During the six months between its announcement in January 2007 and its June release, the iPhone was the focus of technology rumors worldwide. Who would have suspected that The New York Times would get in on the action? The paper’s technology columnist, David Pogue, as part of his on-going online video series, released two short videos in June 2007.
In the first, My iPhone Diary, Pogue gets an iPhone from Apple a week before the release and struggles to keep to the non-disclosure agreement he signed. It shows how the hype consumed those around him, even (and perhaps in particular) the professional journalists at the Gray Lady.
The second video, iPhone: The Music Video, echoed many of the first video’s positive and negative reviews about the product as well as focusing on the emotional obsession of new iPhone users — and served to further the iPhone hype. Pogue shot the video in the midst of the iPhone release date mob at Apple’s flagship store in New York and set it to the tune of the Frank Sinatra standard “I Did it My Way,” with rewritten lyrics including:
Concerns, I have a few;
It’s got some flaws, we may just face it,
No keys, no memory card,
The battery’s sealed—you can’t replace it.
But God, this thing is sweet,
A multitouch iPod Wi-Fi phone,
You had me from “hello,”
I want an iPhone.
A viral hit and 2008 Webby Awards nominee (in the Technology category), both videos show Pogue trying to look like he’s above the excitement. But the fact that he made a second short covering the same material as the first (and a musical at that) shows that he was as much a part of the craze as the next technophile.
