cross pond high tech

The latest Apple product unveiling, with its overly-reported Face ID glitch, reminds us that the demo isn’t the product. That can be good or bad.

It’s Full Moon over Cupertino. iPhone X specs leaks ahead of the official presentation and kommentariat inmates howl in their cages. This isn’t new, we’ve long known how psychotoxic Apple products can be, but the phenomenon seems to be reaching a new paroxysm. A few choice examples, starting with the grand prize [no links, no feeding the master baiters]:

The iPhone X proves the Unabomber was right

Steve Jobs gave us President Trump

Apple’s Face ID Could Be A Powerful Tool For Mass Spying

But let’s not lament these and many similar howlers. For Apple, they have a positive side: They attest to the power of the brand, to the magnetism of its products. Well…most of them. I maintain a list of Apple products that remain unmagnetized and fantasize that someday I’ll have a quiet conversation with the DRIs (“Direct Responsible Individual” in Apple’s parlance) in charge of these warts.

But we’ll leave the somber jeremiad for a different day.

The sun is out here in Paris; tomorrow I head to Vézelay and the start of a two day walk along the Camino de Santiago (the pélerinage de Compostelle as it’s known here). So, let’s have fun with Craig Federighi’s iPhone X FaceID demo glitch and, more generally, with the Demo genre. (The full two-hour September 12th keynote video is here.)

Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior VP of Software Engineering — affectionately known as Hair Force One — is an infectiously happy, eager demo-meister. But the demo gods challenged Federighi’s disposition and caused his first attempt to unlock the iPhone X with his face to fail, leaving him staring at the standard unlock code screen.

Fortunately, a back-up phone was at hand — a testament to Federighi’s lack of faith in his own work, or to years of demo hiccups. The stand-in phone worked as expected, and the demo proceeded without further divine retribution.