Macworld: iPhone in the wild

I was walking through the Apple booth at Macworld just before closing yesterday when I noticed an Apple employee actually using an iPhone. So I walked up to him:

– tnkgrl: “Hello, is this the iPhone?”
– Apple employee: “Yes it is.”
– T: “Can I try it?”
– AE: “I’m sorry I can’t let you touch it.”
– T: “Can I take a picture?”
– AE: “OK, as long as you don’t have my face in it.”

He then put the phone down on the carpet next to him. Unfortunately, when I pushed the shutter button on my phone (Nokia N80) I noticed that it was still in video mode (320×240 at 10 FPS) instead of being in camera mode (3 megapixels), from having just filmed the iPhone display… Oops! So I recorded a few seconds of video and tried to switch my phone back to the camera, but I was fumbling with the controls because of all the excitement:

– T: “I’d like to take a couple more pictures if you don’t mind. It’s for my blog”
– AE: “For your blog? Oh no… I can’t let you take any more pictures!”
– T: “Why not?”
– AE: “I can’t let you take pictures for a blog.”
– T: “But you didn’t mind a minute ago. It’s not like I get paid to blog, you know?”
– AE: “Sorry… No blog pictures!”
– T: “Well, it’s 2007… People are going to publish pictures all over, blog or not! Thanks anyway.”

And I walked away, mildly annoyed. The Apple employee’s badge was turned over, so I didn’t get his name. The video was short so I slowed it down, but you’ll notice that the iPhone was running Google maps :)

Update: (June 11, 2007) – turns out the Apple employee was Scott Forstall.