Steve Jobs passed away this week. It was surprisingly difficult to come to grips with our feelings on this matter. We do not hide the fact that we are not Apple fans, however there were admirable qualities to Steve Jobs that we cannot deny. We broke our thoughts down to a few main characteristics of the man and his legacy:
1. Trend Setter
2. Business Sense
3. Clever
As we discussed these virtues, we worked through the second layer, what about these virtues made us dislike what Steve Jobs stood for, and the answer was simple, we did not like that the list above was not what those sold out to Apple would list, they would list something like:
1. Innovator
2. Visionary
3. Leader
This is the disparity. In fact in the wake of his passing we have seen claims that he invented everything from tablet computers to mp3 players. We have seen friends lament as though a dear friend has just passed away. We have seen hero worship in the highest form, and most of that goes back to the list of characteristics that he managed to convince those fans were true. That is why we (and others like us) cringe at the praise. It was deception, and many were happy to have the wool pulled over their eyes. Macs are trendy, true, but there is very little in the way of innovation to be found. From mice to touch screens to GUIs, none of these are inventions of Apple, they are assimilations.
So let’s recognize him for his incredible talent, but be honest about what his talent was. He was a fashion designer for gadgets. In a world notoriously lacking aesthetic savvy this turtleneck clad “Coco Chanel” convinced his customers to spend more for a label. It’s brilliant, and it is what fashion has been about for more than a century. My mom can tell you that her Windows computer “just works” … but she does not love Windows the way Apple users love their little Apple stickers. Steve Jobs masterfully created a brand that was loved by many, and that is a talent in itself.
We doubt that the PC vs. Mac war will end soon. The people who get things done on computers will usually admit that both tools will do the job. The most savvy can do more with PCs because their PCs have better specs than any Mac. We do not mind if you want a stylish Mac on your desk, they are prettier than any PC we’re aware of. What we mind is when we hear nonsense about security and reliability come up. When someone makes the generalization “it’s better”… The fact is not only are they not better, but they are worse in many ways. “It just works” another farce. Anyone with significant computer experience can list as many (if not more) ways that a Mac does NOT work, than a PC. My computing amateur friend put it quite nicely when he said: “I know I’ll pay more for less, and that you can do more with a PC than with a Mac, but I like these, they’re really nice.” … That’s what I call an informed decision. Steve Jobs was an artist, as any good fashion designer should be, he was a genius, but not in technology, in style. He deserves respect, but for the right reasons.
As for all of the disinformation and OTT hero worship I’ll leave you with this article: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3318250.html
We voiced months ago our opinion that for many a cult of personality has formed. Cohen (in his article above) does a good job describing our feelings on the matter. Now in his passing quotes are popping up like religious proverbs. Some are wrongly attributed, and others are so uncharacteristic of his actual life that they appear to also be incorrect. There is a real possibility that some spiritual icon is forming around this. I highly suggest a look at Cohen’s article and resisting any urge you have to bring about the, as Cohen says: “beatification of the blessed Jobs of Silicon Valley”.
Wow I must cofness you make some very trenchant points.
Who cares? The latest Android Phone is 50% faster than the one that Apple hasn’t even released yet.
I saw this article and remembered what you guys said here. Combining the insights from both really does point to a kind of hypocrisy that is blatant and disgusting.
http://www.northstarwriters.com/2011/10/15/was-steve-jobs-too-hip-to-be-an-evil-corporate-robber-baron/
The guy had a deal with the devil in more ways than one.
Josh, fashion is a perfectly acceptable reason to buy something, and iThings are definitely fashionable. They are also high quality, but making the leap to “highest” quality is just a lie. Like technogeek said, the Samsung Galaxy SII really does have a 50% faster processor than the iPhone 4s and when he posted that the iPhone was still yet to be released. That is exactly the point. Beyond that Android apps are excellent. We’ve been playing with the EMIT app as a replacement for the excellent AirVideo app that was available only for iOS and so far it works great!
