Behind the scenes in the deepest, darkest part of One Invisible Loop, top Apple hardware geniuses have been toiling away at making the ultimate Apple product…
A robotic body into which Jobs will transfer his consciousness, the iCEO
It has the strength of EIGHT gorillas, not a measly Five, and is much taller than five feet tall, in fact, the height is infinitely variable
…it also has big chainsaw hands, but these chainsaw hands are no ordinary chainsaws, their blades are made of light, like a Lightsaber
the only drawback is the power cell is non-replaceable… Jobs will have to upload to a newer one in two years, and that one will have the strength of TWELVE gorillas, and the ability to travel through time and space…
…Professor Stephen Hawking will be the only other person to be given the honor of uploading to his own iBody unit, only his will be called the iScientist…
Us lowly consulers will never be able to experience the glory of an iBody…
As Yookeroo suggested, this is not an encouraging analogy. I remember that a lot of Disney films in the late 1960s and 1970s were crap.
Based on what I’ve heard about Apple, I’m not encouraged about this change. Jobs has really been the visionary who knew which direction to go and when products were ready (except for the MobileMe fiasco).
I think Apple will suffer initially (as we saw today on Wall Street) because Jobs is so identifiable with Apple. But this is going to happen sooner or later; it’s a great time to take the hit when the company is doing so well. I think the company will lose some of its edge - people forget that when Jobs gambled, he was gambling with his company. The first misfire from Cook, and I imagine there will be some, it will be interesting how people perceive it. If he survives then I think he’ll be fine, and so will the company.
The fact that Jobs is still involved in some capacity with Apple is encouraging. Micromanager that he is, he’ll be able to ensure that the company continues in his mindset. He’s been in declining health for some time, so he no doubt has been setting this up for a while. I think Apple ultimately will be fine - I don’t doubt every executive fits Jobs’ criteria, and they will in turn develop more talent.
Of course no-one could have foretold Jobs’ return to Apple and the ascent of the company. I remember the boos when he announced the partnership with Microsoft at Macworld back in the day, and people saying that it was only a matter of time until Apple was eaten up by Microsoft… so I’ll guess we’ll see. It’s definitely going to be an interesting time to observe Apple.
Disney, post-Walt, came damn near to collapsing. It wasn’t until Eisner and Katzenberg arrived in 1982 (or so) that the company again became Disney, the multi-media conglomerate we all know and love today.
If only Jobs could have given Apple another decade as CEO.
As soon as I read about his liver transplant last year, I figured it was only a matter of time before he had to step down. It’s encouraging that’s he’s Chairman as I imagine he’ll still command a lot of the visionary power that has brought Apple back from the brink (thanks, Gil), and turned it into one of the most successful companies of all time.
As much as his team of executives, engineers and designers had a hand in such a success and brilliant, innovative products, I can’t help but think his vision (and perfectionism) was the ghost in this machine.
When that ghost is gone, all bets are truly off. Long live Steve.
Jobs is irreplaceable. Oh, someone else will get the job title but without Teh Steve and his unique combination of perfectionism and futurism, Apple is just another tech company.
And it’s not just Apple that will be affected. Jobs’ vision is evident in all modern computer UI design. He remade the record industry. He transformed phones into handheld computers and pocket movie cameras. He brought digital distribution of software and media into the mainstream. He changed the way we communicate by changing the devices on which we communicate - and communication changes the world.
I’m a PC, not a Mac. But being a PC would be a whole lot less evolved without Steve Jobs.
Maybe now I can actually [del]pirate[/del] buy their operating system without having to make a hackintosh or pay their 300% Cool Looking Hardware Markup Tax.
I’m sure that Operations and detailed product design will hum along nicely. The problem will be who makes the top level design decisions, who takes the risk of doing an iPhone and getting it right?
It doesn’t take much to be chairman, but Jobs wouldn’t have resigned as CEO immediately unless he had serious health problems. So Apple in five years will be suffering a dearth of brilliant innovation. They are already challenged in phones, and will be challenged in pads when someone gets one right. Who is going to come up with the next winner?
Well, hopefully this means we’ll have an iPhone with a consumer replaceable battery and a Mac Mini that doesn’t take a putty knife to open. Jobs’ button phobia is the bane of my existence.
I’m with you on the phone battery, but Mac Mini hard to open? I opened mine without any tools at all. Seriously, I’ve had harder times opening a jar of jelly.
I don’t have a good feeling about this. How did Apple do between 1986 and 1996 (the time when Steve Jobs was absent from Apple)? Not too well. They can coast by for a long time on the iPhone/iPad/iPod success, but what are their plans for ten years from now?
Steve Wozniak was a great engineer, but I don’t see him as the kind of person that could lead a large company like Apple. Not that he would want to do it, or that anyone would invite him to do it. Since he left Apple, he’s worked on small engineering projects and lived off his Apple $$$.
There’s really no telling (naturally.) In the near future they’ll continue to do what they’ve done for the past decade: identify the major cash cows of the entertainment/communications/computer industries and try to dominate them.
Will they come up with more stunning successes like the iPodPhonePad? I can’t even imagine.
And Merneith’s remarks about Jobs’ influence on the computer industry is making me wonder just what today’s machines would be like without the introduction of the Macintosh.
Apple did well enough in the late 1980s, in the immediate aftermath of Steve’s departure. Sales of the Apple II were still strong and lucrative, and sales of the Mac took off after the LaserWriter came out in 1986, when the Mac found its first “killer app” purpose: desktop publishing. Things were fine and dandy for several years.
Apple’s decline didn’t get serious until after Microsoft Windows 3 came out (1990), and the Mac’s distinctions were no longer so distinctive. Their first big quarterly loss, and first big round of layoffs, happened in 1993. Then of course there was the Windows '95 bombshell in, well, 1995. And so the real crisis time was from about 1993 to 1997-8.
