Did Steve Jobs do anything to justify the hype

[WordMan]

@gaffa

My view of the computer industry encompasses the entire history of Apple, and I’ve never been particularly impressed by the company or it’s products. So I can agree that he was the pivotal figure behind Apple, I disagree on the importance of Apple’s products. Importance, not success.

I feel like this is the same issue: of course you are welcome to have your own opinion about the impressiveness or not of Apple’s products. But that has nothing to do with whether Apple, via Jobs’ vision and their products, were central to transforming how consumers perceive and use tech in their lives and lifestyles.

[WordMan]

@gaffa

My view of the computer industry encompasses the entire history of Apple, and I’ve never been particularly impressed by the company or it’s products. So I can agree that he was the pivotal figure behind Apple, I disagree on the importance of Apple’s products. Importance, not success.

Hmm. I reread my response and am not sure I spoke to your issue. Importance. Okay, so you are not personally impressed with Apple’s products over their history. Cool. But are you also saying that Apple wasn’t central to evolving computers into consumer tech? Yes, they had huge sales/marketing success; but that is secondary to the fact that Apple trained a vast swath of the population how to integrate tech into their lives in a core way.

Yes? I mean, this isn’t up for debate, is it?

Given the fact that Jobs’ vision for consumer tech is what drove Apple to create the products it did and market them they way they did - and it worked - is why he is so mythologized.

[BigT]

People may forget that Jobs is the reason the Apple II was sold. That pretty much is the start of the modern home PC revolution. It standardized the keyboard and PC monitor. Without Jobs, Wozniak still would have made the Apple I, but never would have sold it nor moved on to a pre-fab computer.

I mean, I agree he was overhyped towards the end. But only because people were treating him like Apple’s Jesus. He became more brand than man. I’m not certain even that some of the stuff credited to him wasn’t suggested by someone else and he just took it. He was not a good person.

But he does have his place in history as one of the few who started the home PC revolution, and he deserves respect for that.

[Mister_Rik]

@Miller

Is he really, though? Apple is often revered for their technology, but almost none of Apple’s technological innovations are ever credited directly to Jobs. What he mostly gets credited for is figuring out ways to make the stuff his engineers were working on easily accessible to people who weren’t necessarily very tech savvy.

He also didn’t know the meaning of the word, “impossible”. He’d demand some feature or other, and his engineers would tell him it couldn’t be done. He’d just keep insisting that it could be done until they figured out how to do it.

@Dewey_Finn

I don’t know if the OP is old enough to remember Apple Computer in 1997, when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Wired Magazine famously ran a cover story, titled “Pray” about how close Apple was to the end. Microsoft, of all companies, invested $150 million in Apple, partly to ensure a valid competitor. Shortly thereafter, Steve Jobs returned and led Apple through one of the most amazing turnarounds in history; the most valuable company in America and one with a cash hoard today of about $200 billion.

And remember that this was his second act.

I bought my first Mac in 1996. This is one of my favorite T-shirts:

http://store.dieselsweeties.com/products/i-was-a-mac-user-when-apple-was-doomed-shirt