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Apple Employees Flaunting iPhones in Public Like Crazy

iPhone Dude

In case you haven’t heard, this weekend marked the iPhone’s coming out party. Though the iPhone actually goes on sale this Friday, Apple employees decided to take the iPhone out into the world one week early. How do I know? Two personal acquaintances ran into Apple folks breaking out their 3-in-1 revolutionary devices in San Francisco on Saturday.

One works in a retail store and saw the iPhone-bearer pull out the device when he couldn’t remember the name of a book he was looking for. He was very careful not to show the screen. It was a discrete way to show off.

At the other end of the spectrum lies the doofus in the skull t-shirt above. A friend of mine caught him at a party. Check his texts about it:

I’m at this party with a bunch of [company name deleted] people, and this dude from apple is conspicuously busting out his iphone.

After I requested the photo you see above, here’s the note of his reply:

Someone told me not to do it bc he could get in trouble… Well maybe he shouldn’t be flashing it around at a party! I refuse to jock even though it’s a research op.

That’s how brazen Apple folks were with their iPhones these days.

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

Email the author | Read more posts by Pete Mortensen.

62 comments

    You have to admit, if you had one, this is your last week to flaunt it – were I in his shoes I would definitely do so. Let’s just hope he doesn’t get in to trouble for it!

    http://blog.frater.com/apple/10-hottest-features-of-os-x-leopard

    That’s not a skull t-shirt, it’s a Big Lebowski parody of the Obey logo. Sorry, couldn’t let that one slip by unchecked!

    http://tcritic.com/archives/abide-big-lebowski-t-shirt-obey-parody/

    I don’t think that’s a skull shirt. It looks like it is an ABIDE shirt … as in “the dude abides” … as in The Big Lebowski. It mimics the OBEY giant emblem.

    That’s not a skull shirt, it’s a Big Lebowski shirt. Mark it 8, Dude!

    That’s not a skull shirt, you doofus, it’s a big Lebowski shirt.

    Hey….that’s not a skull on his shirt…but it looked familiar.just couldn’t put my finger on it until I remembered someone else in San Fran that I knew had (of all things) an iChat buddy icon that looks like it.

    Its a reproduction of a Lebowskifest poster. Do a Google Picture Search for “Abide” of you want to see what it looks like not blurry :)

    -K

    He’s looking to get laid. Plain and simple.

    just fyi, that’s not a skull shirt, it a Lebowski Fest “ABIDE” shirt.

    http://www.lebowskifest.com/abide_goodies.asp

    Just to let you know, the shirt above is actually a rip-off of the infamous Andre the Giant by Shepard Fairey. But instead of Andre, you get The Dude from The Big Lebowski. I believe it says “abide” instead of “obey”.

    I saw one the weekend before at a coffee shop in San Francisco, someone who was on the team was using his in public. We chatted briefly and the iphone looked smaller than I thought. It was interesting to see one in public, but wasn’t really a big deal.

    I hope he get’s in trouble for it. I hope he gets fired and apple sues his ass!

    Lets face it, these little sightings only increase everyones curiosity. It can only be good for Apple that they happen to pop up here an there.

    [...] of Mac releases a blurry shot of a purported [...]

    [...] Apple Employees Flaunting iPhones in Public Like Crazy [Cult of Mac] tr { border: 0px } td { cellborder: 10px} table { border: 1px solid black } [...]

    Oxymoronically, I don’t they were so much ‘discreetly flaunting’ the iphone as they were following a script.

    [...] to Cult of Mac, Apple employees have begun showing iPhone pride a week ahead of launch. Several readers reported [...]

    A friend of mine works for Apple, and he has one. They are not allowed to take the iphone out in public, untill the 29th.

    that isnt a skull shirt big guy, its a “the dude abides” t-shirt. lebowskifest.com

    That guy is going to feel really cool for about a week, before he goes back to being considered a Tech Geek.

    Yeah, I hope nothing happens to him.

    What’s wrong with that? I don’t consider that “brazen”.

    Boo hoo… I want one, and he has one, and he’s using it, so now I’m going to cry, I mean blog about it.

    WAAAHHHHH

    I’m sure it’s the only phone he’s carrying, and when he’s gotta use it, he’s gotta use it. If you had one, you’d be using it too, and I bet $20 he wouldn’t be blogging about you, and calling you a doofus.

