Design, usability and — as shown by their landmark Superbowl advert — coolness.
But this success was short-lived for Jobs, as by 1985 an internal power struggle had forced him out of the firm.
This is simply not true in many ways. The first Apple Mac was not the innovative creation of a visionary, it was a direct rip off of a system developed by the (truly innovative) Xerox Corporation. The Star (later the 6085 documenter) first sold commercially in 1981 was never marketed as a personal computer for home use, it was an office system intended to run on local area networks and facilitate information sharing and the automation of administrative tasks. The Xerox system appeared several years before the first Macintosh and the Mac Operating System, Graphic User Interface and WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer) desktop environment were almost identical. The lawsuits ran for nearly ten years and almost destroyed both companies. To get a feel for Apple's contemptuous attitude to business it is worth pointing out that Xerox only decided to sue Apple after Apple had filed a lawsuit against Microsoft alleging that Windows 2 had ripped off the Operating system they had originally ripped off from Xerox.
Next up in the game of lavishing unwarranted praise on Jobs was the claim that he was an innovator in the arts.
Art as well as technology Not long after leaving Apple, Jobs bought Lucasfilm's computer graphics division, which was later renamed Pixar. The Pixar Image Computer was less than a runaway success, but Jobs showed yet again that he is prepared to innovate, to take a company or a technology somewhere new. Working with Disney, Pixar began creating its own digitally animated films. Their success was immediate and incredible. The first film, 'Toy Story', grossed $354 million worldwide from an estimated budget of $30 million (£19.4 million). Blockbuster followed blockbuster as films that used computer graphics not to imitate life, but to tell stories, proved global successes. In 2006 the company Jobs bought for $10 million (£6.5 million) was sold to Disney in a deal worth $7.4 billion (£4.8 billion). So here we see the man who reduced the creativity of the film industry that gave us such masterpieces as Citizen Kane, Gone With The Wind, On The Waterfront, The Godfather and many more, to a vehicle for soulless computer generated graphics. Hollywood now relies for its audience not on the skills in storytelling, acting and direction and cinematography but on special effects. And for that, for the fact that the Marlon Brandos, Henry Fondas, Marilyn Monroes and Bette Davises have been replaced by dead eyed avatars. Praiseworthy indeed. But you notice, even as he sucked the magic out of a medium that provided so much entertainment to those prepared to shell out a few dollars or pounds of their hard earned, Jobbies was stuffing his own pockets with cash. I don't blame people for making themselves rich but let's have a bit of perspective here on the "benefactor of mankind" bullshit. Jobs is then credited with aSecond revolution Steve had not abandoned the world of computing. After leaving Apple, he founded NeXT Computer in 1985. Machines were designed to make use of multimedia — be it voice, video or images — as well as data. It was a good product but not a very popular one. Apple bought the company in 1996, bringing Jobs back to the firm he co-founded. By 1997 he was back in charge, as interim chief executive. The years he'd been away hadn't been good for Apple - the company lost $1.8 billion (£1.1 billion) in 1997 alone. Much of this was due to litigation arising our of Apple's delusional belief that while it could steal patents held by others' with impunity, nobody was even allowed to put a picture of an apple on a box of apples without getting sued. Make no mistake, with or without Steve Jobs, Apple was always one of the most fascistic of corporations. Many of the technologies developed by Job's venture NeXT found their way into Apple products, and the 1998 launch of the iMac did a lot to boost the company's performance and it was the first major design of Jonathan Ive. Again the story told by Apple is not quite true. Apple's method of innovating consisted of seeking out small companies about to launch innovative technologies and launching a hostile takeover bid to acquire the patents, manufacturing rights etc. My brother and I did however make a couple of bundles by combining my background in technology with his business expertise and buying into firms Apple was sniffing around. The first result of Jobs's return was the iMac. But while this was a good product, and set the trend for journalists to praise Apple's innovative design because there was nothing else to praise (the "revolutionary iMac looked very much like the first personal computer I bought in 1977, a Commodore Pet, the main difference being the iMac's transparent case. But there are no visible moving parts in a computer so that was pointless. World Changing Product (not) No 3 The iMac didn't change the world. The product Apple fans give that honour to was The iPod. Now to listen to the hype you would think everybody in the world listens to music reproduced from a highly compressed digital format on an Apple iPod. That is not so, a lot of people, myself included hated MP3 format music and while iPod may be the best known MP3 player it is neither the oldest nor the best selling. Though Apple may dominate the U.S. and European markets sales of top products among the massive populations of China and India change the picture drastically. Fans will gain claim iPod was the first easy-to-use MP3 Player, the first one that looked good, worked well and was intuitive. They are all easy to use if you know how, what looks good about a little grey box and WTF does intuitive mean? Computers cannot think nor intuit, they have neither minds nor feelings. There wasn't really a market for digital music players before 2001 very possibly