Most of the sharp eyes out there would have noticed the time displayed in Apple iDevice ads and found a recurring pattern in it. They always show 9:41am or 9:42am. It is quite popular to show analog clocks at 10:10 because that is the time when both the hands of the clock are symmetrical as well as give sufficient gap to show the make/model of the clock. And the same legacy has been followed in digital timepieces as well. Thats why 10:10 is pretty common. But what is so special about 9:41am? Does that time signify something special and auspicious to Apple in general and Steve Jobs in particular?
Nope. Nothing extraordinary about that time. The reason is attributed to the perfectionist characteristic of Jobs. How is perfection related to the time 9:41? Here is how:
When Steve Jobs orchestrated the launch event of iPhone during Macworld, it was a presentation on stage carried out by Jobs for more than an hour. During such presentations (called Keynote in Apple's jargon), he starts with some intro, company sales-report and in the middle of keynote, generally shows the product and its ads on the big screen on stage. As per Jobs calculations (from prior rehearsals), the iPhone ad was supposed to be shown on the screen at 9:41am. So he had asked his advertising division well in advance to prepare ads with the device showing 9:41am!!
Finally, on the launch date, during the carefully planned presentation, when Jobs showed the slide containing iPhone TV commercial, it showed 9:41am in the ad and the time in the auditorium was 9:41am as well.
The legacy continued and he followed such a method for his subsequent launches with the iPad and later iPhones as well. Some of the ads show 9:42 as well due to the same reasons mentioned above.
That was the kind of attention to details paid by Jobs even to such trivial stuff.. For Jobs, it did not matter whether the participants in the auditorium noticed it or not because he was always of the opinion that even if nobody notices it, you should always be answerable to your own conscience.
His following quote gives an idea of his philosophy:
"When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through." -Steve Jobs
References:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3431145186631&set=a.2503359552570.259623.1510418566&type=1&ref=nf
No comments:
Post a Comment