering)
Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along
that changes everything.
And Apple has been, well, first of all, one's very fortunate
if you get to work on just one of these in your career.
Apple's been very fortunate,
it's been able to introduce a few of these into the world.
In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh.
It didn't just change Apple,
it changed the whole computer industry.
(audience clapping) (audience cheering)
In 2001, we introduced the first iPod.
And it didn't just change the way we all listen to music,
it changed the entire music industry.
Well, today we're introducing three revolutionary products
of this class.
The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls.
The second is a revolutionary mobile phone,
and the third
is a breakthrough internet communications device.
So three things, a widescreen iPod with touch controls,
a revolutionary mobile phone
and a breakthrough internet communications device.
An iPod, a phone,
and an internet communicator, an iPod, a phone.
Are you getting it?
These are not three separate devices.
This is one device
and we are calling it iPhone
Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone and here it is.
No.
Actually here it is
but we're gonna leave it there for now.
- Now far and away, the best part
about this presentation so far is that he's extremely clear
and concise about his central message.
Apple is about revolutionary products
that change the industry.
Great speeches have a great central theme
and he's really clear about it right from the start.
He says it in plain English,
he uses short sentences and he uses this central theme
about revolution to drive the rest of the presentation.
- A revolutionary product comes along.
It changed the whole computer industry.
It changed the entire music industry.
We're introducing three revolutionary products
of this class.
- This is no ordinary day and no ordinary product.
Everything he says supports this theme.
Apple is once again going to revolutionize the industry.
Next, let's talk about his voice.
He sounds confident.
Most of his confidence is coming from his voice.
And there are three qualities, vocal qualities
to create that confident sound.
First, he uses a strong, consistent volume.
He's using a microphone because he's in a huge space,
but even so, he's speaking a little
above a typical conversational volume level.
When we speak just a click or two above
how we would in a one-on-one conversation,
we automatically sound more confident.
So he's not just speaking,
he's speaking up and declaring his message.
A second vocal quality
is that he speaks each word clearly and deliberately.
You can tell he has chosen his words carefully.
He enunciates and articulates so each word matters.
He speaks right through each word.
He doesn't mumble, blur the words together
or trail off at the end of sentences.
Third, the most obvious vocal quality
to me is that he uses dramatic pauses
at the end of sentences and after key ideas.
In the first minute or so,
he uses a pattern of a short sentence and a pause,
usually around a one-second pause after each sentence.
A handful of his pauses are two or even three seconds
if you don't count the time where people are clapping.
These are what you call dramatic pauses.
Pauses like this let the importance
of the message and the moment sink in.
Many public speakers struggle with pauses.
We tend to put in filler words instead
but Jobs pauses silently.
You could hear a pin drop.
These three related vocal qualities:
volume, deliberate enunciation
and pauses with no fillers
create an extremely confident sound.
It creates the impression
that he really believes what he's saying.
So let's watch a little bit more.
- So before we get into it,
(audience laughing)
let me talk about a category of things.
The most advanced phones are called smartphones.
So they say, and they typically combine a phone
plus some email capability.
Plus they say it's the internet, sort of the baby internet
into one device.
And they all have these plastic little keyboards on them.
And the problem is that they're not so smart
and they're not so easy to use.
So if you kind of make a business school 101 graph
with a smart axis and a easy-to-use axis,
phones, regular cell phones are kind of right there.
They're not so smart and they're not so easy to use.
But smart phones are definitely a little smarter
but they actually are harder to use.
They're really complicated.
Just for the basic stuff
people have a hard time figuring out how to use them.
Well, we don't wanna do either one of these things.
What we wanna do is make a leapfrog product
that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been
and super easy to use.
This is what iPhone is.
Okay?
(audience cheering)
So we're gonna reinvent the phone.
Now, we're gonna start
with a revolutionary user interface is the result
of years of research and development.
And of course, it's an interplay of hardware and software.
Now, why do we need a revolutionary user interface?
I mean, here's four smartphones, right?
