The wildly popular and equally lovely Kara Swisher, who pens the Boom Town column for All Things D, captured some rare video footage of Steve Jobs pimping his iPad to WSJ tech writer Walt Mossberg, shortly after Apple's big event wrapped up on Wednesday. The home video style approach to the shooting makes the viewing experience all the more satisfying. Giving viewers the feeling that Swisher is operating a spy cam as she enters the Apple's inner sanctum.
Although Mossberg appears in this video, filling the screen like a pair of bearded bookends, it's the candid moments with El Jobso that held my attention. Especially the portion when Mossberg presses Jobs on Apple's potential iBook pricing of $14.99 compared to Amazon e-books at $9.99. Jobs confidently announces that e-book prices would be the same, but his next statement was a clear swipe aimed at Amazon.
"Publishers are actually gonna pull their books from Amazon, because they're not happy with them." Steve Jobs said.
The camera was abruptly stopped at that point and then restarted. What Jobs said about Amazon after the cut will most likely never be published. It's still great stuff to peer in on all the same. I enjoyed Kara's clever remarks delivered off camera, including her referring to Jobs as "El Jobso". Brilliant! Well done Kara.
Good stuff, but I prefer my Jobs on stage! Much more impressive there.
Why was the video cut-off at the point about pricing? An Apple handler intervening?
Tip for next time. Slower pace, fewer interspersed comments (let Mossberg finish his sentences!). The video and sound seemed speeded up with Mossberg at the start and end. It was all a bit frenetic, including Kara's comments ! It felt as if she had somewhere else to be... :-)
The video of Mossberg was also much too close! I didn't need to see his pores! There's a reason why old fashioned TV reporters have a separate camera person filming both interviewer and interviewee!
Oh, well. It did give you a feeling for what both Mossberg and Jobs are like and what it might have been like to have been there.
Posted by: robinson | February 01, 2010 at 07:28 AM