You certainly did make that ding in the universe you wanted.
People can criticize his specific methods to their hearts content, but no one can deny we just lost one of the great technological revolutionarys, a man who changed the world in a massive way. He stayed with Apple right until the very end, he could teach anyone out there lessons in commitment.
As a human being the guy was an a-hole and screwed over friends and family. I couldn't care less. I just hope that now he's dead that people dont start putting him in to the categories of the true greats of society who have truly helped people and made real progress, because that would be disgusting.
You're like Roddy Piper from They Live with the magic sunglasses, and only you can see just how awful Jobs was while everybody else reflects on his invaluable contributions to technology, culture, and society.
Are you kidding? Smart phones were text driven ./ pale immitations of computing before the iPhone.
MP3 players and MP3s in general were a clusterfck of designs, cheap parts, lack of continuity, until the iPod and ITunes came along..
The PC market was even more of a mess of blurred product groups, shotty parts and service, complete lack of user-friendly environments, receding profits until the iMac's became the fastest growing PC group in the country.
Regardless if you agree with the philosphy.. Average joe computer user does not need all the chaos that a PC can bring. They want it to just work. Apple's way of simplifing the insanity the PC world brings really works for a LOT of people.
The question technology users always have to ask themselves. How much time do I want to devote to this new device. No answer is wrong here, just the PC market in general left the users who answer, "As little overhead time as possible" completely on their own. This is where Apple has stepped in and had wide success.
You may call them sheep, letting the manufacturer limit what one can do with their products... But there is a huge market of people who are calling for this.
Imagine if the dashboard of your car looked like the inside of an airplane cockpit. Each system giving you switches, options, monitors for things you have no idea about. How much fun/hassel would it be to drive?? Something like an airliner needs all that. Safety of hundreds of people depend on it. Minor changes make a world of difference. However in a car, average joe turns it on and wants to go.
Apple has given a lot of people an option for just turning it on, and GO.
The PC industry got so big so fast, that chaos followed with all the options and alternatives. Apple brought a single path to follow through that chaos. Right or wrong for you, it was the right path for $100Billion in revenue per year.
Kudos to Jobs for building a wildly successful tech company in a post internet bubble era.
I'm not intending to speak ill of Jobs but his contribution to Apple wasn't his technological expertise, it was marketing. He found a neglected market segment those who weren't tech savvy or just not willing to learn. He guided the esoteric design of ipods, macs and Ipads and their operating systems. He was able to create buzz within the right groups of people and was able to make a market frenzy for the initial product launches.
Let's give him credit for what he was good at.
Let's also be honest about the products.
The Ipod wasn't the first quality mp3 player, or the easiest to use.
The iMac shouldn't even count as an accomplishment.
The Iphone was not the first smart phone. It wasn't even the first touch screen smartphone.
There is not a single area of technology that Apple has revolutionized. Apple has been successful in shaping existing technology and marketing it to the masses. Let's not belittle their accomplishments but be truthful about the extent of those accomplishments.
If you look at Steve Jobs life and legacy you have to admit he was a great person.
"The Ipod wasn't the first quality mp3 player, or the easiest to use."
300 Million Sold. Name the next in line? Right, Can't.
"The iMac shouldn't even count as an accomplishment."
???
The only PC company to be growing it's install base.
"The Iphone was not the first smart phone. It wasn't even the first touch screen smartphone."
Didn't say that at all. But seems to me there wasn't a race to build the best touch-screen smartphone until AFTER the iPhone launched. Most assumed it fail as all other smart-phones had.
"There is not a single area of technology that Apple has revolutionized. Apple has been successful in shaping existing technology and marketing it to the masses. Let's not belittle their accomplishments but be truthful about the extent of those accomplishments."
iPad is still the only wildly successful tablet. The tablet concepted failed entirely time and time again until the iPad.
Smartphones. Again. No one bought them until after the launch of the iPhone. Now the smart phone market is poised to become the largest cell phone market.
Ipod. 300 million. I would guess no other single music device family has sold more than 20 million.
Let's be truthful, you hate Apple and are biased toward their products.
The iPod used a more quality/fancy case and a small hard drive. It was overpriced but it sold because people wanted lots of music storage. There were much cheaper flash versions of mobile music, and modern cell phones make the iPod a thing of the past anyway. Every technology has its hayday but the fact that the iPod will never see huge sales again goes to prove that it was evolutionary and not revolutionary.
The incandescent light bulb is a thing of the past. Was it not revolutionary? Besides, very little credit is given to Apple for what it has done. Look, for example, at the rise in popularity (and fall in price) of IPS monitors. It was Apple that pushed the technology by incorporating it in their monitors, iMac computers, iPhone 4, and tablets. Look at the capacitive touch overlay. Apple showed the world that a smartphone didn't need a stylish to be useful, that a capacitive screen was better than a resistive for most tasks. Look at the mouse. Sure, it was Xerox that invented the mouse, but it was Apple that pushed its adoption. These are just several examples of Apple's contributions to the computer industry. In the end, Apple did not invent new technology, it showed the world how to use it. Isn't that important? I would say so.
"Every technology has its hayday but the fact that the iPod will never see huge sales again goes to prove that it was evolutionary and not revolutionary."
Yes, and Apple knew this. Unlike other companies, they were already looking past the iPod. Any other company would have milked a hit product like that into the ground and into irrelevance. It's happened over and over with many companies, Sony, Samsung, Microsoft, etc etc. Apple kept moving forward.
Look at November 2006, Microsoft comes out with an iPod competitor in the Zune. What happens only six weeks later? The iPhone is revealed. After it is a hit later that summer, suddenly every company is scrambling to put out simple to use touchscreen smartphones, now that is the fastest growing (and one of the most profitable) markets out there.
Your comment isn't really relevant given that Apple themselves know that products are transitory, but unlike most companies they keep moving forward.
You confuse popular and good. Popular doesn't imply anything about quality or innovation. Not all people research every product before they purchase something.
I prefer every other mp3 player I've ever owned to either iPod I currently use. If we're going to argue about which is better than there has to be a criteria. I'd use audio quality, usability, feature set, durability, ease of use, (and most of all) price tag.
Because of this I like the Sansa Clip. Good audio quality, adequate feature set very durable and it's very cheap. It fits my life stye and fulfills my only absolute requirement; that it play music. It does that well and can take being run over twice and still work (although it no longer "clips".)
If a person prefers simplicity, design and not making their own decisions then an iPod is great because you don't have to decide how you'll use it.
I think around 2001 I had a Creative Rio,, about the same time the original iPod came out. I can't talk **** about the original because it was a fine piece of hardware. Plus it used a mini hard drive that cost more at retail than the ipod itself. But the flash based Rio was rubberized, ergonomic, had great features, could be used as a flash drive in a pinch and still had a couple hours worth of space for a fraction of the cost. A couple hours is all i cared to listen to at any given point. The Rio still works, I don't think know anyone with an original iPod on it's original hard drive.
