Steve Jobs Biography: What Might Have Been

[samcraig]

Really? You actually believe that? Who cares about Timmy? Apple does not need to appease zealots and Android zealots would not use iTunes anyway.

Most Android "sales" are "free" phones given away for contracts or simply because their carrier did not have iPhones on their carrier at the time. Until the launch of the iPhone 4S, no iPhones were available on Sprint in the US and the same think with KDDI in Japan.

As Siri says, Android is a false choice. People like "free" which is why so many are flocking from Android over to free iPhone 3GS's.

The both of you point out exactly the kind of Android users that I have personally encountered; 1) Zealots and 2) Cheap people.

The zealots are the über-geeks who are typically Apple haters to begin with and/or think they have a superior product in their device running Android. The cheapos are self-explanatory. There won't be a conversion of the zealots but the cheapos however, will flock to what ever is free.

Wow. I'm not an android lover but there's some serious FUD being spread here. While some Android phones are offered "free" - there are many which are more expensive or the same price as buying the iPhone on contract.

There are just as many Apple zealots as Android Zealots.

And "cheapos" aren't platform specific. Look how many Apple users on this forum complain about software pricing. About paying anything more than free or .99 for an App - and who - if you read the threads on the Jobs Biography - are pissed off that it's 16.99. And that's a book about JOBS - not some random fiction entry.

I think people see what they want to see and point the finger around here too often to make themselves feel better. Pointless. You don't have to put other people/technologies down to enjoy what you have.

my .02 which will no doubt get down voted

 

[Digital Skunk]

Sounds like the iPhone ****wads couldn't cut it in the "Steve Jobs will destroy Android" forum so they decided to spread their bigotry over here.

I could have sworn that Apple sold music, movies and more through itunes, damn...

They do, but no one buying Android . . . myself included . . . is looking to Android for the sole purpose of plugging it up into iTunes. Now, don't get me wrong, I am (as are most other Android users) indifferent to tech, I use what I like and need. I use iTunes exclusively and wouldn't want anything else.

That being said, I'd only want iTunes to put the content on my phone and that's it.

How's that? Millions of people choose an Android device over and Apple all the time. Say Timmy over here for whatever reason will never spend his money on Apple hardware but that's not to say he wouldn't use itunes for Android. Apple was never going to get his money from hardware sales or media sales through itunes because of this.

I agree!

iDevice proliferation even then was so great that Apple could afford to make iTunes exclusive to them and not include Android. Then, it becomes a key-selling point, not a licensed-out feature designed to make up for your own ecosystem shortfalls.

Timing is everything. Now, Apple can well afford to pursue exclusivity all the way. The Apple ecosystem is expansive and growing.

Agree 100% It was much easier for Apple to push iTunes and the iPod into more hands by opening it up to Windows users as well, and it helped bring them into the Apple ecosystem. Same thing for the iPhone.

Now, with Android, Apple doesn't have to be as open. Many bigoted fanboys on these forums will be surprised to learn that there are a lot of Android users out there using DoubleTwist on an iMac to get their music loaded on to their Galaxy S or EVO which they bought because iApps aren't their thing and without those there's nothing truly solid enough to keep them from other devices.

 

[wovel]

If Larry Page is like Jobs, then you won't have Google Maps, Streetview, Youtube, Google Search and all those cool Google apps on iPhone and iPads.

You fell down on the comprehension part of your reading. The search app is Google's core business (advertising). Apple pays for the maps app.


BTW, where is the free turn-by-turn GPS app for iPhone? Oh wait, you had no point.

 

[samcraig]

You fell down on the comprehension part of your reading. The search app is Google's core business (advertising). Apple pays for the maps app.


BTW, where is the free turn-by-turn GPS app for iPhone? Oh wait, you had no point.

I think the point was that Google could have decided not to sell their services to Apple. And then would Apple really have great mapping, search, youtube abilities. And if they didn't - how successful would the iPhone be or not be.

And Apple could license their iOS to other manufacturers for a FEE. So the fact that Apple pays for the Maps app is moot. No one is saying Google or Apple should give their IP away for free. They are saying that Jobs was not willing to share - period. And that Google was.

 

[QuiteSure]

While it seems a given that the iPod was to be made compatible with Windows, Jobs was very resistant to the idea. At one point he said that Windows users would get to use the iPod "over my dead body".

Article Link: Steve Jobs Biography: What Might Have Been

With quotes like this I'm lead to believe that Apple will do very well under the Cook regime. There's no doubt that it was the availability to awesome Apple products in the Windows world that gave rise to the Apple renaissance.