because the sound quality was and still is shit. In the decade since the iPod's 2001 launch the Apple hype machine has once again gone to work and crated a market among people for whom owning the "kool" gadget is more important than listening to recorded music faithfully reproduced. It is good to hear CDs and even vinyl are making a comeback. Pre iPad Tablet Computers http://www.ehow.com/facts_5813990_invented-first-tablet-pc_.html Jobs had not finished making the world a more expensive, shallow and soul destroying place to live. Next he wanted us to take technology mobile so that no matter how beautiful a setting we are in, no matter how intimate the moment, the effing internet is always there to demand our attention and spoil the moment. The success of the iPhone shows again how Jobs has led projects that have not solved any existing problem, not done something so much better that all of a sudden everyone else cottons on to the technology's potential but simply showed there are a lot of people in the world gullible enough to fall for the most transparent marketing puff. Internet-enabled smartphones had been around for quite a while in 2007 when on it's launch the iPhone was proclaimed a world changer. Most people didn't use the technology on their phones, they called or texted - the savvy ones might send an email or two — but that was about it. The iPhone was so simple to use that people could see the potential to watch blockbuster movies (featuring Pixar aminated characters) on a 4" x 3" screen, read novels on the same screen, browse the internet while at a sports even, play or concert they had paid good money to see or even run an app that would fart for you (iFart). Yes the iPhone took technology to new heights of pointlessness. Who actually needs a mobile phone that doubles as a computer? There have been products such as Blackberry and Palm on the market for years and they did not set the world alight. Why did people queue to buy the iPhone then? Simples. Hype again. A Blackberry or a smartphone with a Nokia or Eriksson badge was just a business tool but an iPhone ... well people believed they would become social outcasts if they did not own one. Once again marketing hype around a new product had created a new market and one that Apple not only dominated but made money from. Once again he left the rest of the industry catching up. Jobbies pulled the same trick with the iPad three years later. Tablet computers are efffing useless whch is why though the idea had ben around since the 1980s it had never caught on. Again the iPad changed that by targeting those suffering from terminal low self esteem.. By that stage a lot of other manufacturers had touch-screen mobile phones, with apps, but not one of them had made a tablet that proved popular. In fairness to the competition it has to be said they were aiming at niche markets, e book readers, sales aids, that kind of thing. The iPad only became a tablet computer because it was useless as an e reader (screen too shiny). Again the success of the Apple product was based on the fact that a lot of stupid, shallow people rushed out and bought the product when told people who did not own one would not be "kool." A technology common the iPhone and iPad is the touch screen. Though not claimed by Apple as their innovation it is believed to be so by many people. WRONG AGAIN! Touch Screen History. Touch screen controls have been around longer that PCs. The first "touch sensor" was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) in 1971 while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky. In 1974 the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface was developed by the same Sam Hurst and Elographics. Hewlett-Packard's HP-150 was the first comercially available touchscreen PCs in 1983:. A grid of infrared beams across the front of the monitor detected finger movements. The IR sensors would often become clogged with dust and require cleaning. Since then touch screens have been around, another solution without a problem. One eulogy to Jobs said his business genius has always been seeing the human potential for technology, then making sure his products were good enough to fulfill it. I totally disagree. The genius of this salesman, for that is all he was, lay in exploiting the vulnerability of insecure people in an increasingly threatening world. One of the things Apple has been praised for is it's design. What design. How much flair does it take to design a box? Apple has been criticised by many for its restrictive products. Apps only from its App store, digital music downloaded only from iTunes, sealed units that you couldn't swap new parts into or out of. But all that control freakery has been incredibly profitable, again thanks mostly to the cult like attitude the public relations bred among fans. Some people will say the world is a poorer place for Setve Jobs no longer being in it. The Daily Stirrer says the world has chance to became a saner place now The Messiah Jobs has left it and at the very least a few million sad, dysfunctional geeks will be able to pay down their credit card debts. Another Apple Sceptic's View (from Old Holborn blog)
I find no comfort in humanity from watching wannabee Alphas fall on their knees at the departing of "our Jobs", devastated that their desire to be admired for owning a "product" may be coming to an end. How will they attain their superior intellectual status and affirm their now that "the creator" has i-shuffled off this mortal coil? Is our society so shallow and baseless that we can only be happy if we own what others cannot?
Steve Jobs will not be mourned by the majority of humanity. He created extremely expensive consumer products, designed to be built, shown off and discarded by the fools whose money could not wait to part from them.
. To read about the often difficult private life of a much misepresented indivdiual CLICK HERE
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