*** I suppose the point I want to make is that saying iPods, iMacs, or iPads are better because they sell millions of units is ridiculous. Popular isn't usually an indicator of overall quality. Apple's success is almost always tied to their marketing tallent, not the revolutionary nature of their products.
Let's get this straight. Smartphones were not "text driven" before the iPhone. And people still bought Palm and Blackberry, Nokia, and the various Windows based phones after the iPhone came out. The iPhone was an evolutionary step in smartphone development that, in combination with heavy advertising, made the iPhone dominant in the market. It was not the first, it was not necessarily the best by everyone's standards and it will probably continue to decline against the competition since it's no longer a stylish fetish object.
Truth: I don't hate Apple. I have some respect for the company, its founders and some of their products. What I do hate is the hoard of ignorant fan boys that scream foul when you say something negative about an Apple. I'll give credit where it is due. I won't shove my head up Apples ass and say they've revolutionized technology in the 21st century. They only brought it down to your level.
"There is not a single area of technology that Apple has revolutionized."
Jesus Christ, really?
Every tech company involved with consumers has been influenced by and iterated upon the groundwork that Apple put down in terms of software UI, physical interface, and ease of use. I would call that revolutionizing, very easily. The trick is that they didn't do it once or twice, they did it numerous times over decades.
Apple has lifted their big ideas from other people in the past.
Everyone copies from everyone. This is especially true in big corporations where there is very little innovation. That's why Microsoft has to swallow up another company to put out a new product.
But this underscores my point. Corporations like Apple or Microsoft have little to do with actual innovation because fat bureaucracies which they have become.
Almost all tech products come to us in an iterative nature. Apple hasn't revolutionized anything for me. If anything, every time they release a product it's a step backwards from where we were before. The iPad is a poor excuse for a tablet. There were more than one functional touchscreen tablets out there before the iPad. They were more or less fully functional PCs.
Personally I think Apple products lack ambition. Apple takes a product already on the market and trims it down to its bare essentials, gives it an esoteric design to set it apart from everyone else, gives it a streamlined OS with no options for the consumer and locks down the platform so no one outside the company can innovate on it.
Apples innovation is in style and hype not in electronics.
But I suppose you can say the same for any successful technology business.
In fact, wasn't Jobs quoted for insulting the consumers that bought Apple products? I think their design philosophy was that people are generally stupid so we should dumb down devices and we'll make billions...
There was a comment on the radio this morning stating that Steve Jobs knew what people wanted before they realised they wanted it, and I couldn't help but agree with it. So, regardless of what we think of him as a person, or his company, Apple DID make the smartphone cool and that in itself has pushed the development of portable devices along.
My thoughts are with his family at such a difficult time.
Not really. Name one product that didn't exist before Apple made one. Not an evolutionary product, Apple made lots of those, but something totally new. Betcha can't.
That's about 100% correct. Apple hasn't really invented much of anything in the time they were around as a whole, but it is their renovating, manipulating and publicizing of pre-existing products that pushed their sales to be what they have. They are an advertising and software company before anything else, of course then you have hardware following suit too, however far behind the top end hardware it may be.
I dunno.... I had a Treo back in 2002 it worked fine on the web. It also did a lot of other cool things, like had an App store, played music and video, and existed half a decade before the iPhone. What the iPhone brought to the market was momentum from the iPod Touch, same works for the iPad.
I think what the iPhone did was bring the consumer price point up to $500.00. Before the iPhone no one bought $500 dollar phones and $100 dollar a month contracts just for the hell of it.
Processors existed before Intel. Cars existed before Ford. Birds existed before the Wright Flyer. Sometimes evolution is more important than invention itself.
He didn't have a vision for technology, he took ideas that had been around forever, put them in expensive packaging and marketed the hell out of them. If that's a vision for technology, that we're hosed. He *was* a marketing genius, however.
Execution actually matters, and originality is overrated. Enzo Ferrari didn't invent the combustion engine, but his company iterated upon and improved on the groundwork that was laid before. Numerous examples like this exist, and it doesn't diminish achievement either way.
In Apple's case the importance of execution was in user interface and making technology accessible. The importance of this is obvious as billions of people are directly and indirectly affected by the work his company has done.
Yes he was an a-hole when he lived. Lot of people hated him and loved him. But there is no denying what he's achieved.. world wouldn't be what it is now without him. He's changed peoples lifestyles and reached more people than most.. Give him the credit for that..
How do you feel about Bill Gates trying to cut out Paul Allen's stake in Microsoft and oust him from the company because of his struggles with cancer? The only reason it didn't happen is because he was caught red handed discussing this with Steve Ballmer.
Jobs was far from alone in this, but I haven't heard of anything this extreme or shameful.
Steve Jobs was one of best public speakers of a generation, and a fantastic CEO. My thoughts are with his family. RIP.
However, "one of the great technological revolutionarys, a man who changed the world in a massive way" is just plain wrong.
How did he change the world? the iProducts? We still phone, use sms and send email now, and we did it before the iProducts were designed by Apple's design team (not Jobs himself). So unless you by profoundly changing the world, you mean the ability to easily access facebook anywhere, anytime from a phone using a dedicated App.... The Apple II ? nope, didnt profoundly change the world either.
And that is without talking about the ideas his company stole...
For Bloomberg to compare him to Einstein and Edison is insane.
Most people wont be able to tell you who invented the internal combustion engine, something which did "profoundly change the world", so Jobs has no chance of being remembered for more than a few years by the general public (unless, perhaps, you study public speaking and business).
Steve Jobs was a great CEO in a line of Great CEOs which came before him, and will come after him. Nothing more, nothing less.
Maybe too young to notice the full impact (but I do remember it), so I might be wrong that account (I'm not a fan boy of any product, so happy to admit I am wrong when I'm wrong)
However, even if I am wrong about Apple II impact, I think you will find it was Steve Wozniak who came up with that one and not Steve Jobs.
Technically, I used better desktop machines *before* the Apple II. Apple made them cheap, but Other People's Parts. Apple didn't, by any stretch of the imagination, invent the desktop computer.
He was no Einstein or Edison, but come on. Before he made his mark, computers were exclusively for mathematicians, computer engineers, and programmers. He made them appeal to the general population, and was at the forefront the computer revolution. Yes, the man did change the world.
Popularizing numerous ways to make computers more accesible and easier to use isn't worth anything of note? To do it once is enough, but the guy was involved with this for decades.
If we're talking about Edison, he was actually a bit of a hack in that he (or his lab people) would come up with tons of shit and throw it out there to see what sticks. Jobs always had a purpose and a market in mind for his products.
It is also worth noting that Edison did not invent the lightbulb, he just made it commercially viable. Sounds familiar?
You, and the rest of the Apple revisionist need to stop with BS... Since you seemed to have been around that long, you'd know how much an impact the Commodore VIC20, C64, 128, and Amiga variants made during the 80's and early 90's. Those computers had a much greater impact in many ways than Apple did at the time.
The Vic 20, and the Commodore PET that preceded it were junk. The C64/128 brought some interesting tech to graphics. The Amiga was, at the time probably the most advanced personal computer on the market.
