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

[r00fus]

Thanks for the link. It is worth a read, a very good interview ( pushing web objects notwithstanding ). I am also wondering what year this was. There was no data line in the article.

EDIT: Jobs says he is 40. So that dates this interview to 1995.

It's from 1996, I believe... I love that interview. Some favorite parts that show Jobs' prescience (Jobs' comments bolded):

What other opportunities are out there?
Who do you think will be the main beneficiary of the Web? Who wins the most? People who have something -
To sell!

To share.
To sell!

You mean publishing?
It's more than publishing. It's commerce. People are going to stop going to a lot of stores. And they're going to buy stuff over the Web!

This is before Amazon, eBay or any of the others really got going. Back when we were using CGI and having to call in your payment because decent CC processing wasn't standardized... it was quite prescient and I love how he smacked interrupted the interviewer who was trying to inject his own agenda into the interview.

 

[atr1x]

Jailbreaking is SOFTWARE based, so if the hardware is damaged, it doesn't have anything to do with the SOFTWARE, so therefore, apple should still honor warranties for jailbroken iPhones. A little collaboration with the customer to find out how the device broke would be easy. Whatever, I personally don't care, as I have the original 2g iPhone on tmobile.

But the Software uses the Hardware to work and if the Software e.g. manages the Battery Life Cycle for some reason not right the Battery will damage and some other Hardware will do so and so there is no warranty for jailbreaks - you understand?

 

[Hal Itosis]

Edison invented his own stuff.

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.

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.

Think so? As others have pointed out, the man to be honored where electrical power is concerned is Nikola Tesla.

Edison hated AC... it was too difficult to control, and too complex to understand. When the first hydroelectric dam was being built, a contest was held to determine what its design would be. Edison led the group who wanted the plant's output to be direct current (DC). It was Tesla —with his mathematical genius and understanding (of AC motors/generators) —who pushed for AC power distribution. Thanks to some backing from George Westinghouse, he was able to compete and eventually win that contract. Of course, later on it was all purchased by some other big shot and then repackaged as "Consolidated Edison"... so folks today just assume Edison was the mind behind AC and subconsciously credit him with the whole shebang. No way... Tesla designed the technology behind today's 3-phase AC power systems. His biography is fascinating (and a little sad too).

Albert Einstein openly sanctioned and supported the development of the atomic bomb. So no-one "misused" his theories, he basically donated them to the most violent cause ever conceived by man.

I think you may be overselling your case there. Anyway, the allies were battling against some of the sickest regimes "ever conceived by man"... so let's just be happy that we're all not having to speak German right now. [oooops, sorry... i forgot. ]

I find the amount of credit some people here give Steve Jobs quite sad

There there muffin... chin up. Just tell us exactly who said what (i.e., use the quote feature when posting), so we can better understand how to help.

Profound? Last time I checked Steve Jobs was CEO of Apple Inc. a consumer electronics company 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.

Well... if not for Steve, you wouldn't be "here" now. That's profound, isn't it?

 

[iBug2]

Edison invented his own stuff.

Franklin risked his life for freedom, and also invented stuff.

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.

Yet in his absence the company was almost bankrupting. So inventing stuff alone isn't enough, you need a CEO like Jobs for that invented stuff to go into production, which is far more important than inventing them. After all, nobody invented an iPod. It's innovation after innovation on a walkman. The idea has always been out there. Apple is not a hardware frontier firm anyway, they don't make hardware, they just put them together, at least until very recently. So obviously Jobs did not invent the silicon in an iPod, nor the alloy it was made of, but neither did anyone else in Apple. He did not invent the clickwheel either. But he still "invented" the iPod, if he was the one who saw it all together as a product which people could use. Or maybe he wasn't the one who saw it together either, but he was the one who said "ok this one, people will use", compared to maybe hundreds of other designs which must come in front of him every day.

 

[Žalgiris]

Ok, dude, do you REALIZE how much LSD (acid, you know, the hippie drug) Steve Jobs has done in his life time?? It's NO WONDER why he (and only he) thinks that his products are SOOOOO REVOLUTIONARY!! oooohhhh!!! The 'revolutionary' iPad? A revolution?? Are you kidding me? From personal experience, the only time I've ever thought anything was revolutionary was when I myself did LSD, and when I came down from it, I realized, "You know, the world is NOT a fairy tale!"

AidenShaw, above me, stated: "Does anyone think that Steve Jobs is a qualified RF engineer?

