Steve Jobs passed away!

[ChuckT]

'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/

Not only that but their business parters believed in his nonsense because of the reality-distortion field:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

If you overcharge on products and sell them in areas of the country where people have no concept of money then you have loads of cash to pay for development.  

Some of the real criticism of Apple is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.

So if people don't believe the criticism then maybe the Apple reality distortion field is in effect.

[gertsy]

He certainly had a consistent vision and has left a lasting legacy.  RIP.

[bloodline]

'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/

Well, if someone believes they are a follower of a particular faith who are we, as outsiders, to judge? I believe the "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy applies here...

-edit- and yes I also believe Steve Jobs was an arsehole, that doesn't alter the respect I have for how he took Apple from nothing to the most valuable company in the world

[ChuckT]

Well, if someone believes they are a follower of a particular faith who are we, as outsiders, to judge? I believe the "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy applies here...

-edit- and yes I also believe Steve Jobs was an arsehole, that doesn't alter the respect I have for how he took Apple from nothing to the most valuable company in the world

I would disagree because some companies can be run by 14 year olds and it is the engineers that make a product.

Steve is gone and if Apple is still sucessful ten years from now then you can't say the success is just from "steve".  A product has to sell itself and if it can't then no salesman can sell it.

What I see here is that Steve gets all the credit and no one at Apple gets any recognition from any accomplishments.

I found this quote on the web:

Are you people ever going to get over you love lust with Jobs?  Let's just go back and credit him with the invention of the computer why won't we and electricity and Boolean Algebra (this plays a huge part in the make up of computers in the event you didn't realize this).  The increase of your memory probably comes from the tedious labor of thousands of physicist, mostly from solid state physicist.  They tirelessly research new materials, their propertites, and how to enhance them.  Also, should thank those that study optics.  Your quantum computers in the future will not be something created by Jobs either, but by those who are doing research into photonics and plasmonics i.e. getting a quanta of light to transmit data instead of electrons.  Exciting stuff.  I'll give Jobs credit where it is due, he knew how to jump on new research, knew how to hire the right teams to do such, and he knew how to make it look pretty.  The actual technical side of him, not sure his name would have ever been heard of if he didn't get in a prime spot for others to carrying him so thank you Wozniak.  The technology for the iphone was there, Apple did hop on it quicker then everyone else.

[commodorejohn]

I will definitely agree that Jobs gets more credit than he deserves; take a look at Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org sometime, it does a terrific job of conveying to the reader the fascinating characters behind the development of the Mac, all of whom made their own invaluable contributions to the whole, and only a couple of whom you're likely to have ever heard of (Bill Atkinson, maybe Susan Kare - but how many people have heard of Bruce Horn, the ex-PARC guy who made the Finder?)

On the other hand, Jobs didn't contribute nothing; he gave the whole project a consistent drive and direction that made it feel like a real consistent system rather than an assemblage of components (*cough*Win3.1*cough*) Rather like a film director, really; and Hertzfeld readily admits as much (even while admitting that he was also kind of an ªsshole, although he's diplomatic about actually saying as much.) While his "visionary" qualities have been blown out of proportion by a long-standing cult of sycophants, I don't think they were invented out of whole cloth.

[nicholas]

Great as Jobs achievements were, his works will be forgotten by both the masses and the nerds in 30 years time.

By contrast, the achievements of Dennis Ritchie have never been known by the masses yet in 30 years the nerds will still remember him and his works.

[Duce]

Jobs was only as good as the people around him, and I feel anyone thinking he was the only bright mind at Apple is insane.  Personally I give more credit to Jonathan Ive than Jobs as far as the fanboy/design cachet they now have.  While this started with the first iMac that came out after Jobs came back, it really took off after the iPod (all of which Ive designed).  Jobs always surrounded himself with bright people.

Going back to day one, Apple would not have been a speck on the radar, and much of where they are now goes back to the 70's when it was essentially just Jobs manning the press, smoke and mirrors, and Woz having a good (and playful) mind for hardware.  Not to mention good timing and a great amount of luck.  Who would have ever thought Jobs old desires to knock IBM out of the consumer computer marketplace would essentially come true, looking back to the 70's?

Jobs may have been the guy to put the seal of approval on products but I honestly don't think he had as much of a vision in the concept of said products as people give him credit for.  He was a hell of a showman, but I think the stories of the current breed of Apple products coming to him in a dream and him doing them solo from start to finish are extremely far from the truth.

Either way, it worked.  Even those that dislike Apple products can appreciate the usability and design aspects of what they sell to some degree.  The dude was a shrewd and sometimes cruel businessman, but you can't argue with his results even if you do not respect his methods (which I do not).

[Karlos]

Great as Jobs achievements were, his works will be forgotten by both the masses and the nerds in 30 years time.

By contrast, the achievements of Dennis Ritchie have never been known by the masses yet in 30 years the nerds will still remember him and his works.

True and I suspect the same will be true of Donald Knuth when he eventually passes away :-/

[nicholas]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/16/john-naughton-dennis-ritchie-unix?newsfeed=true

[bloodline]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/16/john-naughton-dennis-ritchie-unix?newsfeed=true

Oddly the article focuses on Unix... when IMHO C was his greater gift to the world... this is not to put down Unix, but rather to emphasise the importance of C.

[Karlos]

Odd the article focuses on Unix... when IMHO C was his greater gift to the world... this is not to put down Unix, but rather to emphasise the importance of C.

I totally agree, but it's also worth noting that C was developed in order to help get Unix away from it's assembly language origins, so without Unix, arguably there'd probably be no C, either.

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, the article seemed to be written by someone who's more a general tech-head than a programmer. Still, nice to see some more attention for the man.

[nicholas]

Oddly the article focuses on Unix... when IMHO C was his greater gift to the world... this is not to put down Unix, but rather to emphasise the importance of C.

Good point, I couldn't say which I love the most, UNIX or C. Too hard to choose.

I sent the article to my Apple addicted family members but I doubt it will make them appreciate Ritchie's contributions to the devices they take for granted.

[bloodline]

The more I think about this the more I feel that had Richie died at any other time, his death would have gone even more unnoticed... At least with his death so close to Jobs' the mainstream news was prepared to write about pioneers of the tech world.

Even in death, Jobs was a facilitator :lol:

[nicholas]

The more I think about this the more I feel that had Richie died at any other time, his death would have gone even more unnoticed... At least with his death so close to Jobs' the mainstream news was prepared to write about pioneers of the tech world.

Even in death, Jobs was a facilitator :lol:

:lol:

[Kesa]

Sorry Bloodline but i don't agree that Jobs turned around and single handedly save Apple from oblivion. I think the success of the imac was just luck and nothing else. Steve Jobs did nothing. He especially didn't predict that consumers would go crazy for aesthetics over function like people claim he did.

Sorry but Apple really gets up my tickler...