The Motorola Q, the BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Nokia E62,
the usual suspects.
And what's wrong with their user interfaces?
Well, the problem with them is really sort
of in the bottom 40 there.
It's this stuff right here.
They all have these keyboards that are there
whether you need them or not to be there.
And they all have these control buttons that are fixed
in plastic and are the same for every application.
Well, every application wants
a slightly different user interface,
a slightly optimized set of buttons just for it.
And what happens if you think
of a great idea six months from now?
You can't run around and add a button to these things.
They're already shipped.
So what do you do?
It doesn't work because the buttons
and the controls can't change.
They can't change for each application
and they can't change down the road
if you think of another great idea you wanna add
to this product.
Well, how do you solve this?
Hmm. It turns out we have solved it.
We solved it in computers 20 years ago.
We solved it with a bitmap screen
that could display anything we want.
Put any user interface up and a pointing device.
We solved it with the mouse, right?
We solved this problem.
So how are we gonna take this to a mobile device?
Well, what we're gonna do is get rid of all these buttons
and just make a giant screen, a giant screen.
(audience clapping)
Now, how are we gonna communicate this?
We don't wanna carry around a mouse, right?
So what are we gonna do?
Oh, a stylus, right?
We're gonna use a stylus.
No.
(audience chuckling)
No, who wants a stylus?
You have to get 'em and put 'em away and you lose em.
Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus.
So let's not use a stylus.
We're gonna use the best pointing device in the world.
We're gonna use a pointing device that we're all born with.
We're born with 10 of them.
We're gonna use our fingers.
We're gonna touch this with our fingers.
And we have invented a new technology called Multi-Touch,
which is phenomenal.
It works like magic.
(audience laughing)
You don't need a stylus.
It's far more accurate
than any touch display that's ever been shipped.
It ignores unintended touches.
It's super smart.
You can do multi-finger gestures on it.
And boy have we patented it.
(audience laughing) (audience cheering)
Let's talk about his content.
He does something really smart in this chunk.
He uses a problem-solution logic to build his message.
He speaks for a while
about the existing problems with other phones
and devices out there on the market to talk
about the way iPhone solves those problems.
Existing smartphones have too many limitations.
And in contrast, the iPhone has a huge touch screen,
easy interface and powerful software.
This problem-solution design shows
he really understands his audience.
He's not just speaking in a vacuum
about what he thinks is cool about the new phone.
He speaks to his listeners' pressing needs,
their sense of urgency.
We call this the exigence of the situation.
The secret to almost every great speech
that's ever been given is that the speaker is speaking
to the felt need that listeners have.
And you can tell by the way they respond
that his listeners really are ready to hear
what Jobs is saying.
They are anticipating
that Apple is finally going to solve these known problems.
He's also a master at building anticipation.
As mentioned, he pauses
like a champion, that creates anticipation
but he also creates anticipation through his message design.
We saw this in the first chunk we looked at
when he talked about
how they'd be introducing three revolutionary products.
- An iPod, a phone
and an internet communicator.
An iPod, a phone.
(audience cheering)
Are you getting it?
- That was building anticipation and he does this more here
in this recent chunk leading up to how we'll be able
to use our finger to touch the screen rather
than a stylus or some other clumsy device.
- Because we don't wanna carry around a mouse, right?
We're gonna use a stylus.
No, we're gonna use our fingers.
- That anticipation adds some drama
and showmanship to his message.
He's not just sharing facts and figures.
He's taking us on a journey.
(audience clapping)
- We've been very lucky to have brought
a few revolutionary user interfaces
to the market in our time.
First was the mouse, the second was the click wheel.
And now we're gonna bring Multi-Touch to the market.
And each of these revolutionary user interfaces
has made possible a revolutionary product, the Mac,
the iPod, and now the iPhone.
So a revolutionary user interface.
We're gonna build on top of that with software.
Now, software on mobile phones, it's like baby software.
It's not so powerful.
And today we're gonna show you a software breakthrough,
software that's at least five years ahead
of what's on any other phone.
Now, how do we do this?
