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Insight into Steve Jobs' Product-Centric Approach in 1985 Interview

rkw0211 said:
I get the feeling you haven't used either of them. Oh well, ignorance is bliss I guess.
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You are correct. I have used neither. I had my fill of MSFT products at work. I couldn't wait to get home to get on my AAPL products.

But that's the challenge MSFT has. The Windows legacy is so burdened with baggage that many of us don't want to use Windows.

But googling Windows does result in "patches," security," etc.

And with my iPad, desktop iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Pro, yes, it is bliss.
 
jayducharme said:
Remember that Edison especially, but Franklin to some degree, were synthesizers more than inventors. They took things around them that they saw needed improvement and they improved them. IMO, many great thinkers don't necessarily think "new" thoughts, but re-frame existing thoughts in a whole new way. Jobs is a master at that.
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Jobs himself reflects on all this in 95-96 in the interview with Wired that is referenced earlier in the thread: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html

Let me quote a few things that tells me clearly the world view of SJ..

First, at a framework level, philosophically:

"..Creativity is just connecting things. ... creative people .. were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things...."

"..The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have..."

On "design" and "metaphors"

"Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked...."

"the minute I live primarily in a connected versus a stand-alone world, there are new options for metaphors."

On what it takes to do design right:

"Grok" ("to understand profoundly and intuitively")


How it is done...

"The people who built Silicon Valley were engineers. They learned business..
They had a real belief that humans, if they worked hard with other creative, smart people, could solve most of humankind's problems. I believe that very much."..

So in short ( my own summary )

"Have a team of smart people with diverse experience so there are enough dots to connect and grok the problem"..

Not easy, better said than done.....Rest are details.

And this is not related to this issue, but this quote is chuckle worthy.. and quite true..

"The (TV) networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards!"
 
bedifferent said:
I'm amazed that given your negative posts on Apple you frequent a website for people who like Apple products.
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For someone with the name "be different", you sure don't seem to believe in the idea. Only kids and gangs believe that everyone in a group must think the same.

I'm an adult. That means I can buy something and like it, but I don't have to think it's perfect, or worship the manufacturer. Anyone with their own customers had better know this fact of life.

CalBoy said:
This is where I think Apple's design is truly "revolutionary." Until recently, every other computer manufacturer was making their products more complex. From the beginning Apple has held the mantra that "less is more." Not only does this (in general) make products easier to use and more efficient for the average user, it contributes to the beautiful design Apple is known for.
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+1, even though I don't think that things like overloading the Home button have kept the UI in the "keep it simple" category.

I would say that Jobs isn't truly a technology visionary, but rather a marketing visionary. I don't think Jobs has personally invented or designed any of Apple's products. What he's done is picked the products that he thought would sell well and ensure that they were marketed to sell well.
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+1. Jobs has never created a circuit. He has never programmed. He's not a industrial designer. By all accounts he's also a terrible manager.

What he does do, is be smart enough to allow ideas to go into production that other CEOs would not. I very much appreciate him for that, because it's made my life easier as a contract developer.

Perhaps not immediately, but I think Jobs is replaceable. There are plenty of people who have a similar genius for marketing and I'm sure that Apple's culture of stressing design isn't going to disappear with Jobs. I would be more worried when Johnny Ive isn't around.
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Exactly. Either you have to believe that he's replaceable, or you have to think that Apple will decline without him around.
 
meatballs said:
I find the amount of credit some people here give Steve Jobs quite sad :(
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Really? Ok, so, who would you sooner give credit to, in all the Macintosh world, or personal computer world in general for that matter? People like yourself take for granted the sort of direction he has provided. It's easy appreciate a little of this, and completely disregard a lot of that, whilst simply standing on the sidelines.
 
meatballs said:
Profound? Last time I checked Steve Jobs was CEO of Apple Inc. a consumer electronics company :confused: If you seriously think that anything Steve Jobs has done has had any kind of profound impact on the world you really need to get out more.
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and if you seriously don't think that Apple hasn't had a profound effect on the world around you then you really need to get out more..Go to Japan, China, Thailand, Fiji, Norway, Kenya, Columbia, Mexico, Jordan etc etc...and pretty much everyone there will be aware of and desire Apple products...pretty profound, no?
 
kdarling said:
For someone with the name "be different", you sure don't seem to believe in the idea. Only kids and gangs believe that everyone in a group must think the same.

I'm an adult. That means I can buy something and like it, but I don't have to think it's perfect, or worship the manufacturer. Anyone with their own customers had better know this fact of life.
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There is nothing wrong with differing opinions, the only way for society to progress is for mature discourse. Yet taken to an extreme in which your opinion is the only one that matters and the majority of your comments with regards to Apple are negative, it seems rather odd that you frequent MACRumors. If you read the comments from others, the issue is in your poor taste regarding a man who has been deathly ill and only survived because he could afford to, and that he isn't a visionary, and that people who like Apple products are all mindless (sums it up pretty well). All this on a thread about a man's life and health, and after you stated you have battled cancer yourself. As a self described "adult", is that very "adult"-like?

