RIP Steve
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rest in peace maybe apple will donate some money to cancer research nowComment -
Pity.Comment -
That's too bad. He seemed like a genuinely cool guy. They'll be teaching his ideas and style for years in Business schools.Comment -
A genius, innovator, life-changer.
Rest In PeaceComment -
RIP STEVE JOBS, you've forever changed my life. Thank you.Comment -
The man changed our world.
RIPComment -
RipComment -
RIPComment -
Yep, its final.Comment -
Wow, RIP Steve Jobs.Comment -
Breaking News: Steve Jobs is Dead!!!!
Long live Microsoft.. RIP Jobs.. Thanks for the iPhone and iPad.. Great inventions..
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u r lateComment -
I'd say he accomplished many positive things and had a good life.Comment -
Yeah, he is an icon for mine and well...all generations now that I think about it. Very private man but a technology genius. I was saddened when I heard the news (on my Apple computer listening to music on itunes). Thank you Steve!Comment -
The man was amazing....RIP Steve Jobs
The construction on this "spaceship" is supposed to break ground sometime in 2012.....I hope to be employed in the construction of it myself.Comment -
rip...Comment -
RIP Steve Jobs...Comment -
His commencement address was excellent.
Great TV movie about the whole apple/microsoft thing "Pirates of Silicon Valley" Wozniak and Allen both went on record as saying it was very accurate. Although it released before the comback of Apple. Good movie.
Anyways, RIP dude.Comment -
I was standing in line at the grocery store and saw the latest issue of Newsweek on the stands. It had Steve Jobs on the cover with the words “American Genuis. Steve Jobs. How He Drove Apple To Victory. How He Changed Our World.” I would not have had a problem with the cover had it stopped at the third sentence.
Excuse me for not bending at the knee to inhale Mr. Jobs essence. But “Changed Our World”?! Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, Johann Gutenberg, and the Wright brothers changed our world through a series of firsts. Not Steve Jobs. As far as inventions go… the iPod? Not so much. It did allow me to work out harder at the gym and run longer than before. For that, I thank him.
Following that article in Newsweek on the very next page was a second written piece titled “How Apple Revolutionized Our World. Steve Jobs’s dazzling inventions have forever changed us.” Problem is, like Thomas Edison, who he is constantly compared to these days (and in that article), never truly invented many of the ideas they are often credited with by the general public.
The articles do not associate a specific invention with Jobs but routinely call him an inventor or refer to his “inventions.” Let me clear something up that may shock you. Contrary to what the Newsweek articles imply, Steve Jobs did not invent the concept of personal computing, iTunes, iPod, or the iPhone. He did not even have the first commercial products or services these “inventions” are credited with. He did give rise to the lowercase “i” being used in front of iEverything. While I am debunking misconceptions, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. Sorry… I know I just blew your mind.
What Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs did best was refine existing products, services or ideas and market the hell out of them. If anything, Madison Avenue should be mourning the loss of Jobs. He was a hell of an advertiser. To quote the Wikipedia article on him, “Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development under his direction.” Ironically, both found themselves the subject of lawsuits and had patent issues.
The Wikipedia article also says, “Edison’s true success, like that of his friend , Henry Ford was in his ability to maximize profits through establishment of mass-production systems and intellectual property rights.”Sound familiar?
These are some of the things Edison is generally credited with “inventing” and who really did:
The light bulb: Humphry Davy – 1802
Filaments: Alessandro Volta – 1800
X-Rays: Nikola Tesla – 1887
Motion picture camera: Louis Le Prince – 1888 and William Kennedy Dickson – 1888
Ticker Tape Machine: David Hughes – 1856 and EdwardCalahan – 1863
The Electric Chair: Harold P. Brown
Recorded music/voice: Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville – phonautograms – 1857.
Duplex and multiplex telegraphy systems: Moses G. Farmer – 1856
Steve Jobs along with his pals Steve “The Woz” Wozniak and Mike Markkula did not invent the personal computer. IBM had released the Wang 2200 three years prior to the Apple I being introduced. Jobs WAS smart enough to recognize the market potential of the Xerox PARC GUI which “heavily inspired” what we know today as the Mac OS X operating system and GUI. Xerox did attempt to file suit at one point but it was tossed out of court as the statute of limitations had expired.
Soundjam MP which was software developed by Casady & Green eventually became known as iTunes when it was purchased by Apple. The interface that Apple gave Soundjam/iTunes looked eerily similar to another MP3 managing software program at the time… Napster. Which was released two years prior to iTunes.
