Steve Jobs by Presentation Secrets

user
    Image of four existing
    interface? Here are four smartphones: the
    smartphones: Motorola Q,
    Motorola Q, BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Nokia
    BlackBerry, Palm Treo, and
    E62—the usual suspects.”
    Nokia E62
    “What’s wrong with their user interface? The
    The top half of each image
    problem with them is in the bottom forty.
    fades away, leaving just
    It’s this stuff right there [points to keyboards
    the bottom half—
    on the phones]. They all have these
    the keyboard
    keyboards that are there whether you need
    them or not. And they all have these control
    continued

    66 CREATE THE STORY
    TABLE 6.1 JOBS’S iPHONE KEYNOTE PRESENTATION (continued)
    STEVE’S WORDS
    STEVE’S SLIDES
    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
    add a button to these things. They’re already
    shipped. So, what do you do?”
    “What we’re going to do is get rid of
    Image of iPhone
    all these buttons and just make a giant
    screen.”
    “How are we going to communicate with
    Image of iPhone on its side;
    this? We don’t want to carry around a
    a stylus fades in
    mouse. So, what are we going to do? A
    stylus, right? We’re going to use a stylus.”
    “No [laughs]. Who wants a stylus? You have
    Words appear next to
    to get them out, put them away—you lose
    image:
    them. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus.”
    Who wants a stylus?
    “So, let’s not use a stylus. We’re going to use
    Stylus fades out of frame
    the best pointing device in the world—a
    as image of index finger
    pointing device that we’re all born with.
    appears next to iPhone
    We’re born with ten of them. We’ll use our
    fingers.”
    “We have invented a new technology called
    Finger fades out, and
    ‘multi-touch,’ which is phenomenal.”
    words appear:
    Multi-Touch
    “It works like magic. You don’t need a
    Words reveal upper right:
    stylus. It’s far more accurate than any touch
    Works like magic
    display that’s ever been shipped. It ignores
    No stylus
    unintended touches. It’s supersmart. You
    Far more accurate
    can do multi-finger gestures on it, and boy
    Ignores unintended
    have we patented it!” [laughter]
    touches
    Multi-finger gestures
    Patented

    INTRODUCE THE ANTAGONIST 67

    Make note of how Jobs asks rhetorical questions to advance
    the story. “Why do we need a revolutionary user interface?”
    he asked before introducing the problem. He even raises prob-
    lems to his own solution. When he introduced the concept
    of replacing the keyboard with a touch screen, he rhetorically
    asked, “How are we going to communicate with this?” His ready
    answer was, “We’re going to use the best pointing device in the
    world . . . our fingers.”

    Nobody really cares about your product or Apple’s products
    or Microsoft’s or any other company’s, for that matter. What
    people care about is solving problems and making their lives
    a little better. As in the smartphone example in Table 6.1, Jobs
    describes the pain they’re feeling, gives them a reason for their
    pain (usually caused by competitors), and, as you will learn in
    Scene 7, offers a cure.
    Making His Case to CNBC
    “Why in the world would Apple want to jump into the handset
    market with so much competition and so many players?” asked
    CNBC’s Jim Goldman in one of the few interviews Jobs granted
    immediately after the iPhone announcement. Jobs answered the
    question by posing a problem in need of a solution: “We used all
    the handsets out there, and boy is it frustrating. It’s a category
    that needs to be reinvented. Handsets need to be more power-
    ful and much easier to use. We thought we could contribute
    something. We don’t mind if there are other companies mak-
    ing products. The fact is there were one billion handsets sold in
    2006. If we just got 1