[HN Gopher] Celebrating Steve
___________________________________________________________________
Celebrating Steve
Author : anaclet0
Score : 172 points
Date : 2021-10-05 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| throw7 wrote:
| good god. could anything be more crass? let it go.
| killion wrote:
| I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the top
| with taste who was willing to say "this is shit".
|
| The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and
| the hardware more uneven since he left.
|
| There were misses under Steve like the Cube where there wasn't a
| market. But the product was great. Now there is a market but the
| product is middling like the Watch. Yes the watch was started
| when he was still there but it has stagnated.
| pico303 wrote:
| Every time I see some usability flub in Mac software--like the
| new Safari tabs--I think that Steve is just a little more gone.
| Despite his flaws, he really understood how people interact
| with computers in a way not many others do.
| [deleted]
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the
| top with taste who was willing to say "this is shit".
|
| I have this recurring fantasy, where an engineer walks into
| Jobs's office with the new iPhone 7 prototype for the first
| time. The engineer holds it up, and says "Look! We've added the
| most advanced camera ever to be put into a phone! People will
| love this!"
|
| Steve then graciously takes it from his hands, flips it over,
| runs his fingers across the lens bump, looks up at the
| engineer, and calmly says "Youre fired. Get rid of the damn
| bump."
| dkarp wrote:
| I didn't know about the Cube[1], so thanks for sharing. Only
| sold for 1 year and then discontinued.
|
| Laptops are now dominant and have outsold desktops for a long
| time, but in year 2000 that wasn't the case. So the Cube seems
| like a false start down that path. Kind of like Jobs knew the
| future, but was a little too ahead of his time on that one.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube
| gumby wrote:
| Oh, then you missed the time they staged an entire press
| event to announce...an iPod dock!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Hi-Fi
|
| Hell, I own an Apple battery charger for AA batteries.
| Actually at the time it came out it was reasonably priced,
| plus it uses the same AC power connectors as apple computer
| chargers so was actually handy when traveling. But
| nevertheless, absurd.
| Lammy wrote:
| Stebe seemed to have a thing for cubes. The G4 Cube is a
| throwback to the much more famous NeXT case design, though
| the original black cube running "Next Step" was perhaps a
| little too on the nose:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube
|
| http://www.magicgatebg.com/Books/Aleister%20Crowley/Heart_of.
| ..
|
| There's also the 30ft glass cube Apple Store that opened in
| Manhattan in 2006:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Fifth_Avenue
| danieldk wrote:
| _The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and
| the hardware more uneven since he left._
|
| Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled
| it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release
| after release. But I have never had any serious software or
| hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods
| or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus
| on the Mac.
|
| However, the Mac seems to be rebounding. I have a M1 MacBook
| Air and it is stellar - probably their best new Mac in decades.
| Also, I haven't had many issues with macOS 11 so far.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I generally agree, although there are all kinds of issues on
| iPhone as well. The one that bothers me most often is
| autocorrect sporadically changing correct English words to
| nonsense, or the complete inability to select certain bits of
| text properly (even in Apple apps).
| mod wrote:
| I'm so mad at all the phone keyboards for not having some
| kind of priority for predictive. And ability to remove
| words.
|
| There's some typos I get consistently and the correction is
| from a very normal word (probably, for instance) to a
| really seldom used word (poetically, in this example) and
| I'd prefer to remove poetically from my dictionary than to
| keep having it pop up.
|
| Repeat this for a couple dozen very common words that
| consistently give me problems.
| sulam wrote:
| Sounds like the machine thinks you're writing too
| prosaically. I'd give in and indulge its flights of
| fancy.
| mulmen wrote:
| I turned off autocorrect a year ago. It's easier to correct
| typos by tapping them than have to proof read for whatever
| properly typed word Apple changed for no reason.
|
| The original iPhone had a much nicer cursor behavior and
| placement was easier with a tap or a hold-and-drag than it
| is to this day. I forget when this changed, I think it was
| about a decade ago.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| Have you used iOS 15?
| killion wrote:
| Agreed. Even a little thing like Safari having the close
| button on the wrong side in iOS 15 would have gotten
| someone fired.
|
| Multitasking in iPadOS is also a good example of non-Mac
| software being near unusable.
| blowski wrote:
| > Even a little thing like Safari having the close button
| on the wrong side in iOS 15 would have gotten someone
| fired.
|
| In which case, it sounds like a good thing they have a
| more sustainable culture. But I'm not sure your comment
| is true anyway.
|
| Of course, Apple made all sorts of mistakes under Steve
| Jobs. In such a creative company, only a culture of
| freedom to make mistakes could produce extreme success.
| But now, because of a nostaglic cult of personality, any
| mistake meets with howls of "this would never happened
| under Steve!". That hero worship is a bigger problem for
| Apple.
| duped wrote:
| Apple Maps directions now mispronounces the word "South" (who
| knew it had three syllables?). This word is so common in
| street names I'm shocked it made it out of testing.
| mulmen wrote:
| Apple Maps is horrible for driving navigation. Relevant
| information like route number of the next turn is much
| smaller than it needs to be.
