I was reading an interesting article the other day about how after World War II people were obviously opposed to populism, and by the '80s and certainly the '90s people that were born after the war had lost the awareness of the danger that hero worship creates.
At the same time, many organizations including government organizations had failed to update themselves over the years, so people romanticized the idea of someone walking in and magically making the correct snap judgments that would remedy the situation. This was so pervasive in the business world I think in part because it allowed corporate executives to justify f****** over ordinary employees. If the company makes or breaks because of one person at the top, who cares if you’re paying people minimum wage and they can’t even afford to pay for dental care or a car.
What amazed me is how long that vision of Steve Jobs stuck around. Even in recent years people have been praising him, but if you think of the value in his company, it’s mostly a load of s***. Those phones and computers are incredibly overpriced, and they have so many bad aspects, especially lock-in, which most people intuitively understand these days. And still we have Apple addicts.
I’m not an Apple fan, I never liked the way he dictated form and function and told everyone to fuck off about their feelings. Now that said, his leadership did bring some things to market that would not have grown organically, for better or for worse.
The competition had to contend with good phone battery life, unibody laptops with high DPI screens, and large touchpads with physical feedback. Left to their own devices, these companies would have just kept regurgitating/iterating the same cheap designs they had made for decades.
He wasn’t magic; if he had any superpower, it was attracting and retaining talent.
Your take feels incredibly aggressive. Most people do not want to tinker, they just want their tech to work… Regarding Steve Jobs, are you saying he did not steer Apple to a level of success and prosperity that 99% other companies dream of?
Your opinion of what is overpriced is just your opinion. Apples sales numbers says otherwise, they do not have a monopoly in any market they compete in.
okay so you are right about people wanting their tech to work, but it really is categorically untrue that Apple is the only way to achieve that, or that they achieve that consistently at all.
Take for example the Google Pixel: price competitor to the iPhone, has parity with iOS on software updates, features, and functionality. I got my mom the Pixel 6 4 years ago, and she has never had an issue using that phone. in fact she uses it so heavily you’d think she’s a power user, despite having used a flip phone until 2018. it certainly can break, but I can buy Pixel genuine parts on iFixit and replace my battery or a friend’s.
Windows is actually ass, I’m not defending it - but it does “just work” for many non-technical folks, as bad as it may be.
and let’s talk about MacOS and Mac computers in general. Have you tried doing something as basic as snapping a window on stock MacOS, or worse, had one fail in some way and needed to have it repaired?
Soldered SSDs that you can’t remove are not user friendly and don’t “just work” when 20 years of photos just went up in smoke because you needed a board-level repair expert to de-solder and read the NAND chips only to discover that they’re dead, not to mention having to buy a new machine every few years as the chips continue wearing out, and are serialized and paired to the device so you cannot replace them. Obviously, the customer won’t understand all that. But they will understand that they lost their photos and spent thousands of dollars that they could have saved, not because the repair tech wasn’t skilled at their job, but because hostile Apple design lost them 20 years of photos and forced them to get a new computer.
not to mention Apple’s literal crime against privacy in the UK. Also, those SSDs I mentioned? FileVault backs their encryption keys up to iCloud by default, meaning if your key goes to iCloud in the UK, the police and anyone who gets access to iCloud can decrypt and read the full contents of your machine by booting it into recovery mode and decrypting the volume with said key, because Apple bent over for regulators instead of just disabling iCloud for their users entirely and blaming regulators, or just leaving ADP as is.
I’m not sure what you’re defending Apple for.
Why is everyone so aggressive about history and facts? Please take your blind rage back to Reddit. This thread is about Steve Jobs, acting like he did not lead Apple to numerous successes is a bold face lie. You might not agree with his methods but that doesn’t mean he accomplished nothing.
Your example proves my point, the alternative, Google, is just as if not more evil than Apple… just because they allow third party stores and less lock-in does not mean their product is better. Each person can choose the product that suits their needs.
I can’t speak for everyone but I find facts and history important when discussing the behavior of any person or organization’s behavior.
Steve Jobs did make Apple very successful - but at the same time, Apple still did bad things and those things are a part of what he did, for better or worse, and refusing to critique them is also not advisable.
because they allow third party stores and less lock-in does not mean their product is better
each person can choose the product that suits their needs
less lock-in is better for user choice and user experience, as defined by the meaning of lock-in. If a user is massively inconvenienced by a service or device when they attempt to move away from it or if something else fits their needs better, that stifles user choice because the switching costs are too high.
your original comment mentioned that users want their devices to “just work” - do you think Apple’s more aggressive lock-in is conducive to devices “just working” when the user wishes to switch to Android or PC as opposed to iOS or Mac?
