iGenius
Slightly off topic - more on the man than the phone.
iGenius
Mr. Jobs is the most paradoxical of creatures. On the one hand, though time and mortality have mellowed him, he remains something of a monster. If, like me, you grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, interviewed him in the early days of Apple, and even wrote a book about him and his company, there will always be things about him that are unforgivable -- cruelties and manipulations (especially to Steve Wozniak), early crimes (illegal telephones, ironically), megalomania, and an unquenchable need to take credit from others (Do you know who led the original Mac team? Invented the iPod? Devised the new iPhone? I didn't think so) -- and that no achievement will ever erase.
Yet there is no denying that Mr. Jobs is a business genius, the greatest marketer of our time, the most charismatic figure in electronics history. And he is the only really interesting person left in high tech, once the liveliest, most maverick corner of the industrial world. Sometimes, he seems like the only guy left in tech who's having fun.
That's why even tech people who are repelled by Mr. Jobs and his style caught their breaths a few years ago when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and again a couple weeks ago when he was linked to some shady backdating of Apple stock options. More than one Silicon Valley leader privately muttered that for the sake of high tech and American competitiveness, it might be best if the Feds just forgot all about the matter.
This week, Mr. Jobs showed just what he can do when he's in good health and sitting on a cool new product. There were great products at the CES, but after Tuesday no one noticed. The iPhone, which won't be shipped until June, suffers from a number of classic Apple-under-Jobs weaknesses: not enough memory, probably not enough battery, a comparatively large (though wonderfully thin) case, a touch screen that will infuriate cell phone users and scratch up like the early iPods, and an unpopular distribution partner (Cingular). And the iPhone is stunningly expensive ($500 plus a two-year Cingular commitment).
But who cares? As Mr. Jobs said, the iPhone is going to revolutionize the phone. Not because it offers anything fundamentally new, but because it brilliantly ties together nearly all of the currently disparate portable consumer tech functions into a single exquisite package driven by a powerful and intuitive interface......The iPhone will transform the market because unlike other tech mavericks who try to push the envelope, Mr. Jobs can introduce the iPhone, even in a clumsy, overpriced 1.0 version, and trust that the army of several million Apple true believers will rush out and buy.
That is the crucial, often overlooked, key to Apple's continuing success. Other wildcatters have to pray the market recognizes their brilliant new products quickly enough before they go bankrupt. Apple, by comparison, always knows that it will be able to finance versions 2.0, 3.0, etc., on sales to its captive market -- and by then, it will have perfected a definitive product the whole world wants to own. Mr. Jobs recognized the power of communities a generation before the current Web 2.0 crowd and is now its greatest master.
A question remains: Why do none of his competitors adopt Mr. Jobs's business strategy? It's not like there's a shortage of good design engineers and smart code writers. So why do so many tech products these days seem so alien to human nature? Only the game console companies seem to have some of Apple's risk-taking and cleverness. Is it a lack of courage? An unwillingness to trust the creativity of employees? If it's a fear of failure, Apple's immense success (and skyrocketing stock price) ought to teach otherwise.
Whatever the reason, it's not likely to disappear soon. We can't count on an outbreak of cleverness in tech in the near future. So that leaves Mr. Jobs. For all his demons, thank God for him in this age of cookie-cutter CEOs. For a decade now (and for another decade at the beginning of the PC age) he has run the most enthralling and rewarding show in high tech. Let's hope he gives us at least one decade more.
Last edited by dtsm; Jan 11, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Reason: Edited to comply w/ TOS, included only excerpts which are most interesting...hope this is now OK?