I'd hit the ignore button, but I'll "be different" and open my mind up to any ideas you may have, no personal slams. Thank you, thank you very much. :)

kdarling said:
I am a five year esophageal cancer survivor, something that's about a 5% chance.<snip> I did not have the luxury of "taking a leave". I would much rather have spent that entire time, unknown as its outcome was, traveling with my family, than to spend it at work. So no, I do not admire Jobs' work choice back then, considering the other options he had.
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kdarling said:
Everything Jobs is famous for selling, was invented by someone else.

Hopefully in less than a hundred years, we'll find out who the developers were that actually invented all Apple's cool things and they'll finally get credit.
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Pilgrim1099 said:
You forgot to mention Nicola Tesla, the fore father of technology. Go look him up.
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If we are going to throw names around then we should remember Alan Turing.

His work was so important the Americans had to discredit and kill him to get control of it.
 
kill who? Tesla or Turing? :confused: Not that the answer matters in terms of the authenticity of your belief.
 
gorgeousninja said:
and if you seriously don't think that Apple hasn't had a profound effect on the world around you then you really need to get out more..Go to Japan, China, Thailand, Fiji, Norway, Kenya, Columbia, Mexico, Jordan etc etc...and pretty much everyone there will be aware of and desire Apple products...pretty profound, no?
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These people also know what Coke is, there's nothing profound about brand awareness. I'm european and the word that comes to peoples minds when you mention Apple over here is Overpriced.
 
likemyorbs said:
HAHA, you completely misread what i wrote and wasted a good chunk of your time arguing with someone who agrees with you. Everyone else got it though.
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If you were trying to make some kind of point in your original post, then you failed miserably at it. Don't think I (or anyone else) agreed with you because we didn't reply to your drivel.

You would do well to consider the reply you got, and get out of denial of how badly you presented whatever it was you thought you wrote.
 
gorgeousninja said:
and if you seriously don't think that Apple hasn't had a profound effect on the world around you then you really need to get out more..Go to Japan, China, Thailand, Fiji, Norway, Kenya, Columbia, Mexico, Jordan etc etc...and pretty much everyone there will be aware of and desire Apple products...pretty profound, no?
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that's just consumer-drool. not like they cured cancer in those countries.
 
Žalgiris said:
Steve is awesome.



Or he is just too smart, too brilliant for some people to understand. Clearly he sees things no one else can see.
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Seriously, they work on products and concepts 20 years ahead, not react and try to mimic everyone else's trends and fads and create useless crap like "netbooks"
 
firewood said:
Some bios say that Edison put his name on a lot of patents where his staff did most (maybe all?) of the work inventing. Edison also has some spectacular failures... DC for public power distribution for instance.
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I'm pretty sure he also had a team of hired "muscle" that would go around and physically threaten competition.
 
Mr. Gates said:
I do the same by getting involved and stating my opinion....Oh, Is that not good enough ?

Do you wand a snarky smiley face??

:) .. there, Happy ???
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You know what they say about opinions, they're like a$$holes, everyone has one and they all stink. :)
:):):):):):):):):):)

Now shoo
 
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bedifferent said:
You know what they say about opinions, they're like a$$holes, everyone has one and they all stink. :)
:):):):):):):):):):)

Now shoo
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I love you.

You Are Great.

I have No problem with you.

Keep it up Champ.

Originally I had a problem with the content of your Argument, But now I see you are just the way you are and like to get into it with ANYONE !

Even mere Mortals like Myself

Go on with your Badness you "Demi-God"

LOL
 
firewood said:
Some bios say that Edison put his name on a lot of patents where his staff did most (maybe all?) of the work inventing.
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Edison certainly had his staff do a lot of the grunt work of experimentation. In fact, building up a professional laboratory is credited as one of his great industrial innovations.

However, I suspect that Edison could've still figured out the details even with no staff. He actually had technical and scientific skills. He was not totally dependent on the work of others.

DocNYz said:
I'm pretty sure he also had a team of hired "muscle" that would go around and physically threaten competition.
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(wryly) Perhaps Edison and Jobs have something in common, after all.

Did Edison's staff ever lose a prototype light bulbs in a bar, and then send company security to try to search the premises of the finder?
 
Žalgiris said:
Steve is awesome.



Or he is just too smart, too brilliant for some people to understand. Clearly he sees things no one else can see.
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Long Live The King.

I worry about the future of OS X though with so much focus on IOS products/ecosystem. Apple still uses the Desktop [sic: laptops incl.] as the digital hub - else expandable IOS device memory could be available as stock - but the power of OS X should continue on.
 
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