THE WORM IN THE APPLE
THE man was smartly and stylishly dressed, like a rock star’s bodyguard on a TV show. He said he worked for “someone famous” – maybe a rapper or a sporting legend – and he had an offer to make: $500 (then about R3 500) to take David Barnard’s place in line for an iPhone.
This was 29 June 2007, and David had been camping all night outside the Apple Store in San Antonio, Texas, with his brother Sam and a small group of fellow diehards to get their hands on the very first Apple phone.
Apple gizmos had long been a key bond between the siblings and David (then 28) had persuaded his younger brother to let him be first in line.
“It was like a little party,” remembers David. “Everybody was super-friendly.”
David turned down the stranger’s offer, and at 10am sharp he became one of the first people in San Antonio to own an Apple iPhone. Store employees lined the way and high-fived him as he went.
“It really felt monumental and exciting,” says David, who would later build his career creating iPhone apps. “It really was a world-changing device.”
It was six months earlier, on 9 January, that Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs had unveiled the iPhone on stage in San Francisco to rapturous applause.
“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class.”
He listed a wide-screen iPod, a new cellphone and an internet communications device, before