Steve jobs ain’t a genius. He was just a good salesman.
The sales people almost always end up doing well in companies. And then when they get high up in the company they only value others ability to make sales and work for bonuses. As time goes on a company’s e-suite gets more and more saturated with charismatic dummies who will do anything for a buck, leaving less room for good administrators and engineers.
This 😂. A fucking genius choosing pseudoscience…
Back on the old site on one of those text based subreddits there was a question posted:
Would you rather have free WiFi wherever you go, or any apple product you wish at any time.
My (then unrotted) brain was like: mmh WiFi everywhere is good, but apple cake, apple pie, apple sauce, apple spritz, apple cider, apple strudel, dried apples… Yeah I’m going with apple products
Being rich makes you so divorced from consequences that you start to believe that what is in your brain is what is real. Money isn’t what we think it is.
These words resonate so hard with me that my head is ringing like a bell right now. “Money isn’t what we think it is.” ^5, you.
I highly doubt the consequences of Dennis Richie not existing. Yes, his work was foundational, but he didn’t do it on his own, and if he wasn’t around, someone else would’ve filled in.
The same is true for Steve Jobs. In fact, most of his contribution was being a jerk to people so his ideas won. He had a clear vision, but his internal implementation was… iffy.
My crusading teenage ass posted this in 2011 on social media. Nobody cared lol
Fact of the matter is way more people know who Steve Jobs is compared to Dennis Ritchie, so it’s no wonder his death garnered way more attention too. But the sentiment still stands IMO
I mean, fucking up is a common thing people do and is an integral part of the human condition. What should be emphasized about Jobs case is that he fucked up his own liver, learned the cause and treatments, used his wealth to cut in the waiting line to get a liver transplant, and then fucked his second liver just the same way. This is the definition of terminally stupid, and no UX focus will ever change that.
I remember reading a story a while back about the documentary they were making on him. He had his special diet of juices and supplements and whatnot, which he claimed helped him while his liver was failing. The actor who portrayed him started following the same diet to better get in character. Only then he collapsed on set with liver problems. They did a full medical work up and basically told him whatever you’re doing stop doing it because it’s killing you. He went back to his normal diet and he was fine. Raising the serious question, did Steve Jobs outsmart himself to death? If he had given up all the diets and supplements and whatnot might he have lived?
If “outsmart” is ignore people who know things because you believe you know everything…yes
A better description would be that he treated his body the way he treated his employees. Or he let himself believe his own reality distortion field. “Outsmart” is not the word I’d choose for a narcissistic asshole who thinks he knows better but in fact does not.
If he had pursued modern medical treatments rather than a sugar filled diet he might have lived. He would have to have stepped down though and he did not want to do that.
He would also have to admit he was completely wrong about his diet and that he absolutely did not want to do as it was tied to some dumbass “philosophy” he followed.
How did he fuck up his liver? Do you mean that he was doing something that caused him to develop that tumor?
Jobs ate only fruit. That is a lot of sugar. Your liver doesn’t like that.
Iirc, what we normally call “sugar” is sucrose, made up of glucose and fructose. Glucose is used all over the place and too much is definitely bad (ask diabetics), while fructose is processed in your liver. Like a poison.
Just trying to remember that from stuff I’ve seen from Robert Lustig MD. There’s a very old “sugar: the bitter truth” lecture of his on YouTube, plus lots of media since then.
Glucose is only bad in the same way oxygen is bad. I think you need to rewatch your lecture.
Diabetics don’t have a problem with too much glucose they have an issue with too little insulin or insulin resistance
Too much glucose is a great way to get diabetes.
As is an autoimmune disorder
Forgot about that. I too am deeply irresponsible with my liver, but I would never ask for a second one. That’s an entire human organ!
Well they do sorta have a point. Even Jobs said he shouldn’t have ignored treatment for so long.
Sorta?
The man killed himself with stupid
The view from halfway down
Toes untouch the overpass soon he’s water-bound. Eyes locked shut but peek to see the view from halfway down.
A little wind, a summer sun a river rich and regal. A flood of fond endorphins brings a calm that knows no equal.
You’re flying now, you see things much more clear than from the ground. It’s all okay, or it would be were you not now halfway down.
Thrash to break from gravity what now could slow the drop? All I’d give for toes to touch the safety back at top.
But this is it, the deed is done silence drowns the sound. Before I leaped I should’ve seen the view from halfway down.
