# Steve Jobs--great inventor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 7, 2011, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895 "2011-10-07T14:29:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/21 "2011-10-07T17:51:47Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > The original Apple computers were invented by Steve Wozniak. There is no dispute about that. Jobs helped him with getting them manufactured and with marketing them. Jobs may have played a vital role in Apple’s beginnings, but he did not invent anything (either at first or later). Jobs was a businessman, an entrepreneur, a good and innovative one, no doubt, but he was not an inventor. Technically true. I believe you could buy the original Apple circuit board designed by Woz. But the Apple ][ was Jobs’ invention. He packaged and marketed a PC that people would buy in droves. He invented the PC that everybody wanted to buy. Before that, the majority of the market for PCs was engineers, programmers, and electronic hobbyists. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/22 "2011-10-07T18:04:25Z")
Jobs genius was in making sure the final product was elegant and simple to use. The products worked the way a neophyte (newbie) would guess it would work. It never intimidated. He was relentless in those goals. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/23 "2011-10-07T18:09:34Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > what does flash memory have to do with the original iPod? Sorry, when I think “iPod” I think of my iPod Touch. But I’m sure he did the same thing with the hard disk suppliers that he did with the optical drive suppliers when he was running Next. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/24 "2011-10-07T18:09:57Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > However, he didn’t do that, either. Apple’s great strength was taking an existing product and making a smooth, easily-used version with “sex appeal” to the average man-about-town. I disagree. Apple’s great strength was taking an existing product and making a smooth, easily-used version with “sex appeal” to the average **WOMAN** -about-town. Why do you think the iMac came in pretty colors? ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/25 "2011-10-07T18:28:20Z")
My take is that rather being akin to a Thomas Edison (a comparison a think is particularly overblown) he was more of a Henry Ford. [This column](http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-imitated-never-duplicated/) by David Pogue really highlights his accomplishments as well as his daring: > [@](#): > > Often, his laser focus flew in the face of screamingly obvious common sense. He wanted to open a chain of retail stores — after the failure of Gateway’s chain had clearly demonstrated that the concept was doomed. > > He wanted to sell a smartphone that had no keyboard, when physical keys were precisely what had made the BlackBerry the most popular smartphone at the time. > > Over and over again, he took away our comfy blankets. He took away our floppy drives, our dial-up modems, our camcorder jacks, our non-glossy screens, our Flash, our DVD drives, our removable laptop batteries. > > How could he do that? You’re supposed to add features, not take them away, Steve! That’s just not done! Just marketing? Sure, when this old engineer is feeling really cynical. But this old Linux FOSS guy also has to acknowledge that Jobs had a way of making technology elegant. And beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/26 "2011-10-07T18:51:25Z")
I think Steve sums up his legacy by his simple statement: “There has to be a better way.” ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/27 "2011-10-07T18:51:38Z")
i’ve seen mention where he would reject a circuit board design because it didn’t look appealing. he was a designer and a marketer. he wasn’t an electrical engineer or computer scientist, he was more of a designer like Brooks Stevens (who coined the term ‘planned obsolescence’ and practiced it, so i think Steve studied Stevens well). ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/28 "2011-10-07T19:13:32Z")
He wasn’t perfect, and was a perfectionist to a fault sometimes. But, I think he just had an intuitive sense as to how things should work, and saw the even bigger and more important picture of how they should all integrate, so the features themselves are really a smaller part of a unified system that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Things are much more complicated when it comes to building highly advanced consumer electronics for any _one_ man to achieve the things Apple did. He was responsible for putting all these inventions together in a way that was truly innovative and had mass-appeal. Don’t be so quick to dismiss aesthetics and design as having no value… especially when it comes to consumer products. This goes not only for the hardware, but the interface as well. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/29 "2011-10-07T19:15:58Z")
His greatest invention, really, was Apple itself. ---
**Author:** ![AndyLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@AndyLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndyLee)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/30 "2011-10-07T20:46:40Z")
Steve Jobs did to Apple what Starbucks did to people. Starbucks took mornng coffee, overcharged for it, but for you $2.50 you get to feel like a rich yuppie for five minutes, and poor people bought it. Jobs took Apple products, overpriced them, and poor people buy them with the hope of looking cooler. The Simpsons did a great parody on this. I fell for it to, I had an iPod and it was great but it doesn’t do anything I can’t get done a LOT cheaper. There were mp3 players around for a while before the iPod but Apple made it cooler to own one. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/31 "2011-10-07T20:50:08Z")