However, Jack Tramiel was no Steve Jobs. He was an idiot. I doubt Commodore could market free beer at a Superbowl. It is unfortunate that Commodore bought the Amiga from the people that developed it. One can only imagine where it might have gone if say Steve Jobs had been the one taking it to market.
You don't have to be a jerk about it. Regardless of who he was, trust me, suffering through cancer for a couple of years isn't easy for anyone. I hope that your comment gets take down.
I do not. Steve Jobs was as a person just an average guy, and sure it's sad for his friends and family and the many apple fans he died, and sad how he died too, but you cannot force people to like him, that's insane and shows poor character.
As for comparing him to einstein as bloomberg did, that's way way over the top, edison? maybe, but not einstein surely
You have lost your ability to reason. It's not about forcing people to like him. He simply was more than just an average guy. As a person he waqs human just like the rest of us, but that's about where the similarities end.
Einstien didn't lead a corporation and didn't have to deal with investor relations. He simply came up with revolutionary mathematical theories of physics (with the help and inspiration of his wife, by the way). Edison, well we all know that if it weren't for Tesla...
Anyway, Jobs throughout his career brought together especially talented and gifted people to make his vision of technology, media, and art become reality. That takes a special kind of person. More than just an average guy. Average doesn't have time to have a vision, much less make it come true.
It's a shame that Steve Jobs passed away. I wish the best to his family and I would like to express my deepest condolences. May he rest in peace. He was an extremely talented human being, the kind of person who obsessed over perfection. He probably poured more soul than he should have in his beloved Apple products. Regardless of how many of you look at Apple as a company, or their products, remember that it is a business. Sadly we don't have enough companies that can bring out cool products that are at the junction between art and technology. Steve Jobs understood what it took to make truly great products for the masses, and that is why Apple is so popular today. Many other companies draw inspiration from Steve's creations. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Steve Jobs, you will be missed, and regardless if some didn't like your work, most of us loved it, and the world won't be the same without you.
I see Steve Jobs as a man who envisioned technology for a spirited human being: A good place to work, play and love. He was a visionary but above all a practical producer who pursuit the experience quality and why not, the dignity of the device.
I will always remember the happy times I had with my Apple's and Macs.
rest in peace, one day someone will find a cure for Cancer is killing this evil, rich and poor around the world. Marcelo Cassini - Brasil e-mail: [email protected]
He could barely stand, much less speak, and he still gets up in front of the Cupertino city council in order to pitch them on his vision of a new Apple campus. In hindsight it is clear that he didn't have much time left, but it is still inspirational to see how much charisma and presence he had even when he was half wasted away from cancer.
Corporations get a bad rap from people that hate them, but you can hear his dedication to Apple here. His conviction for the collective he fostered comes through with every statement he makes as he uses "we" rather than I.
Just earlier today I was on another site reading critical, sometimes hate-filled comments about a certain phone that was just announced, the company that announced it, and the customers that would surely buy it. Now, however, we are more reflective as we think about a great life and great human achievement. As we somberly ponder Jobs' accomplishments, and his persona, I would hope that this respectability and decency in our reflections about Mr. Jobs could carry on. Let us remember that these phones, and laptops, and other devices that we read and write about are just pieces of plastic and glass, metal and silicon. They are nowhere near important enough to illicit the hateful stereotyping that you and I read so often on some sites. Regardless of where your product allegiance stands, I would hope that the decency that we show towards Mr. Jobs today could carry on as decency towards one another, regardless of the devices we choose to put in our pockets and on our desks. Written by a former Mac user, current Win 7 user, and one that has so far been too cheap to buy a smartphone of any kind :) Best wishes to all, and especially to the Jobs family.
This is very sad, I didn't know his condition was getting worse! He was a visionary, an innovator and a designer, capable to turn his visions to reality, successfully. He has contributed to the technology evolution -and therefore to the world, more than most people think, with Apple, Macintosh, Next, Pixar, the introduction of mouse to the personal computer, the introduction of typography, the later highly user-friendly operating systems, desktop computers, portable devices etc. Contrary to what those clueless and brainwashed from his competitors say, he was a great person too.
My condolences to his family but also to all of us consumers who will certainly miss a lot in the following years with his absence. Rest in piece.
I don't think you have to love every Apple product to recognize that Apple, through the leadership of Steve Jobs, created some of the most enduring technological revolutions in modern society.
I don't own a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, but the reason I am a technology enthusiast today is straightforward. The Apple II. Anyone who is too young to remember the impact of having classrooms filled with Apple IIs, long before there was a "world wide web," with children busily working away on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, Paintshop Pro, or Oregon Trail, can't fully comprehend the fundamental way the Apple II changed the way children, and later adults, learned new skills, expressed their creativity, and got work done.
And on my Apple IIGS, I did things over the 7 years I used it that were absolutely stunning. With its graphical interface, I could manipulate icons and organize files on a desktop, in full color, a decade before Windows 95 arrived. I created images of automobiles that would later lead me to consider going into automobile engineering (although I did not ultimately take that path), and I created music with a MIDI keyboard connected to the IIGS, using a program that could transcribe my notes. And I played lots and lots of great games, long before I ever owned any gaming system.
And most importantly, the IIGS made me a tech geek. I modded the heck out of that thing (admittedly at my parents' expense!), with a Transwarp GS card, taking the speed from 2.6MHz to an amazing 7Mhz, increased the ram from 256KB to a whopping 4MB, and added an external 20MB SCSI hard drive that revolutionized how I interacted with the machine - it allowed me to run multiple programs without a reboot - simply amazing stuff back then. I owe my love of building computers to Apple. Ironically today it is the PC community that offers the most to us rig builders, but it would be foolish to think that Apple, through the inspiration of Steve Jobs, did not play a major role in bringing the computer and the personal computing age to life.
its sad to read about how genius apple was with apple2 and totally forget about the other amazing machines that populated the 80s.
the apple2 was a milestone, yes, was it a computer for the common men? nope. The ST, the amiga, the CPC and the QL were way more innovative, and they DID changed the approach of common ppl to computing. Who remembers GEM?
the apple2 is important, but its just 10 years later that apple started to care about "making computers accessible to everyone", user friendlyness and such. the atari and the amiga did this way sooner. some of the magic of the mac comes directly from these 2 platforms. where is the man that developed them? who is he?
As somebody working in high technology Steve Jobs is my Christ and his mandate is my bible. The classical college drop-out son of blue collar parents who went out and conquered the technology world like nobody did before him and in the process managed to inspire and gave impulse to so many who are going to come after him. Goodbye Steve. Rest in peace knowing that tech world is in great hands.
BS above all other aggrandising BS comment about Jobs
Apple right now is suing people all over the place, abusing an outdated IP regime to stifle innovation. Apple was great at taking what others invented, giving it an intuitive GUI and making it work really well (selling outside the traditional markets, and commanding a really nice price premium). Samsung is doing exactly the same thing, Apple doesn't like it the other way round (and even doctored their evidence to the German courts) and Apple is behaving like any other megamonopoly incorporated. I reckon now the cult figurehead is gone people will begin to realise Apple is just the next Microsoft. Big, spinny, and evil.
