How dare you say something about Jobs other than that he completely changed the world of technology? I'm kidding. I have been impressed with the amount of exaggeration in the media about Jobs' accomplishments. Of course no one can deny that Jobs's ideas have had an enourmous impact in the industry. But if we look at many of the things Apple has done in the past years, we see they were not THAT revolutionary. For example, the iPod. The concept of portable music is so old (walkans, discmans, minidiscs) and mp3 was so mainstream at the time that calling the iPod revolutionary is an overstatement. The same can be said about the iPhone, smartphones were something that was going to happen sooner of later, as the next logical step in the mobile world. And the iPad wasn't that revolutionary either, Apple itself had been working in tablets 10 years earlier. If anything, Apple and Jobs are a tremendous marketing force, but world-changing? Not quite.

Alejandro @ 10/7/2011 12:23:00 PM

Apple, under Steve Jobs, brought products to market (personal computer, digital music player, smartphone, tablet) that others had already brought to market. The difference is that Apple made products that significant numbers of people want to buy. It isn't just marketing, it's taste, design, editing, simplicity, and, more recently, really good supply chain management to keep costs down.

Those of us with our eyes on technology can see the roots of Apple's products, and know about the other companies' products similar to Apple's wildly successful products. (Don't try to argue that Apple's products aren't wildly successful; company profits are available as public record, and Apple is making money hand over fist.) From the perspective of someone less than familiar with technology, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad seem to be imports from the future. That part is marketing, but it wouldn't work without great products to be marketed.

I have trouble with canonizing or deifying Steve Jobs, but Apple has made one good decision after another under his leadership. He brought the company from the brink of bankruptcy to (competing for) the highest market cap in the world in about a decade. Pixar's consistent track record of successful films would be a laudable success for a CEO, but it's just a sidebar to Steve's success at Apple. Also remember that all of Apple's current products, with the exception of the iPod Shuffle and Nano, are based on NeXT, another company Steve Jobs founded.

Maybe you don't like Apple products. Maybe you see those who do as zealots. Maybe Steve Jobs ran over your dog. None of that is relevant to Apple's market turnaround and success under his leadership. It happened, and he was instrumental in making it happen. He deserves credit for that.

Greg @ 10/7/2011 6:30:45 PM

Hi Greg.

Through much of your post you seem to be arguing with a strawman. No one disputes Apple's enormous success -- I made several references to it in my short entry. Steve Jobs was an eminent capitalist, and he worked that system to its maximum potential.

What I argue against is the rewriting of history where Apple invented the technology we make use of today. Aside from the fact that until very recently the iPhone hardware was almost entirely non-Apple creations (the screens, touchscreens, processors, RAM, flash, materials, manufacturing techniques, and so on -- all of it evolving among other products, setting the foundation that allowed the iPhone to be built), the canonization of Jobs has reached incredible levels. When people protesting against capitalization cry tears for one of the greatest capitalists ever, it demonstrates how completely out of touch with reality so many are.

Now we hear that he enabled the Arab Spring (wait, wasn't BBM, Twitter and Facebook what the governments were limiting?
But in the wake of Jobs' death, a product more limited than competitors, and far less accessible, enabled freedom? The irony abounds), brought the future today, and so on. It's ignorant farce.

Dennis Forbes @ 10/8/2011 6:39:29 AM

I think that Steve Jobs was brilliant in many ways, but I too find it strange that so many feel the need to put him on a pedestal for things he didn't do when the things he did do were more than enough.

If someone plays great music that's brilliant in itself, even if he/she didn't actually invent the instruments but rather is using instruments that have been invented and improved by others over centuries. It's not the components that matter, but rather how you combine and apply them and I think that was Steve Jobs greatest success.

I'm left wondering, why isn't that great music good enough; why do some people have to claim that he invented the instruments too? Or is it that so many people actually believe that so much Apple technology is unique, special or never-seen-before? Perhaps it shouldn't be to suprising, seeing how maintream media for a long time has been very forgiving with Apples use of claims such as "revolutionary", "the worlds first/fastest/best .." etc.

Again, I think Steve Jobs was brilliant and I think he was very, very influential in shaping and building the technology we now see. And he is still brilliant even if he didn't invent all of it by himself.

Mattias @ 10/10/2011 2:26:34 AM

why do some people have to claim that he invented the instruments too?

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