Apple iPhone steals CTIA Wireless 2007 show; FCC chairman wouldn’t give it back

“Even the FCC chairman appears to have iPhone fever,” Bruce Meyerson reports for The Associated Press.

“The new cell phone from Apple Inc. made a rare public appearance Tuesday during the keynote session at the CTIA Wireless 2007 trade show. It lasted just moments, but it was easily the highlight of an otherwise uneventful morning,” Meyerson reports.

“When AT&T Inc. Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson pulled out the gadget during his speech, the audience snapped to attention and the room lit with camera flashes,” Meyerson reports.

Meyerson reports, “And while Apple made sure to whisk the closely guarded device away from the convention center right after the speech, another keynote speaker managed to get his eager hands on it backstage beforehand: Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. ‘He spent more time with it than I did,’ Stephenson said in an interview afterward. For a minute, ‘It seemed like he wouldn’t give it back,’ Stephenson joked.”

“It was Martin, Stephenson said, who quickly figured out the touch-screen navigation that the AT&T executive demonstrated minutes later during his speech,” Meyerson reports. “Tuesday marked only the second time Stephenson had held or seen an iPhone in person. ‘I held it one time in a Cingular board meeting,’ but that unit wasn’t operational, he said. ‘Today was the first time I could navigate it.'”

Meyerson reports, “Then, as quickly as it began, all the fun and games came to an end — Apple style. ‘A guy in blue jeans’ took it away, Stephenson said.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Patrice” for the heads up.]
Apple iPhone. Rockstar. Ladies and gentlemen, iPhone has left the building.

In related news: At the CTIA Wireless 2007 trade show this morning, executives from Samsung, Microsoft, Motorola, Palm, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and others in attendance finally came to a sad realization (Allow!) and pooled their resources to order history’s single largest shipment of Depends.

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