Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Anyone guessing Sep 28 for invitations going out?

J

JulianL

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 2, 2010
1,730
740
London, UK
Amazon has announced its media event to be held on 28th Sep (https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/2...-september-28th-tablet-announcement-expected/). I'm wondering if this might encourage Apple PR to choose this as the day to issue their invitations for the iPhone launch event. The invitations don't need the oxygen of PR, they are sent directly to carefully selected individuals, but they usually create considerable press attention when they're issued anyhow, probably more so this year since they have been so long anticipated. It would be a great way for Apple to create some modest interference with Amazon's event. In the best case scenario for Apple it gets itself namechecked in most of the press pieces reporting on the Amazon event (e.g. "in related news today, Apple issued the invitations to its media event to be held on <date>, expected to be the launch of the next iPhone") and if it ends up having the opposite effect and the release getting overlooked then it won't really matter that much because that would in no way diminish the hype around the event itself which most rumours seem to say will be the week after the Amazon event.

- Julian
 
We've all gotten so excited and been let down so many times when trying to guess invite and event dates, i've now given up trying to guess when the invites will go out and what Apple are playing at.

It'll happen when it happens.
 
I garontee, Apple sending out invites will be big news on all the media and tech sites. They don't need to hog someone else's limelight.

I garontee. ;)
 
ggmissmolly said:
They are hoping to get one that works before scheduling the event.
Click to expand...
:). Let's hope not or we're all in trouble! I suppose they could fake the launch event since no one could really tell if the projections on the big screen are coming from a real device or a prototype but nowdays that would be PR suicide. It has been done before though (not by Apple though, at least as far as I'm aware).

When I worked for a company early in my career (the early 80s) I was fairly new at the company and was one of the staff doing demos at a new product launch for a desktop PC. I couldn't understand why about half of the attendees (mostly press) insisted on seeing inside the case during the demo. Someone who had been at the company for longer than I had explained it to me afterwards. Apparently at a previous launch the company had done similar demos and it had got into the press afterwards that the machines on the desks had been empty and that holes had been drilled into them from underneath the desks and that the keyboard and monitor wires were actually running to rack mounted prototypes hidden behind curtains under the tables because, at the time of that previous launch, they were having overheating problems and still couldn't get the electronics working reliably in the actual cases.

The company I'm talking about had a significant part to play in the history of the iPhone (and the iPad, and most other mobile phones and tablets shipping today). Can anyone guess who it was?

- Julian
 
itsmemuffins said:
I garontee, Apple sending out invites will be big news on all the media and tech sites. They don't need to hog someone else's limelight.

I garontee. ;)
Click to expand...
Exactly. Apple doesn't need to worry about getting press for its event but a really good PR department should be trying to do more than just get maximum positive publicity for its own stuff, it should also be trying to disrupt the smooth running of the PR of its competitors so why not put out the invitations on the same day as the Amazon event? One possible reason might be because it's just too late to get flights booked for people and the train is already rolling towards a different day that can't be changed. Who knows, it was just a thought.

- Julian
 
ggmissmolly said:
"Can anyone guess who it was?"

Apple
Click to expand...

No, but it does begin with A. You need to have followed the industry for a pretty long time (decades) to really have much idea of who the company is. They don't exist anymore, in fact Apple was one of the two big factors that contributed strongly to putting them out of business.

- Julian
 
ggmissmolly said:
Atari

Actually I was at IBM throughout that period......1968 to 2003 to be exact. Had nothing to do with PC's thank God.
Click to expand...

Ah. You are definitely of "the right vintage" then. Atari is much closer but still no. It was a UK company and never really managed to break into the USA which makes it more tricky for any US-based people to guess.

I suspect that at IBM in 1968 and much of the 1970s the general mindset was that if it didn't need heavy lifting equipment to move it then it wasn't a real computer.

- Julian
 
That's basically true and with all this cloud computing stuff it looks like they might have been correct with a minor delay.

Can't answer your question.
 
@op i don't know if i should feel proud or old for knowing who you're talking about...

i'm guessing the computer you speak of is a particular "female friend" ;)

i blame my interest growing up in the burgeoning fields of digital video editing and 3d.
 
Sorry all, in retrospect it was a fairly pointless tease. Yet another case of someone killing time while Apple torture us waiting for the announcement I suppose, but ...

qtaran111 said:
So you used to work for Acorn?
Click to expand...

Congratulations, we have a winner. Yes, the company was Acorn. I worked for them from early 1984 through to mid 1987 and worked with the first ARM chip (although I originally came into the company to do something else).

Just for the avoidance of doubt, it wasn't an ARM system that had to play the hiding-under-the-desk trick at the demo to stay cool, that demo event was well before even first silicon for the ARM had been produced. I can't remember for sure since the demo trickery happened before I joined the company but my guess would be that it was the prototype Electrons (6502 based) that were overheating.

- Julian
 
who do the invites usually go to? Im sure people covering the event will need to book hotels and planes ahead of time. A week before seems like enough time
 
JulianL said:
Apparently at a previous launch the company had done similar demos and it had got into the press afterwards that the machines on the desks had been empty and that holes had been drilled into them from underneath the desks and that the keyboard and monitor wires were actually running to rack mounted prototypes hidden behind curtains under the tables because, at the time of that previous launch, they were having overheating problems and still couldn't get the electronics working reliably in the actual cases.
Click to expand...

Antics like that are fairly common. I remember being at an event in the mid 90's that was supposedly showing (I'm fairly certain) Softimage on Windows NT for the first time. They had an Alpha machine sitting visibly and everything.

All was going well until the software crashed and it became obvious that they were hiding an SGI Octane below the table.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back