Certainly after the Iphone 4 "AntennaGate" disaster they wouldn't.... "

Yes, correct. Steve Jobs doesn't know ANYTHING about hardware. It was Woz who knew all about circuit board technology and all the technology behind everything. I mean, jobs knows how to write software, I mean, he came up with neXT, but as far as hardware, he really doesn't know. I mean why else does he only care about the fan(s) in macs being quiet instead of ACTIVELY cooling the system? Macs in general have a reputation of over heating. Anyway, when I say active cooling, I mean keeping the machine from reaching any temperature that is just not healthy for hardware. Yes, the machines can withstand about 217 degrees ferenheit, but that doesn't mean that it is healthy. Anybody who is windows/pc savvy can tell you that a processor should stay below around 145-150 degrees ferenheit. That's why someone invented SMCfancontrol. By the time the fan starts to actively cool, your processor and graphics card are already too hot.

Yes he is that good . So good that you need to rationalize to make yourself feel better.

 

[James cuck]

Thanks for helpful information.

 

[k995]

It's from 1996, I believe... I love that interview. Some favorite parts that show Jobs' prescience (Jobs' comments bolded):

This is before Amazon, eBay or any of the others really got going. Back when we were using CGI and having to call in your payment because decent CC processing wasn't standardized... it was quite prescient and I love how he smacked interrupted the interviewer who was trying to inject his own agenda into the interview.

Alazon was founded 94, online since 95 , ebay founded 95, online banking : 94 , pizza hut selling online: 95,...

First actuall internetshops date back to 94 .

So did he see it correctly? yes but so did a lot of other people.

 

[Aatos.1]

It's offering simple solutions without offending/belittling your customer.

This is the reason, health issues aside, it's time for him to go.

I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for the exemplary work he did in the past.

Make no mistake, I have a very clear understanding & appreciation of Apple & Jobs history. But times have changed & so has the man. The effects of long term success, money, power & adulation have an effect on the mind. Everyone handles it differently.

The Steve Jobs I admired then, has morphed into the Steve Jobs that frustrates me today. For I know what he's capable of, but no longer giving us. And it's not all his fault. After all the man is human. Times have changed & circumstances have changed. He's no longer in control in a good way. Which is not saying he's being evil. Far from it. The man is doing his best given the dynamics of business circa 2011.

He's tired, he's gravely ill, given those two considerations alone, he's more than earned the right to make the mistakes he's making. However when you are the CEO of a company like Apple that just doesn't cut it.

I will always admire his accomplishments & overlook his failings. I wish him nothing but the best. Unconditionally.

 

[*LTD*]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

It's offering simple solutions without offending/belittling your customer.

This is the reason, health issues aside, it's time for him to go.

I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for the exemplary work he did in the past.

Make no mistake, I have a very clear understanding & appreciation of Apple & Jobs history. But times have changed & so has the man. The effects of long term success, money, power & adulation have an effect on the mind. Everyone handles it differently.

The Steve Jobs I admired then, has morphed into the Steve Jobs that frustrates me today. For I know what he's capable of, but no longer giving us. And it's not all his fault. After all the man is human. Times have changed & circumstances have changed. He's no longer in control in a good way. Which is not saying he's being evil. Far from it. The man is doing his best given the dynamics of business circa 2011.

He's tired, he's gravely ill, given those two considerations alone, he's more than earned the right to make the mistakes he's making. However when you are the CEO of a company like Apple that just doesn't cut it.

I will always admire his accomplishments & overlook his failings. I wish him nothing but the best. Unconditionally.

Yup. He's making big mistakes. Nearly all Apple product lines enjoying record sales. Market cap approaching that of Exxon Mobil. Flush with so much cash they can buy anything, even make their own chipset. And we're talking products as part of a controlled ecosystem here. I know of no one else that is able to pull that off. Hell, the industry is looking to Apple to show the way forward. This is unprecedented.

Do you take anything to sustain your altered state of reality? Or are you just naturally always way out of touch?

 

[skunk]

Do you take anything to sustain your altered state of reality? Or are you just naturally always way out of touch?

That's rich, coming from you.

 

[gorgeousninja]

that's just consumer-drool. not like they cured cancer in those countries.

oh so you're moving the goalposts with what 'profound effect' actually means ..

 

[jouster]

That's rich, coming from you.

It may be rich, but he's right. Given Apple's current situation, how can Jobs be perceived as anything but a spectacular success?

 

[skunk]

It may be rich, but he's right.

