Steve Jobs Will Bite Off Your Face If You Mess With His iPhone 4G Launch

Quick quiz: You walk up to Steve Jobs. You look him straight in the eye (aren’t you brave) and you say, with a lot of confidence and bravado in your voice,  “Steve, you’ve got two choices:

Choice one is we cut off your left hand right here, right now, cauterize the wound on a hot car engine, add some nice seasoning and make you watch as we use your digits to feed our particularly carnivorous and hungry goldfish pet goldfish.

Choice two is we break Apple’s vaunted secrecy and security and actually let a fully-featured iPhone 4G prototype out into the wild MONTHS before you’re ready to launch the thing . . .

What do you think Steve does?

Does he . . .

A. Say “Man, I sure do want my iPhone launch to be successful, but DUDE this is my HAND you’re talking about” and tell you to go ahead and leak the iPhone.

B. Glare at you with steely determination, take a swig of bourbon (where’d that flask come from?), hold out his hand (steady as a rock) and say “You knife better be SHARP.”

C. Cry. Not like a baby. Not in a weak way. But with stunning grace, power and elegance. Tears that hit you in the gut like a wrestler with a 2 x 4 and make you wonder what you’ve been doing with your life so far.

D. POUNCE ON YOU LIKE A TIGER AND EAT YOUR FACE BECAUSE YOU DO NOT MESS WITH STEVE JOBS’ LAUNCH.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they think the iPhone 4G leak was an “inside job.” (Are these the same people who think 9/11 was a hoax or that astronauts landed in Nevada instead of the moon?)

Personally, I think they’re nuts. Kookoo. Crazy. Kind of dumb.

Not just because leaking an iPhone is 100% against Apple’s MO (they’ve NEVER had a full device get out into the wild like this before, and from what I hear Apple employees live in constant fear for their lives and the lives of their children at the idea of letting too much info out.)

But because from a “Product Launch” perspective letting the iPhone 4G out early makes about as much sense as wearing a pancake as a hat.

Obviously there’s a pretty big difference between the kind of information-based launches I regularly work on and the massive, world-destroying stuff that big poppa Steve turns around a couple times a year (mmm. iPad yummy.)

But what pretty much every launch has in common is a desire to control and shape the conversation around your product and around your topic.

On Doug Fath’s recent launch, for instance, we wanted to shape opinion on “Student Housing,” hit the “Student Housing Sucks” prejudice head on and create our own version of reality where Student Housing was the BEST way to invest in real estate in 2010. (Tangentially, I really do think that’s true. Doug’s stuff is awesome.)

With the iPhone getting out into the wild now, Steve and the marketing geniuses over at Apple have almost completely lost control of the  launch conversation.

Even worse, he’s lost control of the public’s curiosity and the MYSTERY around the new phone.

I bet Steve feels a little like a burlesque dancer who strides out on stage ready to TEASE the hell out of the audience only to have some asshole run up and steal her pasties.

Without the mystery . . . well, what does she got?

Now, I have no doubt in my mind that the iPhone 4G is going to be successful. (Heck, I’ll probably get one myself.)

But I literally ache with sympathy to apple for having their whole launch plan blown out of the water like this.

Normally Apple’s “unveiling events” are global news, surrounded by fervor and speculation and fanboys breaking their own necks to try to figure out what’s coming next.

Now? We KNOW what’s coming.

I just hope that Steve has “One more thing” to blow us away.

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