Filed under: Found Footage, iPhone
Found Footage: AT&T's Stan Sigman gifts iPhone at West Texas A&M
As noted earlier tonight, there seems to be at least one iPhone in the wild. TUAW is pleased to bring you this exclusive video from our agent-on-the-spot Mikal. Today, Stan Sigman, CEO of AT&T Wireless (Cingular), was the commencement speaker at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. Sigman, who is a 1970 grad, gifted WTAMU president Dr. J. Patrick O'Brien with what appears to be the "first iPhone in Texas".
Mikal's friend shot this footage on his Treo. The sound is a bit hard to follow but you can hear the bit about the iPhone if you listen carefully. Canyon, Texas is home to about 12,000 people--most of whom would love to receive a free iPhone but apparently only about .0083% of the town got their wish today.
"This next ?announcement? may interest you more than anything...(unintelligible)...The first ?regulation? iPhone in the state of Texas is in the hands of Dr. O'Brien of West Texas A&M University. (applause) So, if you don't remember a word I've said and someone asks you about your graduation, you can say...(unintelligible)"
Update: TUAW Reader John A of WTAMU sent in this much better video. Thank yous to John A, Mikal and Mikal's friend.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nebster said 11:25PM on 5-12-2007
Would just like to take this spot to say...
Texas A&M rocks, and i'm going there next year!
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Kevin Little said 12:01AM on 5-13-2007
Are we really going to start reporting every iPhone spotted in the wild.
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Mikal Stevens said 12:06AM on 5-13-2007
You're welcome!
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Mikal Stevens said 12:17AM on 5-13-2007
Sorry Nebster...WEST Texas A&M. Totally different.
Gig 'em.
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Wagnel said 12:28AM on 5-13-2007
Gig 'em!
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brianc said 1:06AM on 5-13-2007
Insert Aggie joke here.....
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Brandon said 3:07AM on 5-13-2007
I work at West Texas A&M, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies. Seriously, that has to be some sort of mock-up that he gave to Dr. O'Brien today. Besides, he is never out of reach of his Blackberry, so an iPhone would probably go unused.
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brady said 3:38AM on 5-13-2007
Sounds to me like he said "the first pre-release iPhone in the State of Texas."
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randall said 12:10PM on 5-13-2007
Bell Micro gave an iPhone as a prize Thur, May 10th, at the Qlogic Fusion conference in San Diego. Some guy from TekData won it.
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Scott said 1:44PM on 5-13-2007
Who cares?
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John Laur said 3:11PM on 5-13-2007
I was there yesterday (a couple of friends graduating) and remember the quote exactly .. well at least the first time it was said.There were two separate graduation ceremonies to keep them shorter, and this video appears to be from the second graduation ceremony. He said "The first pre-release iPhone in the state of Texas is in the hands of your university president, Dr. J. Patrick O'Brien." Dr. O'Brien held it up and waved it around and everyone cheered. I was too far away to get a good photo so I didn't bother. I was wondering if this would make the news somehow; I figured that someone would get a good shot the second time around after knowing that it was coming. Glad somebody did ---
This guy is the head honcho of AT&T wireless, so he's probably the only person in the world that could and would be able to whip out an iPhone in such a circumstance, so I really have no doubt that the phone was real. I think to suggest that it was somehow given to Dr. O'Brien is quite far fetched. I'm quite sure he simply handed him the iPhone during the ceremony just to make a splash.
In other news, the address he gave was pretty bad. Aside from the unnecessarily self-serving promotion of AT&T/Cingular/Apple the rest of the speech focused on how having to "settle" for going to WTAMU (the subtext being that it is a poor-quality school) was OK. I'm as excited to see an iPhone as the next guy, but I thought it was poor form to talk like that to hundreds of graduates and the entire school's faculty.
It's also worth noting that although Amarillo was a comparatively early market for cellular (Around 1987 or so), since that time all the wireless phone companies have really drug their feet around here. Last time I checked, Canyon, TX (Where WTAMU is) doesn't even have EDGE coverage. We finally got it in Amarillo a couple of years ago, but nobody has plans to bring any 3G service here in the foreseeable future. Oh well.
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Thomas Schenden said 2:26AM on 5-14-2007
Oh for Pete's sake. Let's take the iLove down a notch or five! I could imagine this being worthy of report if a) the sound was of decent quality or b) the video was of decent quality or c) someone was actually visible giving the iPhone away or d) an iPhone was visible. . . any of those would be interesting. But this is just swooning nonsense.
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Donald Burr said 7:20PM on 5-14-2007
What I want to know is, did he read his commencement speech off of 3x5 index cards?
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Catt said 10:20PM on 5-14-2007
Could not hear or see a thing in the video... guess I'll take # 11's
word for it.
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John Attebury said 11:13AM on 5-15-2007
Thought you might be interested to know that I've just posted a clearer version of the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjb1BUCBqQ.
It's interesting that Mr. Stigman predicts that the iPhone will be "the largest commercial product launch in the history of electronics."
(Disclaimer: I work for WT - but I do plan to get an iPhone)
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