Stephen Fry comes up with the name iPhone...in 1998!

[DURS1972]

shit shit shit shit shit

[xShakespearex]

God I wish you'd have made him repeat 'sex lines' instead.. <3

[adamgreen222]

iThink you'll find Apple bought the iPhone trademark. A quick google suggests it was owned by Cisco (and perhaps others.)

[spiritwolf1970]

notice how everyone names their products with an i in front of it now to get some plug time, as if ideath makes me want to book a funeral parlor because theyre hip and with it with iapps that will let your family know if your not still dead.

[blondemario]

WHY DOES HE HAVE TO KNOW EVERYTHING?

[thebigdawg61]

I ain't too good at that thar spellin' stuff. Her in Texas we spell hesh up stfu.

[MrBuch169169]

I think I missed the bit where he mentioned the name i-phone, actually. If only the author of this video could have highlighted it for me in some way.

[thebertster]

@MrBuch169169 Glad I could oblige ;)

[Terrystearsatlfc]

he phone he phone he phone

[gamerunknown]

Almost, Johnny Mnemonic had it in 1995

[Metatality]

"Kinect is a good flag to fly under"

Stephen Fry supports the XBOX.... OH YEAH!

[thebertster]

@konayasai Except "melee" is pronounced "mel-ay" not "melly" and "debut" is pronounced "day-byoo" not "dee-but" so your counter-argument doesn't hold water :)

As someone with a background in computer programming, one side of my brain certainly does have a predeliction for rigour and formality ("rules and regulations") in language - but we are human beings, not computers, and the ever-changing nature of language is what makes it so interesting and exciting.

[konayasai]

@thebertster However, the alternative spelling of "melee" is "mêlée", and for "debut" it's "début". I say alternative, but in reality I mean correct; the other ones are "lazy" variants. Still correct, but... Lazy. :)

[konayasai]

@thebertster As a fellow programmer, I'm sure you know about the code page hell, and why the diacritics were dropped. I love language and its ever-changing nature, but this change is for the worse. It makes reading boring. And honestly, if diacritics were in place, the pronunciation of "mêlée", "début", and "coöperation" makes more sense. I've managed to convert a number of people into using diacritics for that sole reason: it makes more sense.

[emptyflagpole]

If you think that's amazing, just wait until ten years from now when everyone has a jFax!

[JellyKimSugarBoom14]

How you repeated Iphone made it seem weirdly sinister and creepy lol

[thebertster]

@JellyKimSugarBoom14 That was the idea, but it didn't quite turn out how I wanted! Never mind.

[nick1spain]

The Grand Master at work Again. Fry is the Lord

[P0rphyro]

lol at the 'omg he said Kinect too!' comments - he says 'Only connect', quoting the epigraph from Forster's 'Howards End'.

[blondemario]

@P0rphyro It doesn't have power over life and death though ( 0:08 )

[fallella]

a bit overkill at the end haha

[thebertster]

@fallella I was going to add some creepy music, echo and make it fade out in a really sinister way, but I got bored ;)

[fallella]

@thebertster yeah, best leave it as it is! but seriously, that man is beyond genius. this video proves he is either a time traveller or the inventor of most household items

[teknonket]

maybe Steve Jobs is a fan

[CaptainVengeance69]

Is J-Fax a fax from Japan or just in Japanese?

[jowie74]

Thumbs up this comment instead of the impending one that says "Thumbs up if Stephen Fry sent you here".

[moleman1996]

maybe playing it like 70 times was just a little over the top. And it was clearly also kinect. Microsoft and apples should clearly be employing the great one!

[thebertster]

@moleman1996 It was only nine times :)

[mrmike1453]

dont be fooled by his apparent genius - tis witchcraft i tell thee!

[IrishLocalBusiness]

Brilliant, so thats where Apple got it from

[TheSweetjonny]

Clearly a genius...

[616Snookie]

@LordKinkade Guy, it's Kinect, not connect...

[bites]

He's a legend, pure and simple

[LordKinkade]

Guys, it's connect, not kinect.

[Togsy93]

He also comes up with Kinnect. Wow he truly is way ahead of his time @30

[chuFFisTwo]

he says Kinect too!

[jennywhojenny]

All hail King Stephen! This man is genius, pure genius!

[rosebrambles]

Even though it's probably just a funny coincidence - it's pretty awesome!

[ReFLuXViruS]

Apple are thieves. Thieves I tell you! Can't think of it themselves so they steal from this amazing fellows brain. Damn them.

[GintherTheGreat123]

Stephen Fry and Steve Jobbs are the same robot that was sent from the future.

Its the only explanation.

[AligatormonkeyYAY]

As if Stephen Fry wasn't awesome enough...

[omglolatm]

I put it on TVTropes. :'D

[raveneleni]

@konayasai - if thats true im gonna guess thats what he based this on not that it was random, lol. just a guess tho,

[WalshyEnjoysCeoL]

I'm expecting a remix.

[DangerSteve]

Hold on, I've just got a J-Fax coming through...

[BeepSmile]

And of course, he may have come up with iPhone, but he also coined the word. "Luvvy. So yeah. [I pure <3 the man, naturally :) ]

[konayasai]

It would actually be a tie. Infogear (since bought by Cisco) launched an Internet phone called IPhone in 1998.

[thebertster]

@konayasai If you read the description of the video, you will see that I had already considered that possibility... ;)

[konayasai]

@thebertster Ah. :) Out of curiosity and completely besides the point: isn't "naïve" spelled with an "ï" and not an "i"?

[thebertster]

@konayasai Funnily enough I did dither about using the trema when I wrote it but decided it looked a bit pretentious! Either spelling is acceptable and the form without the diacritic is more common these days, not least because most people wouldn't know how to get that character on a standard UK/US keyboard.

The same is true of other loan words like "régime", "rôle", "divorcée", "mêlée", "élite" and "début". To modern eyes these all look a bit unusual with their original diacritics in place.

[kimdom]

Haha, hilarious.

[mattjasonhardwick]

who gives a shit? the name iPhone was around for longer than this from Cisco, and this is totally out of context.

[thebertster]

@mattjasonhardwick Bo!

[GregStrummer]

Like if you came thanks to Twitter! Oh, so exciting to be first Tweeter to comment!

[GregStrummer]

@GregStrummer Damn, 15 seconds late...

[bigbadben]

Wow, he said Kinect too.

[OxygenChrist]

iPhone, yeah yeah, we got it now! Yeah yeah, we got it now! Got it now! Got it now! Now! Now! Now!

[DieGewerkschaft]

funny :-)

I am sure Stephen Fry coined a lot of remarkable expressions in his life, so far.