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

"Saturday Night Fry" was a radio chat show in 1998 hosted by Stephen Fry (not to be confused with a radio sketch show of the same name featuring Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson et al. some ten years earlier).

In episode 5, Stephen and guests - which included Douglas Adams, renowned for being even more of a Steve Jobsophile than Fry, having bought both the first and second Apple Macs in the UK (Stephen bought the third) - discuss various topics around information and technology.

Stephen opens with a classic Fry monologue, much of which now sounds very dated (56K flex modems anyone?) - but towards the end of the piece, Stephen comes out with the name "iPhone", almost ten years before the Apple product was released!

Given Apple already have a software component called Time Machine, maybe Steve Jobs is using it to retroffect the minds of those proven in the present to be susceptible to Apple's brainwashing techniques in order to engineer the perfect Jobsian future, where all is white, plastic, shiny and "just works" (provided you do exactly what Steve Jobs tells you to do...)

I'm not saying that's actually what happened. Or am I? Perhaps I am?

Anyone who claims that he was simply referring to the Linksys iPhone which had just been released and subsequently became the subject of a trademark dispute between Apple and Cisco is hopelessly naive of course!

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• stephen
• fry
• apple
• iphone
• prediction
• weird
• scary

[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 ;)

[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 :)

[GregStrummer]

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

[OxygenChrist]

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

[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?

[blondemario]

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

[thebigdawg61]

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

[Terrystearsatlfc]

he phone he phone he phone