"Steve made computers and devices for the rest of us. To those myopic folk that think he made "gadgets" and "overpriced hardware", well... you just don't get it. Most people didn't. The IBM execs, the Xerox suits, the Hewlett Packard bosses, all of them laughed at what the Two Steves were making with the Apple I. I'm sure they saw it as a "gadget" or "overpriced hardware", but we got it and we bought it and it changed the world. It's not about "gadgets" or nonsense like that, it's about technology enhancing our lives, instead of getting in the way. Steve understood that. He understood that most of us don't have time to figure out key sequences, or the locations of drivers and .dll files. We just want to connect with friends, listen to music, get our work done and enjoy doing it.
He made it fun to use computers. He broke the back of the draconian RIAA and music execs that refused to let us use our music the way we wanted to. He understood that technology didn't have to be clunky and ugly and complicated; that it could be fun and beautiful. He, more than anyone in my lifetime, understood that "easy is hard, and hard is easy". Anyone can make a device or a computer that requires hours and hours of hair-pulling frustration to get it to work, but it takes a real visionary, a real genius to make it all fun, easy and simple to use. Some gearheads and technoids hated Apple products because anyone could use them. Many of us loved that though, because we had something much more important to do... life. He made elegant, fun, useful, powerful, interesting and beautiful devices that gave us our lives back. No longer did we have to spend hours and hours reading manuals and studying the idiosyncrasies of a cryptic operating system. It all just... worked and worked well.
Doesn't matter whether you use a Macintosh, a Windows machine, Linux or whatever, he had a profound impact on all the computing world. There is no denying that. Whatever computer you're using, whatever software, whatever cell phone, it's been significantly changed because of Steve Jobs. Steve changed the way people interact with computers. He changed the way they interact with the world. He will be greatly missed." - sealnd
Making the Apple II when everyone else had no idea what people wanted. Making the Macintosh when everyone else had no idea what people wanted. Making the iPod, iTunes, easy digital downloads, products with clean lines and simple interface, iphone, app store, ipad, macbook, macbook air, etc, when other companies had no idea what people wanted.
The proof is in their growth and sales. You can say whatever you want, but you can not deny the appeal they are able to create with their design.
Only NOW are companies creating products that match the simple look and interface that Apple sells.
Thanks Dug for opening the eyes of the Myopic-arati. Fine, if you don't like Apple products, vote with your wallet and don't buy them but to simply dismiss Apple and berate a man with cancer is less than human. Maybe the beraters would feel different if their loved ones suddenly came down with an incurable disease. Some of the comments on this site are nothing less than pathetic. I was not a Steve Jobs zealot or fan per se but I could respect that he tried to make the complicated easy enough for everyone to understand.
I'm trying to hold my tongue as people say Jobs invented everything from the user interface to the mouse and just about every part of a computer. None of which he invented.
The only thing Jobs were genious at was marketing. How he convinced people to pay twice as much for the same thing you get on a PC i will never know. But then again he only convinced 10% of the computer market i guess.
I dont know how he has respect after catering for rich westerners at the expense of Chinese slave labour. MP3 players, Smart phones had already been invented, Jobs genious was convincing people that Apple was something special. He convinced a small religious cult-like army of people to defend Apple and criticise the PC, and he was genious at stealth marketing.
HE deserves some credit for fine tuning other people's technology and convincing a minority of rich western people it was new and they had to have it, but marketing was his best skill.
But he knew it wasn't just the device. And this is why other companies fail.
It wasn't just the ipod. It was also itunes. It wasn't just the the iphone/ipad. It was the app store. It wasn't just a nice design. It was the user interface.
So you can say he didn't invent the technology (which you can say for anything being sold right now), but he invented a complete package that worked. And he did it over and over again consitently. Even when top exec's laughed at him and his ideas, they are now eating their words.
This is a prime example of why other companies struggle, because they don't get it-
Nike CEO, Parker called Jobs, who he is friends with, to ask for some tips.
“Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”
“I expected a little laugh,” Parker said. “But there was a pause and no laugh at the end.”
It's very enlightening to read many of these comments. It illustrates why products like the Xoom, the Playbook, and the TouchPad are released with fanfare and then flame out. Clearly, the engineers who built them put a lot of effort into their work, and look at their creations and measure them against (in this case) the iPad and are confident what they built was competitive. Then the product is released and they are flabbergasted when sales are tepid. They are probably the people who look at Apple and say, "they didn't invent anything. Look at this iPad. It's off the shelf parts. Same stuff I used in my Xoom. But my design has 4G upgradeability and has better specs."
The problem is that when you look at things through an engineer's lens, you are just not seeing the same thing as what the rest of the public sees. And what you are not seeing (or maybe it is more like dismissing as unimportant) is what makes the difference between an iPad and a Xoom.
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tipoo - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
You certainly did make that ding in the universe you wanted.People can criticize his specific methods to their hearts content, but no one can deny we just lost one of the great technological revolutionarys, a man who changed the world in a massive way. He stayed with Apple right until the very end, he could teach anyone out there lessons in commitment.
Cr0nJ0b - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
I couldn't agree more. Say what you will about the corporations he build or the products...he certainly made an impact.Rest In Peace!
B3an - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
As a human being the guy was an a-hole and screwed over friends and family. I couldn't care less. I just hope that now he's dead that people dont start putting him in to the categories of the true greats of society who have truly helped people and made real progress, because that would be disgusting.KoolAidMan1 - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
You're like Roddy Piper from They Live with the magic sunglasses, and only you can see just how awful Jobs was while everybody else reflects on his invaluable contributions to technology, culture, and society.Congratulations on being so smart.
damianrobertjones - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
"on his invaluable contributions to technology"I wouldn't call them invaluable...
Shame that he's passed away though.
BSMonitor - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Are you kidding? Smart phones were text driven ./ pale immitations of computing before the iPhone.MP3 players and MP3s in general were a clusterfck of designs, cheap parts, lack of continuity, until the iPod and ITunes came along..
The PC market was even more of a mess of blurred product groups, shotty parts and service, complete lack of user-friendly environments, receding profits until the iMac's became the fastest growing PC group in the country.
Regardless if you agree with the philosphy.. Average joe computer user does not need all the chaos that a PC can bring. They want it to just work. Apple's way of simplifing the insanity the PC world brings really works for a LOT of people.
The question technology users always have to ask themselves. How much time do I want to devote to this new device. No answer is wrong here, just the PC market in general left the users who answer, "As little overhead time as possible" completely on their own. This is where Apple has stepped in and had wide success.
You may call them sheep, letting the manufacturer limit what one can do with their products... But there is a huge market of people who are calling for this.
Imagine if the dashboard of your car looked like the inside of an airplane cockpit. Each system giving you switches, options, monitors for things you have no idea about. How much fun/hassel would it be to drive?? Something like an airliner needs all that. Safety of hundreds of people depend on it. Minor changes make a world of difference. However in a car, average joe turns it on and wants to go.
Apple has given a lot of people an option for just turning it on, and GO.
