Sunday, May 31
Dear Diary, Jill woke me up in the middle of the night, saying I was crying again in my sleep. I keep having the same dream. Phil’s on stage, and the clicker stops working. He makes a little joke, and retrieves the spare one from the table. We always have a spare one. But the extra clicker also fails. Instead of joking, he takes the clicker and chunks it into the Cinema Display on the table, then grabs the demo iPhone, smashing it into bits on the stage.
After Jill calmed me down, I got a glass of water, went to the bathroom, and went back to sleep.
Monday, June 1
We spent today working on getting the slides roughed in. We were all freaking out, but Phil was just sitting at his end of the table, feet up, shoes off, eating a burrito - at 9 a.m. He keeps saying things like “Guys, chill. We’ve got plenty of time.” The guy who sits down the hall from me - I think his name is Jim - was just sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth muttering “Steve will get us. He knows it’s not ready.”
Phil dismissed us at 11 so he can spend the rest of the day playing Sonic the Hedgehog on his iPhone. I can’t believe he still uses the first-gen one. I guess Steve didn’t let him upgrade, or maybe Phil didn’t want to pay AT&T the extra money each month for the text messages. I’m gonna go play some golf this afternoon after a bite to eat.
Tuesday, June 2
Dear Diary, golf was good yesterday - one of my better rounds this year. One bummer - a couple of the guys working at the clubhouse saw my Apple badge on my belt and started asking me about the iTablet. I decided the truth - that I’m working on THE keynote of the year - was probably unwise, so I said I was just a low-level UNIX programmer working on some new APIs for syncing multiple directories in a managed environment.
That shut them up.
I’ve gotta remember to take off that damn badge when I get in my car after work.
Work was a little more productive. We ended the debate that we were having between using the “metal” or “wood” design for the graphs showing how more awesome the new iPhone is compared to the 2008 model and how much faster 10.6 is than 10.5.
Unrelated: I’ve gotta ask someone how to drop a .tiff into a Keynote presentation. Every time I do, Keynote “unexpectedly quits.” Dear Keynote: It is not “unexpected” if I can re-create it. Maybe it’s this “Developer Preview” OS I’m running. Who the hell codes this stuff?
Wednesday, June 3
After getting to work late - some idiot in a Ferrari caused a wreck on I–280 - our group really made some progress today. We got the “Snow Kitty” part of the presentation just about nailed down. It’s a lot shorter - less exciting- than previous OS preview we’ve done.
The gist of the presentation is: “Holy shit, it’s fast.” I have $5 on Phil actually saying that exact sentence against $5 from some guy over in the iPhone OS group. Like those guys know what they’re talking about.
Phil and the other executives keep going back and forth on the order of the presentation. Scott wants the iPhone 3.0 stuff to be first. Not surprising. I once saw the guy spill a few drops of soy sauce on his iPhone in the cafeteria and lick it clean. LICK IT CLEAN.
Of course, Bertrand wanted Snow Kitty up first. He gave Scott the evil eye during the whole meeting. Of course, that’s hard to say for sure - I mean, I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but DAMN. I think they’re going to let Tim settle it, but he was off running a marathon or something this afternoon.
Thursday, June 4 - Noon
I’m writing this at lunch, so I apologize if I spill something on you, Diary. The team got all the “boom moments” in the Snow Kitty slides ironed out last night after I went home. They’re aren’t many of them.
So today, we got the iPhone slides done. I always get this tingly feeling when seeing something new. Of course, I haven’t actually seen it. Just the pictures.
The “leaked” photos online aren’t that far off, but that’s as much as I dare to write. And of course, OS 3.0 is looking good.
After lunch, Phil started rehearsing the 10.6 portion of the keynote. It’s simple, and he’s doing well with it. But it keeps saying “Leopard” instead of “Snow Leopard.”
Phil suggested that a snow machine - like they use in the movies - would be a nice visual addition to the whole thing, and help him remember the “Snow” part of the name. Thankfully, someone talked him out of it.
We’re headed to San Francisco in the morning to finish this project up at the Moscone Center. Jill and I are going out tonight to see UP and get some drinks.
Friday, June 5
Ah, San Francisco. I love this city. The drive up was uneventful, except that I reached a new high-score on DoodleJump. What a sweet game. After parking, swinging by the Apple Store so someone could pick up a iPhone USB cable, we headed to Moscone. I love how Apple Store people think of themselves. Silly kids.
Moscone is looking good - the logo’s out front, and the banners are up. Phil spent the afternoon on stage, practicing while we finished up the iPhone slides. Everything is coming together so well, we have tomorrow off, but have to report back here at 7 Sunday morning for final rehearsal.
Saturday, June 6
So much for a day off. We had planned to go down to the Bay, and maybe even take a tour of Alcatraz. I should have known better.
Anyways, by the time we got the call to come back, it was lunch time. Phil was in a frenzy, having realized that he didn’t know the slides by heart. What this has to do with me, I have no idea. I just MAKE the slides, I can’t IMPRINT THEM ON HIS BRAIN. Sigh.
But what could I do? We helped him go over them again and again. It’s now almost midnight, and we’re finally finding food. Feels like a Stevenote, all of a sudden.
Sunday, June 7
Well Diary, we made it. Sunday. The day before the keynote. Sundays can be great, or hellish. After yesterday’s study session, everyone is feeling better.
Sunday is when we add the OMT slides. OMT, of course, being “One More Thing.” Only my boss is involved in creating them. He and Phil went off into a closed room to create them. It is only in that room that anyone outside of the executive team is told what those slides will entail - if anything. If there’s not a OMT, this meeting still takes place, for the benefit of the other employees.
Anyways, my boss adds the new slides to end of the master copy of the presentation, which then goes on an encrypted disk image, copied to a flash drive and handed to a member of the PR team, who is not give then password to mount the image. Only Steve has that password. I’m not sure even this year - with Phil doing the talk - that anyone but Steve has the password.
Of course, my boss is escorted back to his hotel room afterwards, and isn’t seen or heard from until Monday morning. That’s when the fun is. See you then, diary.