We are not Apple fans mainly because of their cult-like followers, not because of their products. They are usually a very low common denominator when it comes to tech savvy but consistently want to go head-to-head on technical debates and will say anything (read lie). Just the other day Matt got in a bicker with a guy who proclaimed that Samsung’s faster processor meant “nothing” and that proved that Matt doesn’t know what he’s talking about. With quotes like: “You’ve falling victim to the megahertz myth” (yes they typo like crazy too) … or “It’s unfortunate that the blind is leading the blind.” … Then proceeded to compare dual core processors to single core processors despite the obvious fact that both devices have dual core processors, then talked about architecture of which he was clearly ignorant of any architectural advantage in iOS. Those who are not “blind” are well aware that iOS at its guts is not that different from Android (SUSv3…darwin Linux 2.6…android) … and one does not have to be “blind” to know that neither will have any “architectural advantage” that will render 50% GHz increase meaningless. However, fanboys will proclaim it as though they were experts. The apple “geniuses” just prove their own ignorance, and become something similar to the Iraqi Information Minister. We hate liars, and Apple has capitalized on these liars.
I’ll repeat what Matt already said, Steve Jobs was brilliant, but he was a brilliant marketer, and designer, not an inventor, and his programmers are not the best, in fact they have a lot of trouble getting things right the first time, sometimes more trouble than the OpenSource community, and even Microsoft.
Apple does not produce enterprise applications. They have no high availability server products that remotely compare to Microsoft or Linux. Fanboys are armchair critics. They don’t know what they are talking about in 90% of cases, and the 10% that do know what they are talking about don’t get involved in the propaganda and often roll their eyes at the nonsense they see flying around.
There are folks that think it’s worth paying sometimes twice the price for what amounts to a desktop sculpture. That’s the genius of Steve Jobs in action. The Mac vs. PC commercials (Coolness vs. Geek) that’s Steve Jobs in action. However, you can be sure there are geeks at Apple or it wouldn’t “just work”.
Steve Jobs created a chasm that divided “geeks” from his fashionable followers. He polarized the computing community instead of bringing it together. He did this for profit, plain and simple. A type of profit that I personally have been unwilling to extort. Perception is profitable, but it requires a level of deceit that some of us are unwilling to stoop to. Convincing someone that their product (that does basically the same thing as other products) is worth twice as much as others charge is deception. Some ethics are difficult to determine, but telling the truth is not.
Note to any who would email us about our use of Jobs’ profile in the apple (apple stencil found on anything from kitchen towels to coasters) picture. It was produced in-house, and is not illegal as it is nothing but a stencil apple and a guy’s profile. The concept dates back several months and was freely released at the time (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/10/us-apple-design-idUSTRE7991PP20111010). The term “iSad” has also floated around for years on t-shirts and headlines. Apple does NOT and cannot copyright i(anything) though they’ve doubtlessly tried. Please stop pretending to be patent lawyers, you are ridiculous. You pretend that you know the laws and precedents of the United States, but you’re really just a propagandist. If by some miracle you are interested in reality then read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc. … and then proceed to SHUT IT! The irony that Sony was fighting for citizen rights to freely distributed media at the time may be lost on you but some of us find it poetic. Thanks for the precedent Sony! Good luck with those CD and DVD sales!
what does that article have to do with copying apple logo?
It’s the precedent @technogeek. In the USA content that is broadcast can be “saved for later” and “used later” these are called “space shifting” and “time shifting” … Napster was stopped because of their control over the process, which is why the P2P networks have become de-centralized. In other words, you cannot put a picture of your logo or rear-end on the internet without incurring the expectation that your content will end up moved, copied, and implicitly used. There are incredibly rare cases where folks with a lot of money will threaten legal action, but that doesn’t mean they’d win, it just means that they’d drag people into court. Most folks at that point opt to pull down the image. It’s how things work.
Australia does not have such a precedent. In fact, in their case it is still illegal to copy a movie to video tape (unless they’ve changed that recently). Of course they do it anyway.
I’ve heard people make this a matter of “ethics” or “morals” but the fact is it is a matter of law. It’s like driving on the right side of the road. The law says do it, if you don’t you’ll get a ticket, do you want a ticket? No? Then don’t do it. If nobody gave out tickets then people would be driving on the wrong side of the road. It’s not morals, it’s just laws.
Sony fought hard to get where they are today by creating a video copying device and spending the money to make the law allow for them. Now they are fighting hard (and spending money) to get the law to keep people from copying their music. They are hoping to get some cops to write tickets to people who do not pay them. It’s not morals, it’s laws, and for Sony it’s just business.
