Conan's iphone commercial

It does everything (except do what it's really supposed to do)!

Well, at least, that's what the phone manufacturers hope. :)

Anyway, I was reading some blogs earlier and one of them asked this question:

How come Steve Jobs announced the iphone and yet didn't have the product on hand already?

Why announce something so exciting and yet raise the possibility of building up expectations so high (like in this spoof by Conan) and run the risk of falling flat when the product does show up (WHAT? It doesn't have a can opener?)?

It's like showing all your cards and then leaving to go to the john for a while so that the other players can figure out what to do.

Kind of like how Windows keeps announcing the new OS and yet keeps delaying it.

Strange, since in the past when Jobs makes an announcement, products are in stores the next day.

Did he hear of developments coming from the phone manufacturers and thus wanted to steal their thunder?

What gives?

One things for sure: if I was a phone manufacturer, I'd seriously produce something cooler, cheaper, more sophisticated than the iphone -- and it better have 3G. (But I realize how tough that'd be.)