The iPod was not even the first hardware device that could play MP3s. In 1996, Audio Highway had an MP3 player that could download and upload MP3s to a personal computer.
I am not going to debate what came first, Android or the iPhone. It is a moot point. Neither was the first touchscreen smartphone running a mobile OS.
Tablet computing dates as far back as 1888 with a patent granted to Elisha Gray for using an electronic stylus device for capturing handwriting. Conceptually, as we know them today tablet computers have existed since the 1950s. Commercially and demonstratively they have existed since the 1980s.
To quote the first Newsweek article, “He upended entire industries. Personal computing. The music business. Publishing. Hollywood. All have been radically transformed because of Steve Jobs.” Wait, wait, wait… So IBM who brought a PC to market before Apple and would go on to sell more PCs than Apple gets no credit?
As for the music industry, the real catalyst to the music industry in terms of electronic media and distribution was Napster. Not iTunes. Napster forced the RIAA to accept the concept of digital songs distributed electronically. Granted, Napster in the early years distributed these songs illegally. Still, while not the first means of electronic distribution, hello mIRC, it was the most widely used at the time with millions of people using the software. Peaking around February of 2001 with almost 15 million users. The RIAA took notice. No wonder iTunes “borrowed” its design. iTunes just commercialized the concept legally. It however was not the first service to sell music online. Ditto for the movie industry with Napster and later bittorrent distribution forcing them to embrace the digital age.
As for the publishing industry… Amazon released the Kindle First Generationon November 19, 2007. The Barnes & Noble Nook was released in November of 2009. Apple released the first iPad in April 2010. In the last three months of 2010, Amazon announced that in the United States, their e-book sales had surpassed sales of paperback books for the first time. According to an IDC study from March 2011, sales for all e-book readers worldwide totaled 12.8 million in 2010; 48% of them were Kindle models. I am sorry Newsweek… Kindle changed the publishing world. The iPad does allows me to watch movies, play games and read books from a single device without the need of a television, console or physical book… Just like my laptop.
So why is everyone heaping accolades upon a man who did not truly invent any firsts? That is business… Jobs was more P.T. Barnum looking for the next big thing and when he found it he jumped in head first then marketed it like no other knowing a TON of people would buy in to the hype.
From my own interaction with the mainstream media, a lot, I dare make a sweeping generalization and say most, use Apple products. Who are producing these fluff pieces? The media…
If anything, Steve Jobs was an amazing businessman. He celebrates his failures just as much as he celebrates his commercial successes. He puts every ounce of his being in to every product no matter the outcome and challenges his employees to do so as well. There is no denying what he has done for Apple as a company. However, to call him an “inventor” and credit him with changing the world is a bit much.
Oh and please… Do not use his salary of only $1 as justification to what a great man Steve Jobs is like the second article in Newsweek. The stock he owns in Apple gained $620 million in 2010. According to Time.com, “Steve Jobs received $248,000 this past year for the use of his private plane for business purposes and owns 5.5 million of the company’s common stock.” By the way, the plane was a bonus gift from Apple that he received in 1999. At the time the article was written, his personal holdings were estimated to be $1.84 billion. Granted he has not sold any of Apple’s stock since 1997. He also own 138 million shares of Walt Disney Co. stock which is valued at about $4.5 billion. Disney pays investors an annual dividend. In 2009, this was 35 cents per share. For Jobs, who has about 138 million shares, that calculates to roughly $48 million a year. Also, keep in mind that in 1985 Jobs sold $14 million worth of Apple shares.
According to CNN Money:
Last year the founder of the Stanford Social Innovation Review called Apple one of “America’s Least Philanthropic Companies.” Jobs had terminated all of Apple’s long-standing corporate philanthropy programs within weeks after returning to Apple in 1997, citing the need to cut costs until profitability rebounded. But the programs have never been restored.
In 2010 Change.org wrote of Steve Jobs, “It’s high time the minimalist CEO became a magnanimous philanthropist.” Bill Gates through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are changing the world. In 2006 Wired did a piece on Jobs, and noted that Jobs was not on Giving USA’s list of gifts of $5 million or more for the previous four years. He also was not on another list showing gifts of $1 million or more. The Wired article acknowledged that he could have been giving anonymously.
So I ask again, how did he exactly change the world? A great many people have contributed new ideas and invented many world-changing things. Some by accident. Steve Jobs, or more accurately his employees, only improved upon the ideas of others and then advertised them really well.Comment -
ripComment -
Thanks for bettering our world.
May you rest in peace.
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He was a great pioneer and inventor.Comment -
what would we do without iPhone and iPad
, rest in peace
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