I don’t know how old you are, and perhaps you don’t remember when it was “illegal” to record songs off the radio onto an audio cassette. We’re at that point with digital content. Exacerbated by the fact that the internet is international and there isn’t much uniformity in laws. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, and any other patent/copyright holders will leverage their money and energy into making the laws of a Country support their profits. Not morals, laws, not rightness, just profit. If they rely on the law for their profit, then they get what the law provides. If they rely on the honor system for profit, then they get that. Shux, I may have to just re-post the old article.
Steve was amazing, and I do agree with what you say above. Putting him as an innovator, visionary and a leader though I do believe can still be on the list. He innovated the phone industry, we wouldn’t be using touch screen phones like we are now had the iPhone never been introduced, that definitely set a ‘trend’ like you mentioned in your points. Visionary, in terms of having an image of the future in his mind that he was going to make happen, yes, one of these future visions was the elimination of Flash, I think that was a little bit of overkill, but you can understand where the idea comes from. A cleaner, plugin-free internet that just works. Finally in terms of being a leader, you could probably argue, due to stories of his anger and controlling nature, that he was a bad leader in the way that he ran things. But it’s these things that made him a good leader, his company is the set standard that most companies are trying to aim for. That’s saying something.
In terms of PC or Mac, I really don’t care which one people want to use. No point arguing about it, if it works for you then what does it matter? I own a Mac and a PC, I’ve replaced the PC, and restored it after some system failure over a dozen times, in the same time I’ve only had to restore the Mac once, and it was as easy as replacing the Mac’s hard drive and restoring with Time Machine. The Mac was ready within a few hours, restoring the PC each time took multiple days to get it all right again.
Macs have definitely made things easier, and I think that’s why most tech-savvy people complain about them. Anything that saves me time from fixing silly little conflicts that start up randomly is a good thing, I use Windows in preference as I find the file system on a Mac annoying, I also don’t like where Apple is going with the whole iOS into OS X thing, but then again Microsoft are doing the whole mobile thing with Windows 8 as well.
That was interesting @Ben, thanks!
I checked your contention that Apple invented touch screen phones, and while IBM introduced the first, and even HTC came before iPhones, apparently back in 1984 Apple made a concept “land line” phone that was touch screen. Never made it to market, but that could have been a catalyst that lead to IBM’s offering in 1992.
I agree with you about browsing a Mac, but getting used to it seems to be key. As far as making things easier that cannot be done without removing options, and for those who learn where the options are it actually does not appear to be easier at all. Again, just agreeing with you… We’ve mentioned this before though, just try to set up OSX to show hidden files in Finder by default. It’s a checkbox in windows, in OSX it’s a nightmare:
1. Open Automator (in your Applications folder) and choose Service from the list of templates provided and click the Choose button.
2 In the left hand column under Library, select Utilities.
3. In the second column, drag “Run Shell Script” to the right hand pane.
4. At the top of the right hand pane where you dragged the Run Shell Script action, click on the right-hand popup menu and change “any application” to “Finder”. This sets the service so it only appears and can be activated by the keyboard shortcut when Finder is the active application.
5. Then click on the popup menu next to “Service receives” and choose “no input”. It’s important you do this step after step 4 because if you do the reverse, Finder won’t be available as an option in the right hand menu.
6. Copy and paste the following text into the empty text area of the Run Shell Script action:
7.
osascript -e ‘tell application “Finder” to quit’
SHOWHIDDEN=`defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles`
if [ $SHOWHIDDEN -eq 1 ]; then
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool FALSE
else
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE
fi
osascript -e ‘tell application “Finder” to activate’
Completed Automator action, ready to save (click to enlarge)
8. Choose File–>Save, and give the new service a meaningful name like “Toggle Hidden Files” that will appear in the Services menu. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Services menu (located in the current application menu, next to the Apple menu) and your newly created service should appear there. You can even run it, it’s already functional, just lacking a keyboard shortcut.
9. Open System Preferences–>Keyboard–>Keyboard Shortcuts and select Services in the left column.
10. Setting the keyboard shortcut (click to enlarge)
11. Scroll down to the bottom and under the General category, you should see your newly created service listed there. Select it, then Double-click close to the right side of the selected line to reveal a field where you can enter a custom keyboard shortcut. Enter “Shift+Command+.” (might as well keep it consistent with the shortcut used in open/save dialog boxes), and then quit System Preferences.
The good news: follow those instructions carefully, and you will now be able to view or hide the hidden files. (By pressing Shift, Command and “+” together.) (repost of What’s harder on the Mac?)