The PC industry got so big so fast, that chaos followed with all the options and alternatives. Apple brought a single path to follow through that chaos. Right or wrong for you, it was the right path for $100Billion in revenue per year.
Kudos to Jobs for building a wildly successful tech company in a post internet bubble era.
rlandess - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
I'm not intending to speak ill of Jobs but his contribution to Apple wasn't his technological expertise, it was marketing. He found a neglected market segment those who weren't tech savvy or just not willing to learn. He guided the esoteric design of ipods, macs and Ipads and their operating systems. He was able to create buzz within the right groups of people and was able to make a market frenzy for the initial product launches.Let's give him credit for what he was good at.
Let's also be honest about the products.
The Ipod wasn't the first quality mp3 player, or the easiest to use.
The iMac shouldn't even count as an accomplishment.
The Iphone was not the first smart phone. It wasn't even the first touch screen smartphone.
There is not a single area of technology that Apple has revolutionized. Apple has been successful in shaping existing technology and marketing it to the masses. Let's not belittle their accomplishments but be truthful about the extent of those accomplishments.
If you look at Steve Jobs life and legacy you have to admit he was a great person.
BSMonitor - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Complete denial."The Ipod wasn't the first quality mp3 player, or the easiest to use."
300 Million Sold. Name the next in line? Right, Can't.
"The iMac shouldn't even count as an accomplishment."
???
The only PC company to be growing it's install base.
"The Iphone was not the first smart phone. It wasn't even the first touch screen smartphone."
Didn't say that at all. But seems to me there wasn't a race to build the best touch-screen smartphone until AFTER the iPhone launched. Most assumed it fail as all other smart-phones had.
"There is not a single area of technology that Apple has revolutionized. Apple has been successful in shaping existing technology and marketing it to the masses. Let's not belittle their accomplishments but be truthful about the extent of those accomplishments."
iPad is still the only wildly successful tablet. The tablet concepted failed entirely time and time again until the iPad.
Smartphones. Again. No one bought them until after the launch of the iPhone. Now the smart phone market is poised to become the largest cell phone market.
Ipod. 300 million. I would guess no other single music device family has sold more than 20 million.
Let's be truthful, you hate Apple and are biased toward their products.
JonnyDough - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
The iPod used a more quality/fancy case and a small hard drive. It was overpriced but it sold because people wanted lots of music storage. There were much cheaper flash versions of mobile music, and modern cell phones make the iPod a thing of the past anyway. Every technology has its hayday but the fact that the iPod will never see huge sales again goes to prove that it was evolutionary and not revolutionary.Greg512 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
The incandescent light bulb is a thing of the past. Was it not revolutionary? Besides, very little credit is given to Apple for what it has done. Look, for example, at the rise in popularity (and fall in price) of IPS monitors. It was Apple that pushed the technology by incorporating it in their monitors, iMac computers, iPhone 4, and tablets. Look at the capacitive touch overlay. Apple showed the world that a smartphone didn't need a stylish to be useful, that a capacitive screen was better than a resistive for most tasks. Look at the mouse. Sure, it was Xerox that invented the mouse, but it was Apple that pushed its adoption. These are just several examples of Apple's contributions to the computer industry. In the end, Apple did not invent new technology, it showed the world how to use it. Isn't that important? I would say so.KoolAidMan1 - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
"Every technology has its hayday but the fact that the iPod will never see huge sales again goes to prove that it was evolutionary and not revolutionary."Yes, and Apple knew this. Unlike other companies, they were already looking past the iPod. Any other company would have milked a hit product like that into the ground and into irrelevance. It's happened over and over with many companies, Sony, Samsung, Microsoft, etc etc. Apple kept moving forward.
Look at November 2006, Microsoft comes out with an iPod competitor in the Zune. What happens only six weeks later? The iPhone is revealed. After it is a hit later that summer, suddenly every company is scrambling to put out simple to use touchscreen smartphones, now that is the fastest growing (and one of the most profitable) markets out there.
Your comment isn't really relevant given that Apple themselves know that products are transitory, but unlike most companies they keep moving forward.
rlandess - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
BSMonitorFirst.
You confuse popular and good. Popular doesn't imply anything about quality or innovation. Not all people research every product before they purchase something.
I prefer every other mp3 player I've ever owned to either iPod I currently use. If we're going to argue about which is better than there has to be a criteria. I'd use audio quality, usability, feature set, durability, ease of use, (and most of all) price tag.
Because of this I like the Sansa Clip. Good audio quality, adequate feature set very durable and it's very cheap. It fits my life stye and fulfills my only absolute requirement; that it play music. It does that well and can take being run over twice and still work (although it no longer "clips".)
If a person prefers simplicity, design and not making their own decisions then an iPod is great because you don't have to decide how you'll use it.
I think around 2001 I had a Creative Rio,, about the same time the original iPod came out. I can't talk **** about the original because it was a fine piece of hardware. Plus it used a mini hard drive that cost more at retail than the ipod itself. But the flash based Rio was rubberized, ergonomic, had great features, could be used as a flash drive in a pinch and still had a couple hours worth of space for a fraction of the cost. A couple hours is all i cared to listen to at any given point. The Rio still works, I don't think know anyone with an original iPod on it's original hard drive.
*** I suppose the point I want to make is that saying iPods, iMacs, or iPads are better because they sell millions of units is ridiculous. Popular isn't usually an indicator of overall quality. Apple's success is almost always tied to their marketing tallent, not the revolutionary nature of their products.
Let's get this straight. Smartphones were not "text driven" before the iPhone. And people still bought Palm and Blackberry, Nokia, and the various Windows based phones after the iPhone came out. The iPhone was an evolutionary step in smartphone development that, in combination with heavy advertising, made the iPhone dominant in the market. It was not the first, it was not necessarily the best by everyone's standards and it will probably continue to decline against the competition since it's no longer a stylish fetish object.
Truth: I don't hate Apple. I have some respect for the company, its founders and some of their products. What I do hate is the hoard of ignorant fan boys that scream foul when you say something negative about an Apple. I'll give credit where it is due. I won't shove my head up Apples ass and say they've revolutionized technology in the 21st century. They only brought it down to your level.
JonnyDough - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Well said.KoolAidMan1 - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
"There is not a single area of technology that Apple has revolutionized."Jesus Christ, really?
Every tech company involved with consumers has been influenced by and iterated upon the groundwork that Apple put down in terms of software UI, physical interface, and ease of use. I would call that revolutionizing, very easily. The trick is that they didn't do it once or twice, they did it numerous times over decades.
rlandess - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
Ok KoolAidMan1, I'll give you that.In this round people are copying Apple.
Apple has lifted their big ideas from other people in the past.
Everyone copies from everyone. This is especially true in big corporations where there is very little innovation. That's why Microsoft has to swallow up another company to put out a new product.
But this underscores my point. Corporations like Apple or Microsoft have little to do with actual innovation because fat bureaucracies which they have become.