 

[VenusianSky]

I'm not sure of the truth of this, but I read somewhere that Apple was interested in the DEC Alpha architecture, which was very advanced, and was associated with Open VMS, which, I have been told, was a more powerful OS than Unix. I also understand that it was the underlying framework of WNT, which might be behind the mention of WNT. If this is the case, then Apple's actions may not have been so silly. I also understand the the main reason Apple went for the PowerPC processor was that they were fobbed off by the CEO of DEC.

I am happy to stand corrected on any of this.

Not so sure about the background in regards to Apple's interest in DEC Alpha, but yes, Windows NT contains elements from OpenVMS, as well as OS/2, and DOS. Microsoft had picked up some former DEC employees to work on the NT project in the eighties. OpenVMS is an extremely reliable and workhorse operating system, usually run on clustered systems (VAX and Alpha). However, businesses that run it pay boat loads of money for licensing, customizations and support. DEC Alpha was a good product while it was DEC, and then HP and Intel turned it into the piece of crap we know today as the Itanium. It was unfortunate that DEC had whatever internal problems with the organization and eventually merged with Compaq. Digital was a very important and innovative company in computer technology.

NT is actually quite solid. It is all of the legacy support and bloat that has held Wind0ze back, even way back in the DOS days.

That was pretty much it. Windows NT 4, the first 'successful' version of NT, had major issues with hardware support. Due to crappy manufacturer drivers being ported from the DOS Windows version to NT, is what made the notorious BSOD. NT4 wasn't quite ready when launched, but businesses wanted the centrally managed capabilities of an NT domain, as well as the familiar interface of Windows 95 for their users, and an Exchange mail system, so they started to adopt. It wasn't until Service Pack 3, or maybe even 4, that NT4 was a bit more stable. And then Microsoft dropped a bomb with Windows 2000 Server, which required a major overhaul to the NT domain infrastructure with the introduction of the LDAP-based Active Directory and Exchange 2000. Many organizations had adopted Exchange for their mail systems by then, and Exchange 2000 requires an Active Directory. Active Directory was built on the Exchange model of using an LDAP.

 

[jaedreth]

Apple and Android

Android technology is dehumanizing. Even their commercials are dehumanizing.

Apple's technology is humanizing, and so are its commercials.

So anyone who flocks to Android, and thinks its the greatest thing in the world... I have news for them...

*marks three points off their humanity*


Edit: What's even worse: There's an android galaxy nexus ad beneath my post at this moment...

 

[dethmaShine]

Garbage. I'm a big Apple fan, my house is full of Macs and iStuff, but my Android phone gets as much use as any of them. It may pain you to hear it, but it Just Works. (In any case, iTunes is the least 'seamless' piece of software Apple have ever produced... It gets worse with every release.)

That's your opinion.

As far as Android is concerned, I have given up. It is not seamless, straight forward or as functional as iOS at all. The user experience sucks badly. Be it Nexus S or S2.

As far as iTunes is concerned, I guess you haven't used an iPad on iOS 5 with iTunes and all the other features integrated together in iOS. iTunes has proven to be a blessing and the whole thing is just so seamless.

But I would want to know, what makes you think it is not seamless? C'mon.

 

[samcraig]

Android technology is dehumanizing. Even their commercials are dehumanizing.

Apple's technology is humanizing, and so are its commercials.

So anyone who flocks to Android, and thinks its the greatest thing in the world... I have news for them...

*marks three points off their humanity*


Edit: What's even worse: There's an android galaxy nexus ad beneath my post at this moment...

First - the ads are based on key words - so since Android is used here often - their ads appear here often.

Second - I will agree that Android's commercials - for the most part are spec and device driven - not actual usage. Most of them - not all of them. And I think they should reconsider how they try and reach people.

That being said - nothing about their technology is dehumanizing. Rather - instead of making some comment like that - please explain what you mean. What about Android's technology is dehumanzing. And since so many Apple fans want to claim Android is ripped of from iOS - wouldn't that make iOS just as dehumanizing?

People don't get points off for choosing a product that suits their needs. People like you should get points of for casting judgement on someone else's lifestyle and choices they make which better suit them.

This coming from someone who is Apple all the way as far as tech.

 

[Reason077]

I thought it was already pretty well known that the original iMac evolved from an NC project/concept. I've read it in articles about Jony Ive, etc.

 

[kiljoy616]

I'll save money on the book and just read the best bits here.

