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Steve Jobs Would Have Celebrated His 71st Birthday Today

We should all gather in prayer and remember Steve today.

Steve definitely left the planet in a better place than he found it.

Thank you.
 
aforty said:
If only he had believed in modern medicine.
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The type of pancreatic cancer he had was different than most types. It was a slow moving version that was/is very responsive to quick action through surgery. Though the surgery can have lasting side effects, most of them are minor lifestyle adjustments. At worst, he would have been rendered a diabetic which is a manageable condition as well. At least more manageable than metastatic cancer and eventual death.

Believe me, when the doctors tell you first hand that you have cancer, and surgery is the only thing that will eventually "cure" it you go through the regular "stages of grief" that meet such a life altering decision.

Believing that some sort of herbal supplement and fruit diets are going to make your tumor go away is really magical thinking. No one wants to go through chemo and radiation and the possibility of an organ transplant. Sometimes making decisions we don't want to is part of adulthood.

I did not have pancreatic cancer, but my health issues mirror Steve's later surgical interventions and all I can say from my own experience is that had he decided to have the surgery straight away chances are he would still be alive. Had I opted for the magical herb and fruit route I would be dead by now.

He did manage to get a few more years out of his eventual liver transplant. Which surviving and living after a liver transplant is no joke. Two and a half years considering his condition going into the surgery was remarkable and says a lot about the man and the center that performed his surgery, which was chosen due to organ procurement reasons and not it's expertise.

Changes in medicine have significantly altered the organ procurement landscape in the time that has passed since Jobs' death. Many otherwise viable organs were deemed not useable for transplant due to Hepatitis C infection or exposure in the donor. Hepatitis C is now curable via oral medication and recipients with a dire need for an organ can opt for a C+ donor as opposed to continued waiting on the UNOS list. This development has saved many lives.
 
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He wasn't a great person but he was great at getting people to perform at their peak, and great in business. He was exactly the person that Apple needed.
 
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You sometimes wonder what would have happened had Jobs got back healthy by 2005 again. I think it's very likely the iPhone development internal hardware would stay the same, but the modern iPhone would definitely be smaller, with the largest device about the size of the original iPhone X from 2017 in 2026. Reason: Jobs was always a stickler for one-hand operation, and the "regular" iPhone may have a screen no larger than 4.5" in size for easier one-handed operation.
 
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Satch111 said:
Well if anything he made it worse, smart phones giving us access to the world 24/7 is not a good thing for humanity.
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That was going to happen anyhow: Mobile phones, texting and email were already ubiquitous by the time the iPhone appeared. Apple put them in a nicer package (& stopped Microsoft taking over the mobile market). The iPhone may only have happened because phones were about to wipe out the iPod market.
 
SactoGuy18 said:
You sometimes wonder what would have happened had Jobs got back healthy by 2005 again. I think it's very likely the iPhone development internal hardware would stay the same, but the modern iPhone would definitely be smaller, with the largest device about the size of the original iPhone X from 2017 in 2026. Reason: Jobs was always a stickler for one-hand operation, and the "regular" iPhone may have a screen no larger than 4.5" in size for easier one-handed operation.
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I think eventually he would have given in to larger sized options, but I agree there would definitely still be a top of the line iPhone Mini in the original size were he still around.
 
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In all seriousness, today would be a good day to read his biography. RIP, the world would have been much different were he still with us, and I think it would have been for the better.
 
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CarAnalogy said:
I think eventually he would have given in to larger sized options, but I agree there would definitely still be a top of the line iPhone Mini in the original size were he still around.
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I think a near-bevel free 4.5" iPhone that is about the size of the iPhone 5/5S could happen in this time line. I would be enormously popular with female buyers because of its small size by 2026 standards.
 
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I was lucky enough to be at WWDC 2011, his last. I remember the jetlag, the getting up early to queue around Moscone Center to be in the room. We sat about halfway the room so he was only a dot but the magic was in being there.

Good times.
 
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I've worked for Apple two different times in my life. Once in the early 80s as a Hardware Repair Tech and later in the early 2000s as a Systems Engineer. The changes internal to Apple since he left have been substantial and not always for the better as I see it after talking to current Systems Engineers. He was the best boss I ever worked for. RIP Steve.
 
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Steve's second act, after NeXT, is to me more impactful than the early days of the Apple II and the Mac. His "wilderness years" made him understand the importance of the product development process, product ecosystems, and anticipating customer needs.

  • You have to have a vision, and sticking to it is hard. And that vision is "what is it going to do FOR people, what will they expect, and why should they care?" When he returned to Apple, the vision had become blurry and unclear, there was no clear idea of who Apple's customers were.
  • It has to be true to the brand. Jobs laid out the "consumer / pro / portable / desktop" quadrant vision to re-focus on Apple's brand as the personal computer company, with the iMac, iBook, Power Mac and PowerBook, sweeping away dozens of indistinguishable beige boxes with confusing nomenclature. It's also why the iMac intentionally recalled the design of the original Macintosh; a self-contained computer that was small and friendly.
  • You have to deliver the majority of that vision with the first iteration of a product, even if other features are delivered later. The iMac delivered, and the iBook created the entire consumer laptop category. The things that made the new generation of Macs iconic - Mac OS X, iMovie, iTunes, CD and DVD burning, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro and Logic - came later, but each one increased the value proposition of the Mac. The iPhone didn't have the App Store when it launched, but the basic functionality it had - a true mobile web browser, 3G connectivity, and the full-screen UI that could become anything you needed - were there from the start.
  • iTunes arrived with the iPod, using the Mac's "halo effect" to create a product ecosystem. Today, that ecosystem includes two different lines of headphones and earbuds (Apple and Beats), the Apple Watch line, iTunes store, Apple Books, Apple TV as both hardware and the service, bundled subscription services like Apple One, and iCloud syncing / storage services. All of these things increase the value of your Apple device.
 
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Was it intentional to start MacRumors on Steve Jobs' Birthday?

I am curious what he would have been like today in the age of AI. I can't help but feel like he would have been the first on the AI train, like he was with Music downloads and Itunes. That would have meant a much better Siri. I think the thing I liked the most about Jobs is I never felt like he was talking down to me. I felt like he talked to me as an average consumer and explaining why I should buy the product. I watched some of his old videos where he introduced the Ipod Nano and talked about that inner jean pocket and it was like yeah He's talking to me. I feel like the Apple presentations since at least 2020 (Basically the infomercial era) has not been that way, and that is currently my biggest issue with Apple right now.
 
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