CHAPTER 4

What Is a Brand Model?

There are seamless product launches, and then there’s what happened with Apple’s iPhone 4.

In the beginning, everything appeared to be going according to plan. There was a great deal of buzz and speculation about what the new iPhone would and wouldn’t do. The Apple faithful were eager to upgrade—even before they knew anything about what the latest model would offer. Expectations were high. Enthusiasm was higher.

Then, on what was undoubtedly not the best birthday Apple engineer Gray Powell had ever had, a prototype iPhone 4 was left behind in a bar. It was soon in the possession of Gizmodo, which recognized that it had the tech-blogging scoop of the year on its hands. A PR debacle ensued, with major media outlets ...

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