I have been reading and there is so much here to enjoy.

 

[MacSince1990]

The both of you point out exactly the kind of Android users that I have personally encountered; 1) Zealots and 2) Cheap people.

Terrific generalization. Of course, in branding another type of "phone user" as either/or, you yourself in fact come off as a zealot.

The zealots are the über-geeks who are typically Apple haters to begin with and/or think they have a superior product in their device running Android.

Or they just prefer the Android OS? Not everyone's going to have the same opinion about everything. Evaluation of things like Operating Systems boils down to personal preference-- a qualitative measure. Their opinions are no less valid than yours.

The cheapos are self-explanatory. There won't be a conversion of the zealots but the cheapos however, will flock to what ever is free.

You do realize that not everyone has money, right? For some it's not being "cheap," it's simply buying what they can afford.

Also please consider that a large portion of Android users are the younger generation; many would have to front the cost of the phone, but not pay the phone bill as they're in a family plan.

As far as "flocking to whatever is free," pretentious condescension not withstanding, your logic is a bit silly. If both devices are free, they will choose the one they prefer-- or the one that's available on their network.

This kind of simplistic thinking behooves no one.. and reflects poorly on us all.

 

[Swift]

Who says he's not a role model?

Wow, sometimes I imagine what Apple would be like if Jobs always got his way. Under that magical veneer, there is a lot of conflict going on. I'm a bit hesitant to read the bio because I wish that Jobs be a role model. But I guess Jobs himself wanted to show himself as-is.

I personally think that Jobs IS a very big role model that more CEOs should embrace. In his personal life, he made many mistakes, and undoubtedly he could be petty and mean. What do you expect, perfection? Then you have no role model among humans, because we're all a little cracked.

It's his creative thinking that is the role model part. Nobody did it better. Now, the "no iTunes for Windows" idea was stupid. It was there because of his antipathy to Gates, to the business model of Windows, and so on. He excoriated anybody who suggested it. He ridiculed them. And then he gave in. The others won the argument, and they stood up to him. That's another role model part.

I don't know if you're familiar with Zen teachings, or the encounter between the student and the Master that is the heart of it all. One of the Master's functions is to humiliate and degrade the student who is coming to the Master for Answers. Once the student "gets it," they have no fear of the Master and no reason to fear him.

Jobs was a Zen buddhist. Seriously.

 

[deggs37]

If anyone wants to know the real reason that PC users can't stand Apple fans just look in this thread. I'm an apple user but I am seriously embarrassed to be associated with you people. Elitist attitude + ignorance = hardcore apple fan.

Oh and to those of you wondering why PC users hate using iTunes - keep telling yourselves they hate seamless experiences. It's actually because it's junk on windows. Bloated, slow, junk. On the mac it's awesome. But on windows it's the worst media player available on the market.

 

[janstett]

To be fair I don't think a single android user would be happy using iTunes on their handset lol

Have you used an Android phone? You buy music on Amazon, the experience sucks.

At least with iTunes on Android they could fuel iTunes sales, at the expense of improving the competition's weakness.

 

[vvswarup]

If Larry Page is like Jobs, then you won't have Google Maps, Streetview, Youtube, Google Search and all those cool Google apps on iPhone and iPads.

Google makes money from eyeballs. They don't care if it's an Android pair of eyeballs or an iOS pair of eyeballs.

Now that you mention those apps, let me tell you that I expect those to be gone in the coming iterations of iOS. Apple has stopped using Google Maps. They only use the backend for the servers but they write the Maps app themselves. I expect Apple to stop using even the backend.

It's called protecting a competitive advantage. Google Maps on Android is a competitive advantage for Google. They won't implement that functionality for competitors. Similarly, Microsoft Office is a competitive advantage for Microsoft's Windows. That's why the Mac version has not been anywhere near as good as the Windows version.

While Apple could make money off of music sales if iTunes were available for Android, such a move goes against strategy.

 

[janstett]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Apple may have lots of bright people working for them but it seems there are/were some stupid fools. Window NT based iMac? I'll buy it just so I can burn it in my backyard. Ugh....

That's a ludicrous statement to make. Windows NT was working on multiple platforms other than Intel since the very beginning (it was developed on an Intel RISC platform, the N10). It even had a PowerPC version for a while.

The point would be to gain a platform independent kernel and lower level OS and put the OS "personality" on top. This was a very popular way to go in the 1990s -- anybody remember Taligent Pink? That was going to be the next Mac OS before NeXT and OSX came into the picture.

