In 2007, Steve Jobs used the iPhone to make a call for the first time in public—and to pull a prank that became one of the most iconic moments in Apple’s history and in mobile telephony. This is what happened.
Steve Jobs calls a Starbucks with the first iPhone
On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs opened Google Maps on the iPhone, searched for “Starbucks,” and tapped one of the results. The number was dialled on the touchscreen and, on the other end, the polite voice of Ying Hang “Hannah” Zhang answered, a barista at a Starbucks in San Francisco:
—“Good morning, Starbucks, how may I help you?”
—“Yes, I’d like to order 4,000 lattes to go, please.” —Jobs said with a smile and waited a second—: “No, just kidding. Wrong number. Goodbye!”
At that moment, an entire room full of people burst into laughter. Because that call was made from the stage of the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where Steve Jobs had just introduced the first iPhone to the world. After showing us how to browse the web, zoom in on photos with our fingers, or use Google Maps, it was time to demonstrate something we now take for granted: that this new device could also make calls. And Steve Jobs’s style (who once had to hide his Porsche to save Apple’s future) is always surprising.
Hannah, the barista who answered Steve Jobs
For Hannah, that moment didn’t feel historic at all… at least not at first. She only heard a stranger ordering 4 000 lattes to go. She was so surprised she didn’t even manage to reply. It seemed to her that this “gentleman,” as she describes him, was simply being funny.
Some time later, however, customers started showing up, almost as if on a “pilgrimage” to the shop, coming up to her and asking whether she knew that someone from her store had spoken to Steve Jobs. That was when she discovered that the brief call she had answered was part of the first iPhone presentation.
Hannah, who was contacted by Fast Company and who worked at that Starbucks for more than half a decade, remembers the story with a smile and with pride. She feels happy and fortunate that she was the one who answered that call and that Jobs chose “her” Starbucks. Her friends, she says, were somewhere between surprised and jealous: “Wow, you got a chance to talk to Steve Jobs?”. And it seems like they tell her: “You should’ve said more! You just say 'Good morning' and 'How can I help you'”.
And the story didn’t end that morning in 2007. From then on, that Starbucks began receiving calls from Apple fans who wanted to repeat the joke and order 4 000 lattes to go, just like Jobs did. And, according to Hannah herself, those calls still come in—though now only once in a great while.
Today, when we use our iPhone to locate a shop, pay with our mobile, or look up how to get anywhere, it’s nice to remember Steve Jobs on stage, pulling that small prank that made it clear the iPhone had arrived to change the way we move through the world, interact… and also the way we order coffee.
On Hanaringo | With this system, it will be much harder to miss our notifications on the iPhone