The complete video (not shown at the top) is probably needed in order to understand the sequence of events, but several thoughts spring to mind based on the above. First of all, did Jobs and his team make an excuse? Wouldn't Apple staff be able to predict wireless issues? They would be able to know this in advance. Shades of Microsoft's botched Windows 98 demo.
“Wouldn't Apple staff be able to predict wireless issues?”CNET incorporates a long skip and later on Jobs is shown doing another demo altogether. Jobs' claim that some people are still not turning their wireless off is akin to frauds who go on stage under uncontrolled conditions and then say something like "I'm not feeling positive energies today" (or "I'm getting negative vibrations").
Another question is, how come people in the room could all get wireless except that revered man who carefully prepared the demo? Even the older phone that he used could handle it just fine. How about reproducing the part which failed for Jobs at the very start? He didn't even show the same original demo that failed (unless CNET left that part out).
Here is Fabrizio Capobianco commenting on the incident and saying more about "Big Brother":
I watched the Apple keynote today, including the hilarious moment where the demo collapsed, working on the old iPhone but not on the new one (see, it happened to Google and then to Apple, they are in a fight!).
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If this is the case, it is borderline. Actually, a bit bigbrotherish. Apple collecting all cellphone numbers of all iPhone users. Mapping them at will on your address book... I guess if this works for Apple, it is going to work for Google as well (they can do exactly the same thing on Android). Big Brother at work. Are you willing to trade some privacy over features? Probably yes: just a small percentage of the population is scared about it.
Still, open source and open cloud look a lot safer to me.
Let’s never forget that Steve Jobs used to buy what would become Pixar from the LucasFilm company and that he sold it back to Disney, becoming one of its shareholders in the process.
Steve Jobs is therefore a many of the “entertainment industry” as much as he’s an IT genius. Too many people forget it. Because of the focus on developing and selling machines for digital content consumers who are supposed to pay for it, one can come to see the iPad as one other device to consume paid content. The point, unfortunately, is that the lines are very much blurred at this stage between pundits taking on the angle of the tablet metaphor and the ones focusing on the business model instigated by Apple on the iPad (and the iPhone, indirectly).