Late last year, Robert X. Cringely released his hour-long 1995 interview with Steve Jobs in several theaters in the United States. Roughly ten minutes of that footage was used in the 1996 Triumph of the Nerds documentary, but the remainder had been thought lost until a VHS copy of the footage was discovered just after Jobs' death last year.
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As noted by Cringely, the interview has now been made available for rent in the iTunes Store, although the title appears to be limited to the U.S. store [iTunes Store]. The rental is priced at $3.99, and as with other content in the U.S. iTunes Store, customers have 30 days from the time of rental to begin watching the title. Once the customer begins watching, the rental expires in 24 hours.
Cringely indicates with some annoyance that Apple has apparently refused to feature the interview in its iTunes Store, deeming it "too controversial" and "too sensitive" for such publicity.
Deeming the film “too controversial,” Apple has it on the site but they aren’t promoting it and won’t. The topic is “too sensitive” you see. It isn’t even listed in the iTunes new releases. You have to search for it. But it’s there.
Maybe I’m not even supposed to tell you.
Of course there is nothing controversial or insensitive about this movie, which everyone including the critics seems to like. It’s a different look at an interesting guy and some people seem to take away a lot from it. You be the judge.
For those still interested in seeing the interview in the theater, it continues to play from time to time in select theaters.
Top Rated Comments
PBS is not free. Just ask the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation or The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
OMG, you know what I mean.
Of course someone pays for it, mojumbo. But not the people watching, unless they choose to donate.
I swear with this forum sometimes. It's not enough that most of you don't have a sense of humor but now you have to be difficult too.
Just because something airs on PBS doesn't mean it falls into the public domain, even though it's obvious that Cringely is trying to milk this for all it's worth. I'm more pissed off that this is only a rental and you can't buy it to watch multiple times. Hopefully someone can rip it and put it up as a torrent or on usenet.
It's on YouTube (for free) already, just search 'Steve Jobs lost interview' and go about halfway down the page.Someone inverted the image but it's there, I Airplayed it to my Apple TV the other night.
Just because something airs on PBS doesn't mean it falls into the public domain, even though it's obvious that Cringely is trying to milk this for all it's worth. I'm more pissed off that this is only a rental and you can't buy it to watch multiple times. Hopefully someone can rip it and put it up as a torrent or on usenet.
Actually, he's milking it for MORE than it's worth.