Almost all tech products come to us in an iterative nature. Apple hasn't revolutionized anything for me. If anything, every time they release a product it's a step backwards from where we were before. The iPad is a poor excuse for a tablet. There were more than one functional touchscreen tablets out there before the iPad. They were more or less fully functional PCs.
Personally I think Apple products lack ambition. Apple takes a product already on the market and trims it down to its bare essentials, gives it an esoteric design to set it apart from everyone else, gives it a streamlined OS with no options for the consumer and locks down the platform so no one outside the company can innovate on it.
Apples innovation is in style and hype not in electronics.
But I suppose you can say the same for any successful technology business.
JonnyDough - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
In fact, wasn't Jobs quoted for insulting the consumers that bought Apple products? I think their design philosophy was that people are generally stupid so we should dumb down devices and we'll make billions...chillmelt - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
No one is without their filth and lies . The fact is companies would kill to be what Apple is now thanks to Steve Jobs and his vision of technology.silverblue - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
There was a comment on the radio this morning stating that Steve Jobs knew what people wanted before they realised they wanted it, and I couldn't help but agree with it. So, regardless of what we think of him as a person, or his company, Apple DID make the smartphone cool and that in itself has pushed the development of portable devices along.My thoughts are with his family at such a difficult time.
FunBunny2 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Not really. Name one product that didn't exist before Apple made one. Not an evolutionary product, Apple made lots of those, but something totally new. Betcha can't.kmmatney - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
I'll name a product that didn't exist before. A smartphone that didn't suck as browsing the web.choirbass - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
That's about 100% correct. Apple hasn't really invented much of anything in the time they were around as a whole, but it is their renovating, manipulating and publicizing of pre-existing products that pushed their sales to be what they have. They are an advertising and software company before anything else, of course then you have hardware following suit too, however far behind the top end hardware it may be.rlandess - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
a smartphone that didn't suck before the iPhone.I dunno.... I had a Treo back in 2002 it worked fine on the web. It also did a lot of other cool things, like had an App store, played music and video, and existed half a decade before the iPhone. What the iPhone brought to the market was momentum from the iPod Touch, same works for the iPad.
I think what the iPhone did was bring the consumer price point up to $500.00. Before the iPhone no one bought $500 dollar phones and $100 dollar a month contracts just for the hell of it.
BSMonitor - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Ultrabook 1 aka Macbook AirOWNED
Greg512 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Processors existed before Intel. Cars existed before Ford. Birds existed before the Wright Flyer. Sometimes evolution is more important than invention itself.Taft12 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Legitimate online music store with full partnership from the music industry67STANG - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
He didn't have a vision for technology, he took ideas that had been around forever, put them in expensive packaging and marketed the hell out of them. If that's a vision for technology, that we're hosed. He *was* a marketing genius, however.Dug - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Another uninformed person. Really? You need to take some history classes.KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Execution actually matters, and originality is overrated. Enzo Ferrari didn't invent the combustion engine, but his company iterated upon and improved on the groundwork that was laid before. Numerous examples like this exist, and it doesn't diminish achievement either way.In Apple's case the importance of execution was in user interface and making technology accessible. The importance of this is obvious as billions of people are directly and indirectly affected by the work his company has done.
b4raider - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Yes he was an a-hole when he lived. Lot of people hated him and loved him.But there is no denying what he's achieved.. world wouldn't be what it is now without him. He's changed peoples lifestyles and reached more people than most.. Give him the credit for that..
R.I.P Steve
slyck - Saturday, October 8, 2011 - link
Well put, one less dirtball. Decent people die everyday too but of course they don't mean jack.KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, October 8, 2011 - link
How do you feel about Bill Gates trying to cut out Paul Allen's stake in Microsoft and oust him from the company because of his struggles with cancer? The only reason it didn't happen is because he was caught red handed discussing this with Steve Ballmer.Jobs was far from alone in this, but I haven't heard of anything this extreme or shameful.
safcman84 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Steve Jobs was one of best public speakers of a generation, and a fantastic CEO. My thoughts are with his family. RIP.However, "one of the great technological revolutionarys, a man who changed the world in a massive way" is just plain wrong.
How did he change the world? the iProducts? We still phone, use sms and send email now, and we did it before the iProducts were designed by Apple's design team (not Jobs himself). So unless you by profoundly changing the world, you mean the ability to easily access facebook anywhere, anytime from a phone using a dedicated App....
The Apple II ? nope, didnt profoundly change the world either.
And that is without talking about the ideas his company stole...
For Bloomberg to compare him to Einstein and Edison is insane.
Most people wont be able to tell you who invented the internal combustion engine, something which did "profoundly change the world", so Jobs has no chance of being remembered for more than a few years by the general public (unless, perhaps, you study public speaking and business).
Steve Jobs was a great CEO in a line of Great CEOs which came before him, and will come after him. Nothing more, nothing less.
KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
"The Apple II ? nope, didnt profoundly change the world either."Not sure if serious, too young to remember, or trolling.... -_-
safcman84 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Maybe too young to notice the full impact (but I do remember it), so I might be wrong that account (I'm not a fan boy of any product, so happy to admit I am wrong when I'm wrong)However, even if I am wrong about Apple II impact, I think you will find it was Steve Wozniak who came up with that one and not Steve Jobs.
FunBunny2 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Technically, I used better desktop machines *before* the Apple II. Apple made them cheap, but Other People's Parts. Apple didn't, by any stretch of the imagination, invent the desktop computer.tipoo - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
He was no Einstein or Edison, but come on. Before he made his mark, computers were exclusively for mathematicians, computer engineers, and programmers. He made them appeal to the general population, and was at the forefront the computer revolution. Yes, the man did change the world.safcman84 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple computer.So what did Jobs do, except run a successful company which has a great marketing department?
Again, he was a Great CEO and a Great public speaker. However, he, personally, did not revolutionise anything.
Einstein, he himself on his own, revolutionised physics.
Edison, personally, invented the lightbulb that revolutionised our way of living
KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Popularizing numerous ways to make computers more accesible and easier to use isn't worth anything of note? To do it once is enough, but the guy was involved with this for decades.If we're talking about Edison, he was actually a bit of a hack in that he (or his lab people) would come up with tons of shit and throw it out there to see what sticks. Jobs always had a purpose and a market in mind for his products.
It is also worth noting that Edison did not invent the lightbulb, he just made it commercially viable. Sounds familiar?
Dug - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
You really need to read more, especially sense it's obvious you didn't live through Apple II and Macintosh era.He changed the world in so many ways it would take weeks to explain to you what he has done.
UltimateTruth - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
You, and the rest of the Apple revisionist need to stop with BS... Since you seemed to have been around that long, you'd know how much an impact the Commodore VIC20, C64, 128, and Amiga variants made during the 80's and early 90's. Those computers had a much greater impact in many ways than Apple did at the time.Scannall - Saturday, October 8, 2011 - link
The Vic 20, and the Commodore PET that preceded it were junk. The C64/128 brought some interesting tech to graphics. The Amiga was, at the time probably the most advanced personal computer on the market.However, Jack Tramiel was no Steve Jobs. He was an idiot. I doubt Commodore could market free beer at a Superbowl. It is unfortunate that Commodore bought the Amiga from the people that developed it. One can only imagine where it might have gone if say Steve Jobs had been the one taking it to market.