No excuse for an ad hominem.

 

[wizzerandchips]

You obviously never created anything. NEVER anything worth the attention I presume. It's so easy to destroy than to create. Let's see a company build a smartphone like the iPhone - intro it to the world and have every single company try to imitate the iPhone in every aspect.

Give the man some credit - he may not of single handedly built the iPhone but he took all the talent from the talent pool strung them together and whipped up something we know today.

It's so easy to criticize, complain, bxtch, moan, gripe, all of the negative views about a company who didn't make a product you wanted. It's not easy to satisfy one person let alone billions.

The sales of apple products PROVE ONE THING - Apple is doing it all right. It may not be what you imagined but it's definitely a majority vote. When you try to satisfy everyone, you end up making a mediocre product at best. The man knows what to create and what people want. Or else no one would buy it. There is no iSheep, iClone, consumers. There are only consumers who buy products they want and the others who don't buy them but love to hate/criticize.

I've seen much and do you even realize that the UI on the iOS device is so good no one really ever talks about how smooth the views animate, how smooth the scrolling is or how quickly things get done smoothly? Everyone is now on apple's case about dual processors, mega retina screen resolutions, and the list goes on but it takes super hard work and amazing creativity to make something so complex so simple. There isn't one single Android device in the making that is as smooth as the iPhone. NONE.

But who cares - we all complain about Steve Jobs being a control freak, blah blah blah - you can simply not buy his products if you assume he is a tech nazi. But give the man major credit for if not for Steve Jobs, we wouldn't have what we have today. He's just as important as bill gates except mr. gates got real lucky and took his oppurtunity and exponentially exploited it while mr. jobs decided to be original and innovative...

hallelujah and AMEN to that

 

[Bonte]

Rumor mill at Brittania Arms this night says the Medical Leave is a cover. He is really spending extending time with the architects of the new Apple campus.

He does like to build things, the new campus could even be the start of a new area in technology.

 

[wizzerandchips]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

We ended up getting one Miele appliance. A diamanté plus dishwasher. Great machine.

now theres a washing machine

 

[G5isAlive]

slow news day

no disrespect to Mr Jobs, who clearly knows the virtue of simplicity...

must be a slow news day to recycle 1985 interviews.

 

[gorgeousninja]

This is the reason, health issues aside, it's time for him to go.

I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for the exemplary work he did in the past.

Make no mistake, I have a very clear understanding & appreciation of Apple & Jobs history. But times have changed & so has the man. The effects of long term success, money, power & adulation have an effect on the mind. Everyone handles it differently.

The Steve Jobs I admired then, has morphed into the Steve Jobs that frustrates me today. For I know what he's capable of, but no longer giving us. And it's not all his fault. After all the man is human. Times have changed & circumstances have changed. He's no longer in control in a good way. Which is not saying he's being evil. Far from it. The man is doing his best given the dynamics of business circa 2011.

He's tired, he's gravely ill, given those two considerations alone, he's more than earned the right to make the mistakes he's making. However when you are the CEO of a company like Apple that just doesn't cut it.

I will always admire his accomplishments & overlook his failings. I wish him nothing but the best. Unconditionally.

for someone who supposedly has 'huge amounts of respect and admiration' for him, you certainly do your best not to show much of any of those qualities. Exactly what mistakes has he made that are causing you so much grief? Or is that you are so used to the good life, that you've come to believe you simply know better?

Alan Turing mentioned earlier, was another visionary. Key to the Allies ability to intercept and decipher Nazi communications during WWII. He designed the first true computers as we know it, and was years ahead of everyone else in the field of computer science, also the 'Turing Test' is still the benchmark in how artificial life systems are analyzed.
By way of a thank you from the world for the countless lives he'd help save, after the war his work went largely unacknowledged, he was treated appallingly by the government, and in the end died by cyanide poisoning in dubious circumstances.

but I guess as you would have it, he just didn't cut it.

 

[Thunderhawks]

for someone who supposedly has 'huge amounts of respect and admiration' for him, you certainly do your best not to show much of any of those qualities. Exactly what mistakes has he made that are causing you so much grief? Or is that you are so used to the good life, that you've come to believe you simply know better?

