Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, has passed away at 56

[DaMummy]

Apple, unlike Microsoft, has never been good at competing in the purist terms, but they have always been very good at marketing and being able to sell computers to the computer illiterate while spinning it so they can pretend they're elite, much to the annoyance of everyone else that has to suffer said people. The reality is that while Apple might be at war with Microsoft, Microsoft has never been at war with Apple. To take advantage of its strengths Apple has needed to jump around with products, although none of them could be called innovative rather then market deformation due to a company with some clout and the willingness to bully forcing their way in while playing their classic marketing games because they can only keep that marketing magic viable so long.


Apple is one of the biggest Intellectual Property criminals in the industry, being well known for buying out companies for gimmicks they can lock down IP on and frivolous patent trolling and hence in many respects represents one of the biggest _obstacles_ to actual innovation in the industry.


Steve Jobs was not a good man, but he did get things done. Given he was dealing with cancer I hope he didn't suffer that much, but I can't honestly say I have much respect for the man or his company.

i wish i had the intelligence to have said this myself. a big +1 to each and every word in these 3 paragraphs, especially the first one. thank you

 

[Jourdy288]

I can recommend the Movie "Pirates Of Silicon Valley", where the Story of the early Years of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates & Co. are told. Some very enlightening moments about these guys.

... I plan to re-watch that movie.


Tonight..


I don't agree with everything the man did, but he changed the industry. That's something I can respect.

 

[Exophase]

The reality is that while Apple might be at war with Microsoft, Microsoft has never been at war with Apple.

Historically, yes. Those damned "switch" and "I'm a Mac" commercials come to mind, not to mention Apple's rather fallacious marketing campaigns where they tore down x86 competitors on no fair terms. But these days I'd say the tables have turned. In the areas where Apple is dominating, that is, with iOS, MS actually is launching a direct attack on them; you need look no further than Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 for ARM. Meanwhile, Apple's not as driven to dominate in desktops/laptops and it's pretty much gaining growth by association. Having successful mobile devices is probably a lot more beneficial to selling their other stuff than all the ads about how much PCs suck.


I mean, who can forget this embarrassing display... http://www.engadget....ral-parade-for/


I don't like mud-slinging campaigns but they always come up whenever a company is far from the market leader position, particularly when their product doesn't stand well enough on its own merit. Like the old Sega vs Nintendo ads. You don't see Apple wasting money trying to convince you not to buy a Windows Phone device.

 

[gadgetoid]

<snip/>

i wish i had the intelligence to have said this myself. a big +1 to each and every word in these 3 paragraphs, especially the first one. thank you

There's a phrase that springs to mind here: Don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

[craigix]

B3ta made me lol much


http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/stevejobsrip/popular/


Fave:


http://www.b3ta.com/board/10563107

 

[Dark_Link]

i will miss steve jobs :s all of the apple er cracking websites are making memorial pages

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

For everything he achieved he would have swapped places with any one of us in an instant to be well again, health and happiness is far more important than money and fame.


I am a fan of how easy Apple devices are to use, my Gran can use an iPhone, but I was not a fan of the man himself. Using Chinese slave labour and being obsessed with money isn't my bag.


Bill Gates might be a bastard too, but he genuinely seems to want to do some good with his riches.


Oh well, I'm off to watch the Diana like madness sweep the internets for the next few days, no doubt with clueless news readers thinking he invented the phone, apps and computers.

I wouldn't say he was obsessed with money. I think he later business practices and the closing of his systems is more due being prudent. After all, remember what Bill gates with his company Microsoft put him through? They stole windows from him, became a powerhouse company and almost ran him to the ground and Apple computers along with it. Microsoft business take off and Apple's downturn was probably one of the major reasons the board of directors fired him from his own company, thinking they were gonna find someone to do better. If it was obsessed with money he wouldn't have invested in Pixar when no one else did. Steve Jobs was actually more like any of us who's sole purpose was to put out innovative products instead these other companies who waits a product to be made public and kirf the hell out of it under their own brand names. That's why he became the way he was, continued being innovative while at the same time learned from past experience how to keep big kirf companies from taking him down with his own products and ideas. In his shoes you would do the same.

Microsoft stole windows from Steve Jobs? What on earth are you talking about. If anything Apple stole 'windows' from Xerox (and others).

yeah i saw a movie abot that.apple stole windows,mice,trackballs and thoise twisty controller things from a small company. Oh yeah its pirates of silicon valley http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/

 

[Christoph.Krn]

The only Apple device I ever bought myself was an iPod shuffle 3rd generation; I do not like Apples still-to-ignorant stance regarding the lack of security in their products. But Steve Jobs was one of the people of whom I have always claimed to be of significant relevance to the world in the best of ways: through being crazy and obsessing about details. Of course, many people disapprove of the ethically questionable nature of some of the ways in which he had often tended to solve problems, and I even consider such unethical behavior to be inefficient. But no matter what you may think of him, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9GTUMh490, because he has had a big share in making some of the most significant changes that the world had encountered during his life, and thereby has put the IT world into fast-forward mode. Which actually means that now that he's dead, some things may gradually yet noticeably change.


"...what we have is something [PAUSE] that [PAUSE] I am... uhm... [PAUSE] I am very moved by. It honors [PAUSE] those people who have changed the world. Some of them [PAUSE] are living, [PAUSE] some of them are not. But the ones that aren't, [PAUSE] as you'll see, [PAUSE] you know [PAUSE] that if they'd ever used a computer it would have been a Mac."


(

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jdbvAdINPPA?start=237&feature=oembed and "[...] this transformation's gonna make some people uneasy. People from the PC world; like you and me.". However, he was very aware that people come into existence, live, and die; the feelings of those who don't analyze changing paradigms intuitively are irrelevant in the light of the overall change. If the only thing one does is to improve the things that already exist, one is only making gradual changes and does not really leap forward. In the iMac G3, Apple had omitted the floppy disk and placed emphasis on USB, and people have called them crazy for that. If it wasn't for Apple, the death of the floppy disk might have happened much later. The transition to the post-pc-era is equally unavoidable.)

 

[ardje]

Then 1995 rolled around and as far as I can tell Microsoft has sole credit for the then novel concept of having a task bar you could minimize applications to and maximize applications from instead of dragging windows and other more limited approaches.

Actually I think that fvwm already had those features, and openstep (the open variant of nextstep, which is a predecessor of OS-X) did those too.


It was not actually a bar, but you could place it as a task bar. So the only novel about that taskbar was it's placement.


But yes, I completely agree with your story. I do think that now Jobs dies with "honour" being the iSomething man. A year later, and I think he would be called the iSueyou man. For me the respect died somewhere shortly after I bought 2 macbooks and a macmini.