I really should’ve thought about the view from halfway down. I wish I could’ve known about the view from halfway down—
– “The view from halfway down” by Alison Tafel (excerpted)
There is a distinct type of person, very good at one thing, that is unable to understand that doesn’t translate to the rest of their life. Easiest to describe them as a high int, low wis character.
I used to work as a court clerk and judges are like this. You cannot tell them anything because if they get it into their heads that they know better than you then they will completely ignore reality in favor of their own, largely arbitrary, fictional universe.
The best incentive ever not to commit a crime is to find out how utterly dysfunctional the legal system is.
The Alito brain is the end stage of this mentality.
“‘Any’ limitation?? Have you considered fish and birds aren’t mammals? The principal wouldn’t be happy! Checkmate EPA, now you can’t enforce water quality standards.” -SCOTUS last week.
See also: Nobel Disease.
I call it the engineer disease. Good to know that other fields have it as well…
Ever met a surgeon?
Every PhD ever
It’s unfortunate because his leadership / sense of taste is what made Apple a powerhouse. Under Tim Apple, the software has languished. They’re great at hardware and the software is far from great. What a shame.
Eh, I feel like Jobs was in charge when he could create new products.
Outside of a different Apple Watch launch, I don’t see Jobs really having the ability to create new innovative products.
Yeah computers were doubling in speed every 18 months back then. And there were competing products oftentimes years before Apple put out their version. Apple primarily put a lot of polish onto the technological innovations that were happening at the time.
Don’t get me wrong polish is really important. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player or the smartphone. But the MP3 players before the iPod were really fiddley and janky. BlackBerries had a downright primitive look and feel next to an iPhone.
Also marketing… a lot of people didn’t know MP3 players existed until they saw advertisements for the iPod.
I mean jobs hated the palm pilot and complained what a piece of shit it was, and then just forced people to make a better one.
He didn’t create new products. He conducted the people who were creating new products and steered them. He wasn’t a genius. He was good at guiding people who were.
I’m not saying Jobs was a genius, but he was skilled at leading product design teams that turned cutting edge hardware to practical applications that the market could understand.
And, in general, the market over the past few years has seen little hardware innovation.
We’re saying the same thing.
You’re also talking about a man who thought touchscreens were a bad idea.
And then lead the design team that created the implementation of touchscreens that became standard.
“leadership” by which you mean being abusive to his colleagues and refusing to take a shower.
He was a dick, but he had a good mind for products. He wasn’t infallible, but he had a sense of taste that was useful in driving others who had greater skills than he.
What’s an anecdote of a single positive thing he’s done?
(You can’t use the Lisa because he pretended most of her life that this child he pretended wasn’t hers also wasn’t the namesake of the computer?
Not an anecdote: he slashed a product line that was confusing and introduced a four quad chart: Laptop, desktop, consumer, pro. It didn’t last (see MacBook Air among MacBook and MacBook Pro), but it was obviously better. If you’re in such denial that he was a great leader during his second stint at Apple, I don’t know what to tell you.
Thought Apples would save him back.
He believed in apple until his end. Hey-0!
He died as he lived, trying to beat PC with Apple.
Golf clap
Before he died, he did say it was one of his biggest regrets.
“one of”, not “the”? Now I’m wondering what could someone like him regret more than the choice that literally killed him?
“Sometimes, late at night, when I can’t sleep, and it’s just me, alone with my thoughts… I just… I can’t help but feel… I should’ve called it Pear.”
That universe already exists in iCarly
Maybe his tumultuous relationship with his daughter Lisa
I never like to let people forget the raw fruit diet comes from a cult that believes people from Venus told us that’s the key to eternal life
So they went ahead and picked the least habitable planet in our entire solar system to harbor a civilization? They should have said Europa, at least then it would have been moderately believable.
That’s just how good fruit is for you, you can even live on Venus no problem
I mean, according to them, they have transcended the need for physical bodies (presumably because they ate only raw fruit and shit themselves out of existence)
Fruit is really good for you! I try to eat a lot every day. It could help prevent illness. Won’t cure it though!
Seriously kiwis are so good and two big ones are only 100 calories. An entire pint of blueberries is only around 170, and they are both fantastic nutritionally. Eat other stuff too though, for sure.
Between fruit and beans, an entire family can turn it up
Dude sent his kids to a Waldorf school.
I mean, his kids doesn’t actually learn how to write, their ass is covered, but I wonder how many followed the example of this idiot.
People who don’t know anything about education are such suckers for that shit.