ABR - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Great man.Landiepete - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
I made a comment along those lines on The Register -without reading yours- and got downrated. Horses for courses ?wolfman3k5 - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
You don't have to be a jerk about it. Regardless of who he was, trust me, suffering through cancer for a couple of years isn't easy for anyone. I hope that your comment gets take down.Omega215D - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
I second that motion.jecs - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Me too. This is a moment for reflexion and good will.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Comment deleted; please be respectful people. (Note: this is not directed at wolfman, omega, or jecs -- it was the original poster.)Wwhat - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
I do not.Steve Jobs was as a person just an average guy, and sure it's sad for his friends and family and the many apple fans he died, and sad how he died too, but you cannot force people to like him, that's insane and shows poor character.
As for comparing him to einstein as bloomberg did, that's way way over the top, edison? maybe, but not einstein surely
MaulBall789 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
You have lost your ability to reason. It's not about forcing people to like him. He simply was more than just an average guy. As a person he waqs human just like the rest of us, but that's about where the similarities end.Einstien didn't lead a corporation and didn't have to deal with investor relations. He simply came up with revolutionary mathematical theories of physics (with the help and inspiration of his wife, by the way). Edison, well we all know that if it weren't for Tesla...
Anyway, Jobs throughout his career brought together especially talented and gifted people to make his vision of technology, media, and art become reality. That takes a special kind of person. More than just an average guy. Average doesn't have time to have a vision, much less make it come true.
wolfman3k5 - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
It's a shame that Steve Jobs passed away. I wish the best to his family and I would like to express my deepest condolences. May he rest in peace. He was an extremely talented human being, the kind of person who obsessed over perfection. He probably poured more soul than he should have in his beloved Apple products. Regardless of how many of you look at Apple as a company, or their products, remember that it is a business. Sadly we don't have enough companies that can bring out cool products that are at the junction between art and technology. Steve Jobs understood what it took to make truly great products for the masses, and that is why Apple is so popular today. Many other companies draw inspiration from Steve's creations. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Steve Jobs, you will be missed, and regardless if some didn't like your work, most of us loved it, and the world won't be the same without you.chinedooo - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
3 Apples changed the world, 1st one seduced Eve, 2nd fell on Newton and the 3rd was offered to the world half bitten by Steve Jobs.rangerdavid - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Well said, sir.nikon133 - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Huh. So the 3rd one was over-priced AND second-hand..?BSMonitor - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Price is determined by demand. Since the company is still increasing revenue, would seem they are not overpriced.UltimateTruth - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
No matter what you say, only a fool would accept it.jecs - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
I see Steve Jobs as a man who envisioned technology for a spirited human being: A good place to work, play and love. He was a visionary but above all a practical producer who pursuit the experience quality and why not, the dignity of the device.I will always remember the happy times I had with my Apple's and Macs.
Rest in peace Steve Jobs.
Will Robinson - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Sad to hear of his passing,what a great company he built,then rebuilt.One of the true greats of the information age.
R.I.P
marcelocassini - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
rest in peace, one day someone will find a cure for Cancer is killing this evil, rich and poor around the world.
Marcelo Cassini - Brasil
e-mail: [email protected]
KoolAidMan1 - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
This video from only four months ago really struck me.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M
He could barely stand, much less speak, and he still gets up in front of the Cupertino city council in order to pitch them on his vision of a new Apple campus. In hindsight it is clear that he didn't have much time left, but it is still inspirational to see how much charisma and presence he had even when he was half wasted away from cancer.
Corporations get a bad rap from people that hate them, but you can hear his dedication to Apple here. His conviction for the collective he fostered comes through with every statement he makes as he uses "we" rather than I.
RIP
Moizy - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Just earlier today I was on another site reading critical, sometimes hate-filled comments about a certain phone that was just announced, the company that announced it, and the customers that would surely buy it. Now, however, we are more reflective as we think about a great life and great human achievement. As we somberly ponder Jobs' accomplishments, and his persona, I would hope that this respectability and decency in our reflections about Mr. Jobs could carry on. Let us remember that these phones, and laptops, and other devices that we read and write about are just pieces of plastic and glass, metal and silicon. They are nowhere near important enough to illicit the hateful stereotyping that you and I read so often on some sites. Regardless of where your product allegiance stands, I would hope that the decency that we show towards Mr. Jobs today could carry on as decency towards one another, regardless of the devices we choose to put in our pockets and on our desks. Written by a former Mac user, current Win 7 user, and one that has so far been too cheap to buy a smartphone of any kind :) Best wishes to all, and especially to the Jobs family.eXces - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
R.I.PEuklide - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
This is very sad, I didn't know his condition was getting worse!He was a visionary, an innovator and a designer, capable to turn his visions to reality, successfully. He has contributed to the technology evolution -and therefore to the world, more than most people think, with Apple, Macintosh, Next, Pixar, the introduction of mouse to the personal computer, the introduction of typography, the later highly user-friendly operating systems, desktop computers, portable devices etc. Contrary to what those clueless and brainwashed from his competitors say, he was a great person too.
My condolences to his family but also to all of us consumers who will certainly miss a lot in the following years with his absence. Rest in piece.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
Mikefrombx - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
he was a successful businessman not a god damn saint or humanitarianTermie - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
I don't think you have to love every Apple product to recognize that Apple, through the leadership of Steve Jobs, created some of the most enduring technological revolutions in modern society.I don't own a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, but the reason I am a technology enthusiast today is straightforward. The Apple II. Anyone who is too young to remember the impact of having classrooms filled with Apple IIs, long before there was a "world wide web," with children busily working away on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, Paintshop Pro, or Oregon Trail, can't fully comprehend the fundamental way the Apple II changed the way children, and later adults, learned new skills, expressed their creativity, and got work done.
And on my Apple IIGS, I did things over the 7 years I used it that were absolutely stunning. With its graphical interface, I could manipulate icons and organize files on a desktop, in full color, a decade before Windows 95 arrived. I created images of automobiles that would later lead me to consider going into automobile engineering (although I did not ultimately take that path), and I created music with a MIDI keyboard connected to the IIGS, using a program that could transcribe my notes. And I played lots and lots of great games, long before I ever owned any gaming system.
And most importantly, the IIGS made me a tech geek. I modded the heck out of that thing (admittedly at my parents' expense!), with a Transwarp GS card, taking the speed from 2.6MHz to an amazing 7Mhz, increased the ram from 256KB to a whopping 4MB, and added an external 20MB SCSI hard drive that revolutionized how I interacted with the machine - it allowed me to run multiple programs without a reboot - simply amazing stuff back then. I owe my love of building computers to Apple. Ironically today it is the PC community that offers the most to us rig builders, but it would be foolish to think that Apple, through the inspiration of Steve Jobs, did not play a major role in bringing the computer and the personal computing age to life.
eviloz - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
its sad to read about how genius apple was with apple2 and totally forget about the other amazing machines that populated the 80s.the apple2 was a milestone, yes, was it a computer for the common men? nope.