 

[janstett]

Google Search is on the iPhone because Google makes money through the ads.

Putting iTunes on Android would do nothing. Apple does not gain any sales from doing so.

So when they sell a song on iTunes they don't gain any sales????

 

[DeckerUK]

If anyone wants to know the real reason that PC users can't stand Apple fans just look in this thread. I'm an apple user but I am seriously embarrassed to be associated with you people. Elitist attitude + ignorance = hardcore apple fan.

Oh and to those of you wondering why PC users hate using iTunes - keep telling yourselves they hate seamless experiences. It's actually because it's junk on windows. Bloated, slow, junk. On the mac it's awesome. But on windows it's the worst media player available on the market.

First post, but have so got to agree with you. I have Early 2011 MBP and iPhone (3G over 3 years old and not let me down in that time!) but the elitist bs that is often spouted here is unreal. I very much like my MBP but I still dislike iTunes - seamless or not and may even be from years of using it on windows - I file my music where I want to file it and play it on what I want to play it on.
One of my big hates is the way you are 'almost' dictated to with iOS and so my next purchase will be the 10.1 Tab (by you know who). As other have iterated previously, people make a personal choice as to what computer, phone or tablet they buy and just because it isn't always Apple certainly does not make them inferior, zealots or cheap!!

My 2 fils worth...

 

[janstett]

Many "PCs" hate to use iTunes.
They love to drag and drop inside Windows explorer.
They don't understand syncing, podcasts, automatic downloads and so on. What you don't know about, you don't miss. That is the secret of Windows success.

Name folders and sort music, photos and files.

I have Apple switchers that hate iTunes since they can't see where the files are.

I tell them: It does not matter where the files are stores. Its the computers job to make it easier for you. Let the computer sort the files and organize them. Use iTunes to make playlists and what you want to sync to you iDevices.

First, virtually every other music player works that way (you drag and drop music files onto it like a hard drive).

Second, the iTunes approach makes life extremely painful when you don't want to work the way iTunes wants you to. For many years I used XPlay on the PC (lets you use an iPod like a hard drive and drag and drop songs onto it). Why? Back then laptop drives weren't 5-10x bigger than the biggest iPod, so if you filled up your iPod you also filled up your laptop hard drive 2/3 of the way. Not to mention, if I already have my music on my iPod, WHY WHY WHY do I need a 2nd copy of it clogging up precious hard drive space on my iPod?

Further complicating things, if you have a big lossless collection you need to resample it to fit it on an iPod (iTunes now somewhat does this for you). But it still means making a 2nd copy of your library that is downsampled to fit on an iPod and then having to clog up your hard drive with it.

And then what if you have multiple ipods? Multiple types of music in separate folders?

In these cases, the "it just works, the computer does everything for you" is like a nice straight jacket and a pair of mittens.

 

[samcraig]

It's actually because it's junk on windows. Bloated, slow, junk. On the mac it's awesome. But on windows it's the worst media player available on the market.

Actually it's not that awesome on a Mac. It's riddled with issues, bloat and resource hogging. My .02...

 

[sennekuyl]

So you want to travel to 1985 (or earlier) to shot Irving Gould ?


Ping me if you need a copilot

Heh, actually I was thinking I'd buying the team out when they first debuted. Beat Commodore to purchasing it.

Ah, what could have been.

/OT

 

[Tarzanman]

iTunes is one of the two reasons I will never own an iPod, iPhone or iPad.

Its **** (to borrow a term from Jobs). Apple has been trying to push it on everyone for years (they used to bundle it with Quicktime). Its less buggy than it used to be, but it is still bloated and offers a poor user experience.

 

[organerito]

Jobs was a Zen buddhist. Seriously.

No, I think he was more of a bitter a$$hole than a Zen Buddhist. He was brilliant but an A$$.

 

[Yaboze]

All of these inside stories of what could have been are amazing to me. It's what makes this book a must have for any any computer geek, Apple fan or not.

It starts me thinking about alternative universes where maybe some of this came true. I think our timeline turned out the best for Apple, I love their product lineup. I think Apple works best making everything from the software to the hardware, the ecosystem just works.

I remember seeing the "Watchmen" film, which is set in the 1980's and they had a black Macintosh or at least a Mac with a inversed screen. Wild stuff.

----------

Actually it's not that awesome on a Mac. It's riddled with issues, bloat and resource hogging. My .02...

It's definitely worse on Windows and I think it needs a rewrite/redesign. I wonder if Jobs felt that way and put the wheels in motion for a iTunes update.