Alan Turing mentioned earlier, was another visionary. Key to the Allies ability to intercept and decipher Nazi communications during WWII. He designed the first true computers as we know it, and was years ahead of everyone else in the field of computer science, also the 'Turing Test' is still the benchmark in how artificial life systems are analyzed.
By way of a thank you from the world for the countless lives he'd help save, after the war his work went largely unacknowledged, he was treated appallingly by the government, and in the end died by cyanide poisoning in dubious circumstances.

but I guess as you would have it, he just didn't cut it.

Wondering why people feel the urge to post when they are under drug or other influence

Getting upset about a hockey puck mouse or the new screws (BTW a non issue) and expecting perfection shows they are not grounded in this world.

Funny that they feel entitled to rip the accomplishments of Apple never having created ANYTHING!!

Also, they forget that they have the option of not having to bother with Apple products by just not buying them.

Why not figure out when an Apple accessory or product doesn't work well enough and use whatever the secondary market produces.

Apple is not in the mouse market. I never even hooked up a mouse once I used Kensington's trackball.

Had the dock in OS 7.5. (Don't know if Apple bought the company)

Whoever can't see what Steve contributed to the world we live in is malicious or just brain dead.

 

[karsten]

oh so you're moving the goalposts with what 'profound effect' actually means ..

not really. making some consumer electronics i wouldn't say is profound. curing a disease with real impact on someone who is suffering i would say is. maybe your definition of profound is a bit skewed yes?

 

[kdarling]

Think so? As others have pointed out, the man to be honored where electrical power is concerned is Nikola Tesla.

EE major here. So yes, I love Tesla as much as anyone, and probably know more about his works than most. However, this is not an Edison vs. Tesla subthread. It's about whether or not Jobs will be remembered in the same way a hundred years from now.

When they were alive, both Edison and Franklin were already well known, and ever since, every American schoolchild knows who they are. I don't think anywhere near that percentage of people outside of these forums know who Steve Jobs is. It's just the way it is.

Yet in his absence the company was almost bankrupting. So inventing stuff alone isn't enough, you need a CEO like Jobs for that invented stuff to go into production, which is far more important than inventing them.

I agree, and that's exactly what I've been saying all along.

When Jobs first showed off the iPhone, my development group was not awed by it because we already had touch devices in the field with flick scrolling, good mobile browsers, etc.

What we were amazed at, was that someone was actually going to put those things into a gizmo sold to the general public. Few others would take that risk.

After all, nobody invented an iPod. It's innovation after innovation on a walkman.

True, although it was Tony Fadell who thought of combining an MP3 player and music download service. That's why Apple hired him to work on it and later put him in charge of what became the iPod division.

(He was also reportedly the SVP who wanted Linux on the iPhone.)

So obviously Jobs did not invent the silicon in an iPod, nor the alloy it was made of, but neither did anyone else in Apple. He did not invent the clickwheel either. But he still "invented" the iPod, if he was the one who saw it all together as a product which people could use. Or maybe he wasn't the one who saw it together either, but he was the one who said "ok this one, people will use", compared to maybe hundreds of other designs which must come in front of him every day.

Perhaps it's just semantics, but I prefer "inventor" to refer to the actual mind who thought something up in detail. Jobs is more like a idea filter and facilitator: a marketing genius, for sure.

Regards.

 

[iwoolman]

not really. making some consumer electronics i wouldn't say is profound. curing a disease with real impact on someone who is suffering i would say is. maybe your definition of profound is a bit skewed yes?

I think creating or influencing technology that supports others in making such breakthroughs is profound. Many facets of technology, and not just Apple technology, are better as a result of the influence of Steve Jobs, and those technologies have almost certainly supported significant breakthroughs in a number of fields.

 

[ersheido]

Steve Jobs Talk from 1982

Fans of Steve Jobs might enjoy this talk to students back from 1982... Audio quality is so so, but interesting to hear him speak ungraurded:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=412215167

Get well Steve and come back soon!

 

[meatballs]

not really. making some consumer electronics i wouldn't say is profound. curing a disease with real impact on someone who is suffering i would say is. maybe your definition of profound is a bit skewed yes?

Exactly, the work of Marie Curie (radioactivity), Röntgen (x-ray) and Fleming (penicillin) has had a profound effect on the world. I see people here comparing Jobs to Einstein and it's laughable. The Apple community is a consumer ethnocentric community and we have Steve Jobs to thank for that

 

[farmboy]

Edison invented his own stuff.

Franklin risked his life for freedom, and also invented stuff.

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.

All you have to do is read the patents. All legitimate inventors are listed. A fair number of Apple's patents list Jobs as an inventor. He's not just a slavedriver-cheeleader.