> [@AndyLee](#): > > Steve Jobs did to Apple what Starbucks did to people. > > Starbucks took mornng coffee, overcharged for it, but for you $2.50 you get to feel like a rich yuppie for five minutes, and poor people bought it. > > Jobs took Apple products, overpriced them, and poor people buy them with the hope of looking cooler. The Simpsons did a great parody on this. > > I fell for it to, I had an iPod and it was great but it doesn’t do anything I can’t get done a LOT cheaper. There were mp3 players around for a while before the iPod but Apple made it cooler to own one. The Apple products are not overpriced. Quite the contrary. They have been responsible for driving down market prices for consumer technology. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/32 "2011-10-07T20:55:00Z")
> [@AndyLee](#): > > Steve Jobs did to Apple what Starbucks did to people. > > Starbucks took mornng coffee, overcharged for it, but for you $2.50 you get to feel like a rich yuppie for five minutes, and poor people bought it. > > Jobs took Apple products, overpriced them, and poor people buy them with the hope of looking cooler. The Simpsons did a great parody on this. > > I fell for it to, I had an iPod and it was great but it doesn’t do anything I can’t get done a LOT cheaper. There were mp3 players around for a while before the iPod but Apple made it cooler to own one. So simplistic. And completely wrong. While there may be a few people who buy Apple products to look “cool” (I can’t imagine why - it would be like drinking Coke to be a rebel), the vast majority of people buy Apple products because they work, and they work well. I’ve known literally _thousands_ of Macintosh users over the years. I’m not sure that a one of them ever bought a computer to be cool. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/33 "2011-10-07T21:00:00Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > note that many/most of those are _design_ patents, not _utility_ patents. Also, most of them have a huge list of inventors. It’s impossible to know how much, if anything, Jobs contributed. Jobs’ main talent was in saying “this sucks”, and getting people to fix it. It’s an underrated skill. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/34 "2011-10-07T21:12:11Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > So simplistic. > And completely wrong. > > While there may be a few people who buy Apple products to look “cool” (I can’t imagine why - it would be like drinking Coke to be a rebel), the vast majority of people buy Apple products because they work, and they work well. > > I’ve known literally _thousands_ of Macintosh users over the years. I’m not sure that a one of them ever bought a computer to be cool. I think an enormous amount of Apple products were purchased by people who had no idea if they worked well. Cool is better explanation of the phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/35 "2011-10-07T21:14:35Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Technically true. I believe you could buy the original Apple circuit board designed by Woz. But the Apple ][ was Jobs’ invention. The Apple II was most certainly Wozniak’s invention, not Jobs’. Wozniak designed the hardware and wrote the firmware. Jobs did things like choose the shape of the case, the design of Apple’s new corporate logo (the striped apple with a bite taken out), and made sure the machine came with good technical and user manuals. Jobs was certainly necessary to the process. Wozniak on his own would never have made the Apple II a salable product. But I would call it Wozniak’s invention nevertheless. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/36 "2011-10-07T21:34:52Z")
He invented an [outfit](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/steve-jobs-leaves-fashion-legacy-too/): the black mock turtleneck sweater and jeans. The company that sells the shirt he preferred (he allegedly bought about two dozen per year at $175 each) is now backlogged on orders for them, and they have announced they are going to donate all the sales of that item to the American Cancer Society in Steve Jobs name. He even called the CEO of that company occasionally to tell him how much he liked the sweater. (and no doubt offer some critique of just a few things they could still improve.) This story is interesting on its own but it ties into this thread. Across the world people are rushing to buy a $175.00 black sweater because it was the sweater he selected. In this case, since he just died, much of this can be attributed to nostalgia but it does demonstrate something more. People won’t buy the shirt to boast that it cost $175 and they won’t buy it because it becomes a fashion trend, they buy it because if Steve Jobs thought it was good, it probably is very good. And by the same token he could sell computers that he thought were good even at a premium, because people understood the high bar it had to pass in order to be considered good by him, and they trusted his judgement. Nobody got burned by that blind faith - he proved himself right over and over again and it became an informed choice, not blind faith, to presume that if Steve liked it, it