The ST, the amiga, the CPC and the QL were way more innovative, and they DID changed the approach of common ppl to computing. Who remembers GEM?
the apple2 is important, but its just 10 years later that apple started to care about "making computers accessible to everyone", user friendlyness and such. the atari and the amiga did this way sooner. some of the magic of the mac comes directly from these 2 platforms. where is the man that developed them? who is he?
bennyg - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
.. you forget, history is written by the winners.Pity how with all the info available (even on wikipedia alone) history is neglected because people are increasingly lazy.
jollyjugg - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
As somebody working in high technology Steve Jobs is my Christ and his mandate is my bible. The classical college drop-out son of blue collar parents who went out and conquered the technology world like nobody did before him and in the process managed to inspire and gave impulse to so many who are going to come after him. Goodbye Steve. Rest in peace knowing that tech world is in great hands.Humble Fan
bennyg - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
BS above all other aggrandising BS comment about JobsApple right now is suing people all over the place, abusing an outdated IP regime to stifle innovation. Apple was great at taking what others invented, giving it an intuitive GUI and making it work really well (selling outside the traditional markets, and commanding a really nice price premium). Samsung is doing exactly the same thing, Apple doesn't like it the other way round (and even doctored their evidence to the German courts) and Apple is behaving like any other megamonopoly incorporated. I reckon now the cult figurehead is gone people will begin to realise Apple is just the next Microsoft. Big, spinny, and evil.
Tech world is in the same hands it always was.
Dug - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
"Steve made computers and devices for the rest of us. To those myopic folk that think he made "gadgets" and "overpriced hardware", well... you just don't get it. Most people didn't. The IBM execs, the Xerox suits, the Hewlett Packard bosses, all of them laughed at what the Two Steves were making with the Apple I. I'm sure they saw it as a "gadget" or "overpriced hardware", but we got it and we bought it and it changed the world. It's not about "gadgets" or nonsense like that, it's about technology enhancing our lives, instead of getting in the way. Steve understood that. He understood that most of us don't have time to figure out key sequences, or the locations of drivers and .dll files. We just want to connect with friends, listen to music, get our work done and enjoy doing it.He made it fun to use computers. He broke the back of the draconian RIAA and music execs that refused to let us use our music the way we wanted to. He understood that technology didn't have to be clunky and ugly and complicated; that it could be fun and beautiful. He, more than anyone in my lifetime, understood that "easy is hard, and hard is easy". Anyone can make a device or a computer that requires hours and hours of hair-pulling frustration to get it to work, but it takes a real visionary, a real genius to make it all fun, easy and simple to use. Some gearheads and technoids hated Apple products because anyone could use them. Many of us loved that though, because we had something much more important to do... life. He made elegant, fun, useful, powerful, interesting and beautiful devices that gave us our lives back. No longer did we have to spend hours and hours reading manuals and studying the idiosyncrasies of a cryptic operating system. It all just... worked and worked well.
Doesn't matter whether you use a Macintosh, a Windows machine, Linux or whatever, he had a profound impact on all the computing world. There is no denying that. Whatever computer you're using, whatever software, whatever cell phone, it's been significantly changed because of Steve Jobs. Steve changed the way people interact with computers. He changed the way they interact with the world. He will be greatly missed." - sealnd
Making the Apple II when everyone else had no idea what people wanted.
Making the Macintosh when everyone else had no idea what people wanted.
Making the iPod, iTunes, easy digital downloads, products with clean lines and simple interface, iphone, app store, ipad, macbook, macbook air, etc, when other companies had no idea what people wanted.
The proof is in their growth and sales. You can say whatever you want, but you can not deny the appeal they are able to create with their design.
Only NOW are companies creating products that match the simple look and interface that Apple sells.
inplainview - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Thanks Dug for opening the eyes of the Myopic-arati. Fine, if you don't like Apple products, vote with your wallet and don't buy them but to simply dismiss Apple and berate a man with cancer is less than human. Maybe the beraters would feel different if their loved ones suddenly came down with an incurable disease. Some of the comments on this site are nothing less than pathetic. I was not a Steve Jobs zealot or fan per se but I could respect that he tried to make the complicated easy enough for everyone to understand.R.I.P. Steve. You vision will be missed by many.
cactusdog - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
I'm trying to hold my tongue as people say Jobs invented everything from the user interface to the mouse and just about every part of a computer. None of which he invented.The only thing Jobs were genious at was marketing. How he convinced people to pay twice as much for the same thing you get on a PC i will never know. But then again he only convinced 10% of the computer market i guess.
I dont know how he has respect after catering for rich westerners at the expense of Chinese slave labour. MP3 players, Smart phones had already been invented, Jobs genious was convincing people that Apple was something special. He convinced a small religious cult-like army of people to defend Apple and criticise the PC, and he was genious at stealth marketing.
HE deserves some credit for fine tuning other people's technology and convincing a minority of rich western people it was new and they had to have it, but marketing was his best skill.
Ronakbhai - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
I never knew him and already I miss him. He was quite an inspiration.Dug - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link
Before and after iphone/ipadhttp://www.redmondpie.com/tablets-and-smartphones-...
But he knew it wasn't just the device. And this is why other companies fail.
It wasn't just the ipod. It was also itunes.
It wasn't just the the iphone/ipad. It was the app store.
It wasn't just a nice design. It was the user interface.
So you can say he didn't invent the technology (which you can say for anything being sold right now), but he invented a complete package that worked. And he did it over and over again consitently. Even when top exec's laughed at him and his ideas, they are now eating their words.
This is a prime example of why other companies struggle, because they don't get it-
Nike CEO, Parker called Jobs, who he is friends with, to ask for some tips.
“Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”
“I expected a little laugh,” Parker said. “But there was a pause and no laugh at the end.”
Gansan - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
It's very enlightening to read many of these comments. It illustrates why products like the Xoom, the Playbook, and the TouchPad are released with fanfare and then flame out. Clearly, the engineers who built them put a lot of effort into their work, and look at their creations and measure them against (in this case) the iPad and are confident what they built was competitive. Then the product is released and they are flabbergasted when sales are tepid. They are probably the people who look at Apple and say, "they didn't invent anything. Look at this iPad. It's off the shelf parts. Same stuff I used in my Xoom. But my design has 4G upgradeability and has better specs."The problem is that when you look at things through an engineer's lens, you are just not seeing the same thing as what the rest of the public sees. And what you are not seeing (or maybe it is more like dismissing as unimportant) is what makes the difference between an iPad and a Xoom.
sdffs - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
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montre à chacun comment devenir riche.
Allez voir ce qu'ils ont à dire.
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marraco - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
Is otrageous. So much attention to Jobs, and nothing to Dennis Ritchie death.Dennis Ritchie was creator of C programming language, and the UNIX OS.
He died at 8 of October of 2011. A real creator, not a marketing ploy, and he got not a single page from Anandtech. What a shame.
Ryan Smith and Anand: you should be ashamed.