Topic: Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

[Morari]

By all historical accounts, Wozniak was much more instrumental in delivering the goods. It was his designs that made Apple what it was during its celebrated heyday. The only thing they seemed to later gain from the prodigal CEO, Jobs, was style dictation and marketing.

I think the idea that Jobs could tell what people "didn't want" was perhaps his biggest downfall. He was clearly a very temperamental leader for Apple, and subscribed to a very odd notion of form over function. It shows through very clearly in everything he had a hand in. It made for pretty cases, but at the expensive of bits and pieces of expected usability: see, one-button mouse. The idea that he wanted to control everything through walled gardens like the AppStore should scare the pants off of any well-informed consumer living outside of the reality distortion field.

[Ceric]

The whole closed Garden thing, while great for stability and the company making the garden, doesn't sit well with me.  Ironically enough that's why I tend to back Microsoft who will bend over backwards to allow other people to play in there garden, which effects stability.  Linux is to much of a wild field for the most part.

[ejamer]

Love him or hate him, the man had amazing charisma and left his stamp on the entire world for years to come. He will be missed by many.


Wouldn't want to be hold Apple stock at the moment. Not that it'll crash or burn, because I fully expect Apple products to continue on their current path even without his involvement... but even if the product isn't affected, marketing and visibility will be. Replacing a global icon like Jobs isn't easy.

[Ceric]

The Stock market is nothing more then an opinion poll.  I fully expect Apple stock to dramatically fall and not get back to this years high till this time next year.

[Chozo Ghost]

I am saddened by his death, but not surprised. I was aware he had pancreatic cancer and almost no one ever survives that, even if you are a billionaire.

If it weren't for him Apple wouldn't exist at all, let alone be the powerhouse that it is today. The same probably goes for Disney as well.

[Ian Sane]

Upon hearing this news I paused and realized I have actually never owned ANY Apple products whatsoever.

Whenever Jobs was calling the shots at Apple the company was successful and during the time he wasn't it was a complete and utter joke.  I wondered where Apple was headed when he stepped down and continue to feel the same way since he can't come back if they make some missteps.

I don't have any particular admiration of the guy.  But unless you're a murderer or something horrible like that, dying at 56 is too soon.

[NWR_insanolord]

Excuse me for thinking that a thread about someone's death shouldn't be a platform for bashing his life's work. This isn't about me being an Apple fanboy; it's about respect. If you want to make a thread full pissy statements about how you don't like what Apple does, go ahead and do that, but I don't think it should be a part of this one. But since I appear to be in the minority on that...

By all historical accounts, Wozniak was much more instrumental in delivering the goods. It was his designs that made Apple what it was during its celebrated heyday. The only thing they seemed to later gain from the prodigal CEO, Jobs, was style dictation and marketing.

I think the idea that Jobs could tell what people "didn't want" was perhaps his biggest downfall. He was clearly a very temperamental leader for Apple, and subscribed to a very odd notion of form over function. It shows through very clearly in everything he had a hand in. It made for pretty cases, but at the expensive of bits and pieces of expected usability: see, one-button mouse. The idea that he wanted to control everything through walled gardens like the AppStore should scare the pants off of any well-informed consumer living outside of the reality distortion field.

This whole "form over function" accusation is emblematic of people not being familiar enough with Apple's products. Just because he cared about the form doesn't make it form over function. Mac OS X is a very powerful platform with a lot of complex functionality if you want it to be, or it's simple and easy if you want it that way. Also, there is no "walled garden" on the Mac. Yes, there's an App Store there now, which is fantastic, but you also have the option of going outside it. Most people won't want to, but it is there.

[Oblivion]

How did I know this thread would turn into it's current state? Thanks Morari.

[Morari]

You're quite welcome, Oblivion. Admiration where admiration is due.

Maybe we can start a thread about every single person who dies throughout the world each day. Of course, the thread will only be for posting trite statements like "my condolences to the family, rest in peace" instead of an actual discussion of just why anyone should even care whether that person did or did not live to begin with. Apple fanboys get their panties in a twist if you begin to question their product loyalty, however. As evidenced by the outright hostile attitude of a certain someone above.

If no one wanted a discussion, then this thread shouldn't have even been created. There are news sites for such passive exchanges of information.

[Ian Sane]

Apple products are a lot like Nintendo's actually in that for very specific needs they work like a million bucks but if you need something just slightly different the whole thing is so inflexible that it's useless to you.  Nintendo however is a just a videogame company so the inflexibility isn't as much of a deal breaker for me.  With Apple it was.

But you can say that Steve Jobs knew exactly what his target market wanted.  Those who like Apple products REALLY like them.

[Chozo Ghost]

Steve Jobs was the computer world's equivalent of Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi. He did for portable music and computing what Gunpei did for portable gaming. Unfortunately, both these great men are now dead, but their innovations will live on forever.

[BlackNMild2k1]

http://i.imgur.com/dJiwM.gif

http://i.imgur.com/3e1ds.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/x7623.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bHTtN.jpg


edit:
http://i.imgur.com/mRIju.jpg

[Chozo Ghost]

Wikipedia says Steve Jobs was a Buddhist, so he will probably be reincarnated (maybe he already has).

[NWR_insanolord]

Steve Jobs was the computer world's equivalent of Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi. He did for portable music and computing what Gunpei did for portable gaming. Unfortunately, both these great men are now dead, but their innovations will live on forever.

Actually, I'd say Wozniak was more like Yokoi than Jobs was. Jobs certainly had a lot of similarities with (Former Nintendo President) Hiroshi Yamauchi, though.

You're quite welcome, Oblivion. Admiration where admiration is due.

