The Mac Observer has a nice story about an email conversation with Steve Jobs in 1996, asking him to “please let Apple alone” and not come back to run the company. Michell Smith wrote to Jobs to tell him:
“Please,’ I implored him, ‘don’t come back to Apple, you’ll ruin it.”
To which Jobs responded with this gem:
“You may be right. But if I succeed, remember to look in the mirror and call yourself an asshole for me.”
That guy was a character.
The secret of Steve was that he was never satisfied. He devoted his life to asking, “Why doesn’t it work?” and, “What should I change to make it work?”
Nice piece.
I was there three years ago, Saturday April 3rd, 2010, in a line at a local Best Buy with my brother. The damn thing is all banged up, with a little crack on the screen, still working. Surviving what my son does to it.
David Gelphman writes a post about an email he received from Steve Jobs while he was working at Apple. Great story. Via Daring Fireball
Don Melton, with a very interesting post about the day Safari was demoed at a Steve Jobs Keynote.
There’s nothing that can fill your underwear faster than seeing your product fail during a Steve Jobs demo.
I can only imagine…
FOSS Patents:
Should the first Office actions tentatively invalidating the rubber-banding and the touchscreen heuristics patents be affirmed at the end of the proceedings (after all appeals have been exhausted), Apple would lose two iconic patents, but it would still have thousands of other patents, including hundreds of multitouch patents.
U.S. patent office declares ‘the Steve Jobs patent’ entirely invalid on non-final basis
CNet:
The latest to take a swipe – none other than Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Musk was quoted at a government-sponsored roundtable in London held last week saying that Apple will likely lose out to Google in the smartphone business “because Jobs is out of the picture.”
Says the CEO of the company who recalled 439 Tesla Roadsters because of a minor defect…like the whole freaking car catching fire. Apple was doomed because Steve Jobs was too proud and stubborn. Now he dies and Apple is still doomed because he’s not there.
I don’t know if there is anything more annoying than these “Steve wouldn’t have let this happen” pieces of crap on the Internet.
Apple likely to lose out to Google, because Jobs is not there. (Really?)
Jim Dalrymple:
I read a piece this morning by Ewan Spence at Forbes that just left me shaking my head in disbelief. Spence called the iPad mini “little more than a ‘me-too’ product” — I guess he forgot that Apple invented the modern tablet category and that every Google tablet is actually the “me too” product.
Spence made a point of saying that “in all of my time covering Apple launches,” alluding to his supposed expertise on the subject — all I can say is he couldn’t have been paying attention to Apple’s strategy over those launches.
What Apple is doing with the iPad is the exact same thing they did with the iPod. Release it and then come back and fill in the category with other products.
Oh and he also used the “this isn’t Steve Jobs Apple” line. Come on Ewan, at least be original.
There is really nothing to add, except that Steve Jobs also said they were not interested in making a phone, he said nobody wanted to watch video on an iPod, etc. Whatever he said they weren’t doing (except for Flash Player on iOS, that really never happened), was just that, something he said. Steve Jobs is not here anymore, get over it. He specifically told everyone at Apple not to ask themselves what he would do, they are doing what they think they have to do. If you don’t like it go buy something else, no one is forcing you to buy Apple stuff.
Via The Loop