    Dude … that isn’t a skull. That is Walter Sobchak. And this is not Vietnam.

    You have proved yourselves infinitly baser than those you mock by creating this “hipper than hipper than thou” blog entry. You betray yourself by picking on those whose gadgets you yourself desire. You’d do the same thing, only you’d be more blatent, and then you’d go home and look for blog entries like this one and attempt to make a fool of the person who wrote it. Just give up. You’re wasting all of our time.

    iPhone owners will be flaunting it for a lot longer than this week. That’s what it’s about in the first place.

    Why would you out him?
    Not very nice at all , you can not justify that can you?.
    Stupid Adsense whore.
    NO DIGG

    i think that is a big lebowski t-shirt or at least a shirt of “the dude” with his sunglasses on….

    I hope he got laid. That trick isn’t going to work for much longer.

    Steve

    Wait…wait…..I don’t know…I think that t-shirt has nothing to do with the skull…let me google it.. Oh, here we go. It turns out that it is actually a reference to a movie…oh nevermind.

    Well, I’m off to the Antartic with Buzz Aldrin in the morning in my sunflower oil powered Hummer and I just wanted to say I got my iPhone today Steve. Looks fantastic!

    Thanks,
    Woz

    @Steve

    I am sure you can release the iPhone Mini to help the guy get laid in 6 months.

    Petemortensen is just jealous that he can’t use it to get laid.

    Careful man there’s a beverage here!

    I love that a post about the iPhoone has turned into a slam about the ABIDE shirt. Classic.

    @ fanboIIII

    Dude, (pun not intended, as fanboilll is obviously nowhere near as cool as The Dude) the page has no AdSense on it anywhere.

    Shrug

    its not a revolutionary device…and now come the death threats…

    sorry but it doesnt do anything new it just looks cool. thats it. well its crazy expensive. i suppose that should be considered something.

    [...] día”, se habla más y más acerca del teléfono que todos quieren tener: empleados de Apple luciendo el gadget una semana antes del lanzamiento, gente analizando las estrategias de marketing de Apple, Fedex anunciando que sus camiones irán en [...]

    For a bunch of smart guys, why have you all written the same comment, it makes me think that nobody actually reads, they only care about what they have to say…. hmmm…

    [...] Durchdreher 4: Apple Angestellte geben mit Ihren iPhones in der Öffentlichkeit an. [...]

    i’d see it as an advertising gimmick. issit not?

    regards.

    how many people are gonna say “that’s not a skull… thats the abide shirt, dude!”

    I’m sure its just a phone with a REALLY big screen. You get them in Japan all the time. How do I know? Cos I’ve never been there. But my friends uncles cousin’s nephew’s mother-in-law’s second auntie lives there.

    Dude, that’s not a list of comments posted by intelligent people, it’s a list of annoyingly redundant corrective posts by morons who can’t seem to grasp that the post above theirs says the exact same thing, as does the post above that, and the post above that.

    we get it! it’s a big lebowski shirt… give Androo the credit and move on!

    I think we all got what that shirt is all about, the next person to comment about it should be shot.

    well *I’d* do him.

    The problem with this world is all this jealousy… you can get a job and be successful and still be jealous because someone has something you can’t have. Please go kill yourself.

    I don’t ever read anyone else’s comments (how could they measure up to my own? I’d just be disappointed) but I don’t think that’s a skull t-shirt, I think it’s actually a Lebowskifest shirt. You’re welcome.

    Wow, what a cool dude. Enjoying his little moment in the sun before he becomes bully-bait in a few days. When this phone gets features like all cheap cell phones have right now, I’ll get one. Can’t copy/paste, can’t change the battery, no mp3 ringtones, no stereo bluetooth, etc…

    Oh i see.

    THAT IS AN OBEY SHIRT

    Calmer than you are dude.

    [...] you’ve probably seen pictures when the iPhone was seen in public aswell, like this. And if your woundering who the hell has the iPhone before the release date, well, according to [...]

    [...] Cult of Mac says Apple employees are no longer being coy about whipping out their iPhones in public, and that people are being hired to wait in line for an iPhone. Is this a strange planet, or what? [...]

    [...] breaking out their 3-in-1 revolutionary devices in San Francisco on Saturday.[…] Thanks to IvanB for providing this nice story on Digg (more than 1118 [...]

    [...] not even out yet (unless you’re special) and I’ve never seen one in real life, but damn, do I ever hate the [...]

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