Maybe we can start a thread about every single person who dies throughout the world each day. Of course, the thread will only be for posting trite statements like "my condolences to the family, rest in peace" instead of an actual discussion of just why anyone should even care whether that person did or did not live to begin with. Apple fanboys get their panties in a twist if you begin to question their product loyalty, however. As evidenced by the outright hostile attitude of a certain someone above.

If no one wanted a discussion, then this thread shouldn't have even been created. There are news sites for such passive exchanges of information.

Personally, I don't think this thread should have been made. It doesn't break any rules, and since  this isn't the Funhouse I'm not going to unilaterally abuse the hell out of my mod powers, so it's going to stay here, but I don't think this is the kind of thing we should be doing. As I said, this has nothing to do with my being an Apple fanboy (which I totally am), I would be upset at the situation no matter which dead person the thread was about. I basically agree with you that there isn't much to talk about besides that, which is exactly  why I don't think threads like these are a good idea in the first place.

[BranDonk Kong]

BNM those images are pretty great. I silently predicted that Apple will be bankrupt within 5 years or so back when Jobs stepped down as CEO...and I still think it will happen. Either that or the whole closed-structure system that they have going on will be drastically changed and they'll basically become a 3rd party vendor like Sega.

[Morari]

Do they really have enough to offer as a third party though? They'd have to restructure and innovate in spaces where they really don't have much of a presence outside of their own ecosystems. Even then, they've been driving certain customers away in what can only be explained as an attempt to broaden appeal. See: professional video editors.

They could always go back to the old days of allowing and authorizing Mac clones now that Jobs isn't around. If they were at all serious about succeeding in the OS business, they wouldn't keep themselves lock to one set of hardware.

[NWR_insanolord]

That's not going to happen. Steve Jobs was very important to Apple, but there are a lot of other very talented people at the company. They'll be just fine. Tim Cook may not have the charisma of Steve Jobs (not even close, though really no one is), but he is more than capable of being a really good CEO.

[Adrock]

They could always go back to the old days of allowing and authorizing Mac clones now that Jobs isn't around. If they were at all serious about succeeding in the OS business, they wouldn't keep themselves lock to one set of hardware.

Apple would never do this. That would be like Nintendo releasing all of their games on other consoles and still trying to sell a console of their own. In both cases, it's eats into the company's bottom line. Despite having such a small cut of the market, Apple is still profitable. I see no reason why they would simply throw all of that away to reintroduce a business model that didn't work for them to begin with.

[Dasmos]

RIP Steve Jerbs, it's never good to see someone die of pancreatic cancer.

But then again I think we always knew the PC would get him eventually.

[NWR_insanolord]

They could always go back to the old days of allowing and authorizing Mac clones now that Jobs isn't around. If they were at all serious about succeeding in the OS business, they wouldn't keep themselves lock to one set of hardware.

Apple would never do this. That would be like Nintendo releasing all of their games on other consoles and still trying to sell a console of their own. In both cases, it's eats into the company's bottom line. Despite having such a small cut of the market, Apple is still profitable. I see no reason why they would simply throw all of that away to reintroduce a business model that didn't work for them to begin with.

Apple is primarily a hardware company. Everything else they do is done to make the hardware more attractive. They may have revolutionized the music business with iTunes, but they only started doing that in order to sell more iPods. They make their money on the hardware side, which is why Steve killed third-party licensing for the operating system pretty much immediately when he took over in 1997.

RIP Steve Jerbs, it's never good to see someone die of pancreatic cancer.

But then again I think we always knew the PC would get him eventually.

We all figured that was why he left the company, but it's surprising how soon this was after that. He really held on to the last possible second.

[Ceric]

If Apple froze there product lineup right now.  They could probably still go another 10 years.
Will they do that?  No.
Do I think that they will slow down a little?  Yes, at first.
Apple flopped around pretty bad after Job was gone the first time and survived for him to come back.  They are in a much much better position then at that time. With much better people.

As Insanolord said Apple is a Hardware seller.  Microsoft by comparison is not.  Thats why MS sells Software on Apple products.

[Chozo Ghost]

Suggesting Apple is going to go bankrupt within 5 years now that Jobs is gone is kinda like suggesting Nintendo was going to go bankrupt back when Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down. Clearly that didn't happen. Right now both Apple and Nintendo have so much money and momentum that even if a total imbecile were in charge of the company it couldn't be destroyed in a mere 5 year timeframe. That's not to say it couldn't go downhill in that period of time, though.

[NWR_insanolord]

Suggesting Apple is going to go bankrupt within 5 years now that Jobs is gone is kinda like suggesting Nintendo was going to go bankrupt back when Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down.

This right here. I've said there are several similarities between Jobs and Yamauchi, and this is one of them. They were both very strong leaders and both exercised a lot of control, and Tim Cook, like Satoru Iwata, is nothing like his predecessor, but both those men were hand picked as successors and wouldn't have been if Yamauchi or Jobs didn't have a lot of confidence in them

[Ceric]

Though Iwata does have the luxury of Yamauchi not being dead and he is still the majority stake holder if memory serves.

[Morari]

As Insanolord said Apple is a Hardware seller.  Microsoft by comparison is not.  Thats why MS sells Software on Apple products.

You'er right, I've never had the displeasure of seeing some buggy-ass version of iTunes or Safari on a Windows PC.

MS sells its software across the board because it's a smart decision. It allows for the largest possible install base for anything else they put out down the road. Apple has been shooting itself in the foot by forcing their OS to flounder while selling gadgets left and right. Apple seems to think that their elite image is worth it, and they might be right. They would have to put a lot more work into functionality and innovation if they tried to compete on an even playing field with everyone else in the industry. It's hard to get that "cool factor" when you're just as prolific as everyone else.

Vendor lock is bad for the consumer, mmkay?