was good. In the old days Macintosh products did cost more than Intel PC’s, for a while, but it wasn’t because of some Yuppie desire to be fashionable that people bought them and the PC’s were in no way equivalent to the experience of using a Macintosh even if they theoretically could do most of the same things. People recognized the same quality that he did in them but that quality came with additional cost and it was a ‘niche’ market, but not a yuppie or flashy market. That all changed after his return to Apple anyway - the world had changed, suppliers had changed, his status had changed, and he was able to negotiate deals and institute practices across the entire company, not just engineering, which allowed Apple hardware to be less expensive than equivalent competition and still maintain that mile long lead in quality and usability. Anyone can get a $9.00 sweater at K-mart any time they want. I wouldn’t criticize anyone who did, but I sure wouldn’t consider someone to be a yuppie fool because they would prefer something of higher quality at a higher price. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/37 "2011-10-07T21:38:40Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > The Apple II was most certainly Wozniak’s invention, not Jobs’. Wozniak designed the hardware and wrote the firmware. Jobs did things like choose the shape of the case, the design of Apple’s new corporate logo (the striped apple with a bite taken out), and made sure the machine came with good technical and user manuals. > > Jobs was certainly necessary to the process. Wozniak on his own would never have made the Apple II a salable product. But I would call it Wozniak’s invention nevertheless. Woz invented a circuit board. Jobs invented a PC, the first true Home Computer. I’m not taking anything away from Woz. I’m trying to point out that Jobs was more than just a guy selling stuff thought up by other people. There were many better computers being made at the time. But the average consumer had no interest in them. They came in ugly cases, required prior knowledge of computer hardware and software to be useful, and rarely were as complete a package as the Apple ][, and in no case as desireable a package. Jobs deserves credit for that. He didn’t invent the technology, but he invented a product. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/38 "2011-10-07T21:41:23Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I think an enormous amount of Apple products were purchased by people who had no idea if they worked well. Cool is better explanation of the phenomena. There’s no question the Apple makes cool products, but I don’t think people buy them to appear cool. At least, I’ve never met anyone who did, and as I’ve said before, I’ve known _thousands_ of Apple owners. However, I have known people who will go out and buy an Apple product on the first day it’s available, without reading any reviews or hearing any word-of-mouth on it, simply because they know that it will work well _because_ it’s an Apple product. **THAT** is what makes Apple great. _Reputation_. There are few companies on the planet that have a similar reputation. Perhaps BMW. Maybe Sony 20 years ago. To get there requires more than marketing legerdemain. It requires constant attention to detail, and customer support. Which is why Apple consistently rates at the top for both [owner satisfaction](http://www.itworld.com/software/180031/apple-tops-owner-satisfaction-fanboys-already-knew) and [customer service](http://www.macworld.com/article/160089/2011/05/apple_laptops_dominate_consumer_reports_rankings.html). ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/39 "2011-10-07T22:00:25Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Jobs invented a PC, the first true Home Computer. I’m not taking anything away from Woz. I’m trying to point out that Jobs was more than just a guy selling stuff thought up by other people. Right. No argument there. [QUOTE=TriPolar] There were many better computers being made at the time. [/quote] Slight argument here, although I suppose this is a highly subjective topic. Personally I’d say the Apple II was easily the best home computer available when it was introduced in 1977. Its competitors at that time were the Commodore PET, the TRS-80, and I think maybe the Imsai was still around. (But wouldn’t be for long.) [QUOTE=TriPolar] They came in ugly cases, required prior knowledge of computer hardware and software to be useful, and rarely were as complete a package as the Apple ][, and in no case as desireable a package. Jobs deserves credit for that. He didn’t invent the technology, but he invented a product. [/QUOTE] We are in full agreement again. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895/40 "2011-10-07T22:11:41Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > Slight argument here, although I suppose this is a highly subjective topic. Personally I’d say the Apple II was easily the best home computer available when it was introduced in 1977. Its competitors at that time were the Commodore PET, the TRS-80, and I think maybe the Imsai was still around. (But wouldn’t be for long.) Other available PCs; Altair, Processor Technology, Vector Graphics, Digital Group, Polymorphic Systems, TDL, CompuColor, Exidy, the list is quite long. I actually didn’t consider any of them better as home computers, but others did. Most of them predated the TRS-80 and Pet, which were ‘me too’ products. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steve-jobs-great-inventor/598895.md?page=3)