Apple picker Six years and five versions of iPhones later, the recipient of the prank call was found and had the honor of being the first to publicly receive a call from the first iPhone.
On January 2007, XNUMX, the day the mobile industry was changed, Steve Jobs grabbed his new iPhone and dialed one of the Starbucks coffee shops located in San Francisco. "Good morning, how may I help you?" staff member Ying Hang Zhang replied warmly. "Yes, I'd like to order 4 lattes to go, please" Jobs replied, then added: "No, I'm just kidding. Wrong number, here you go!”
When Jobs hung up, the audience erupted in laughter. That's because it wasn't some private prank. Jobs stood on the stage of the Moscone Center, where he was making history by introducing the first iPhone. A prank call to a nearby Starbucks was the first ever public phone call from an iPhone.
Jobs had already had a call with Jony Ive and Phil Schiller a few minutes before, but it was pre-arranged business. The proof was the presence of both Apple executives in the audience. The true test of the iPhone came when Jobs opened the Google Maps application, searched for the nearest Starbucks and dialed its number.
But for Zhang, a barista at Starbucks, it was an ordinary day. Of course, she had no idea that Apple was introducing a new product, and she had no idea that she was talking to Steve Jobs himself for a few seconds.
Server & Hosting Fast Company however, he tracked down the happy employee, whom everyone knows as Hannah. Six years later, Hannah still works at the same Starbucks. "I was honestly horrified. I've never heard of anyone ordering a 4 latte to go. I couldn't even react to that, I was in shock. But it seemed to me that he was only trying to be funny. He sounded like a gentleman,” Hannah recalls.
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Hannah, now still smiling, of course knows that it was Steve Jobs who placed this truly unusual order. She found out from a customer, and now she's kind of proud that this tech guru chose her coffee shop. "Customers often ask me if I know the person who talked to Jobs here. I am happy that I had the chance to talk to him. It means a lot to me that you chose our cafe" explains Hannah, dressed in a green Starbucks apron. "My friends were surprised and kind of jealous," Hannah continues, adding that she also heard from friends that she should have told him more.
Today, similar huge (and also prank) orders are, one might say, commonplace, thanks to Apple fans. "We've never taken an order like this before," says Hannah "but after he called us here, everyone is trying to copy him, so people are calling and ordering thousands of lattes."
The cafe's manager, Kimoko Barbour, only became aware of the matter after Fast Company she became interested in this story. "It happens randomly. It's funny because I didn't even realize something like this was going on until you called us." says Kimoko. "A fellow manager then asked me if I had seen THAT video and I said, 'What video?' She ended up emailing it to me and I showed it to Hannah. This came full circle and we understood why people order 4 lattes! Before that, we were just amazed that there was anyone who would order something like this." the manager recalls.
During the meeting with Fast Company Hannah and Kimoko were sitting at a table in their cafe and Hannah suddenly asked: "How long would it take to make 4000 lattes?" Kimoko immediately responded by asking if they had enough milk, which made them both laugh. They figured out that it takes 44 seconds to complete each order. This means that Jobs would have to wait 48 hours before all 4000 lattes - without breaks and with a sufficient supply of milk - could be prepared.
Hannah concludes by adding that if she had known it was Jobs, she would have told him more. For example, she would like to know what she is currently presenting at the keynote and, like a true Apple fan, she would ask when the new product (iPhone) will be on the market. However, she would like to make one request to him most of all: "I would ask him to come to our cafe so I can make him the perfect drink."
