Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference to unveil the iPhone 4, showcasing a new glass-and-steel design, the high-resolution Retina Display, and FaceTime video calling. The presentation was disrupted by network overload from thousands of attendees' devices, forcing Jobs to ask the audience to disconnect from Wi-Fi mid-demo.
The iPhone 4 launch was Steve Jobs at his showman's peak, unveiling a phone whose squared-off stainless steel edges and glass front and back represented a sharp design break from the rounded plastic of earlier models. He touted the Retina Display's pixel density as finally exceeding what the human eye could distinguish, and demonstrated FaceTime, Apple's new video-calling feature, by chatting live with an engineer elsewhere in the building.
The demo nearly fell apart in real time. With thousands of developers in the audience streaming and tweeting on their own Wi-Fi-enabled devices, the conference hall's network buckled, causing the on-stage demo unit to lose its connection repeatedly. An visibly irritated Jobs paused the presentation and asked the room to turn off their Wi-Fi and laptops so the demo could proceed.
Despite the hiccups, the iPhone 4 became one of Apple's most influential designs, and later that summer the device became embroiled in "Antennagate," when users found that gripping the phone a certain way could degrade cell signal, prompting Apple to offer free cases and, eventually, a rare on-camera apology-adjacent press conference from Jobs.
Key people: Steve Jobs