|
| The directions are floating in space over the map which
| looks nice but wastes space on the margins. The directions
| themselves are in a box that also wastes tons of space.
|
| If you reach a destination navigation is cancelled but you
| cant re-start navigation from there. So if you arrive but
| Apple Maps wants you to make a left turn across a median it
| cancels nav and you are in the dark for finding a route
| around.
|
| I wish usability was a priority but modern UX doesn't seem
| to consider it at all.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| Have you used the new Podcasts app? It can't even do the
| fundamental job of a podcast app - "show me the episodes I
| haven't listened to yet"
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I thought Podcasts was derided even when it was first
| released within a year after Jobs' passing, so it being a
| bad app is continuity from that era if anything
| dkonofalski wrote:
| What? There's a toggle to hide episodes you've already
| listened to. If you have that turned on, it only shows you
| episodes you haven't listened to yet.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| Only on the Latest Episodes page, which doesn't allow you
| to group by show. The Downloaded page lets you hide
| played episodes, but doesn't hide them for 24 hours
| (why??). The Shows page ... that's all messed up. You can
| hide played episodes, but it randomly displays episodes
| from years past with no possible way to mark them played
| without first downloading it and then marking it played.
| nodesocket wrote:
| I am also waiting for the new 16" MacBook Pro (Apple Silicon)
| with great enthusiasm. I expect it to bring back Mac back to
| their glory days.
| nostromo wrote:
| Mac development started stagnating under Jobs though, once
| the iPod and then iPhone really took off.
|
| It's well known that Jobs was basically bored with the Mac
| and spent all of his time focusing on the iPhone.
|
| This is where having a single visionary in charge of
| everything (including small decisions) breaks down. There are
| so many days in the week and you can't be everywhere at once.
|
| Cook is the better CEO, and Jobs was the better founder /
| early CEO in my view. I'm thrilled with the M1, and I'm not
| sure that would ever be something Jobs would have developed.
| adventured wrote:
| I disagree about Cook being the better CEO. He's the better
| chief operating officer, which is the ideal combination
| with Jobs as CEO. A product person should always lead a
| company like Apple, if you can find one good enough to do
| the job. If you don't have that eventually you'll miss a
| critical inflection and the company will tip over. Cook
| will extract maximum profit from the product and ecosystem
| foundation that Jobs left him, which is exactly what he has
| been doing for a decade now. Jobs installed Cook in that
| role because he knew that operationally Cook wouldn't screw
| up the product map that was already primed. However Apple
| will need a product person after Cook.
| killion wrote:
| I think that is exactly right. Tim Cook is the most
| amazing supply chain and operational leader - but he is
| not a product person. He doesn't have the knack for
| diving in and really refining how things work.
|
| Without that centralized leadership Apple will still have
| components that excel, like processors, but the
| fundamental user experience will keep degrading.
| m0llusk wrote:
| It is not true that Steve Jobs was bored with the Mac.
| Steve Jobs loved the Mac and would have preferred for it to
| be at the center. The thing is that Apple nearly died only
| just a few years before by not selling people what they
| wanted and by that time what people really expressed desire
| for using their money was personal devices.
|
| Apple had many problems dealing with processor suppliers
| over the years and probably would have looked for solutions
| beyond Intel when they floundered no matter who was at the
| top.
| karmakaze wrote:
| What I think it really suffers from is that the buyer isn't
| Apple's target audience, it's the person watching the person
| using an Apple product. Second is Apple (well actually the
| first is to serve Apple too). This skews priorities.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| The guys at Pontiac who had this power with the Aztek probably
| thought they had taste; who defines this?
|
| Jobs never cared about the type of non-functional quality that
| we typically do in the software world; there are plenty of
| cases where he picked design aesthetics over performance,
| reliability, and everything else.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Are there really any such examples? Steve Jobs wanted
| excellent products and they didn't always work out. That was
| often because the tech wasn't quite there so either the
| functionality didn't quite work or the effort required to
| make it work resulted in a product which was just a bit too
| expensive. Reliability is really tricky to get right and most
| Apple products even now get rushed to market and then not
| iterated on in a big way, or at least nothing like the honing
| that goes into a Toyota product by contrast. There isn't
| really a balance of features that puts aesthetics in
| competition with other aspects.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| In full fairness, the Aztek was actually a great car with
| really decisive styling that wasnt a hit. The same designer
| actually penned the Corvette C7 and Camaro as well, obvious
| hits. Taste is defined by society and by those who push to
| create a wave with their splashes in the pond. It's really a
| 'You know it when you see it" kind of thing. I think that
| many in the software world also get lost on how to make good
| things by getting lost in the tools and insider baseball. For
| every one of his "silly" omitted functional design
| elements...there were actually brilliant chopped concepts
| that made way for the future. The iMac's lack of a floppy
| drive and Apple I/O, the iPhone's lack of a keyboard, the
| Macbook Air's lack of a Disk drive. All of these are the type
| of thing a more feature and function-focused product would
| not remove but in removing them the product was freed to be a
| better product. Not that all of his choices were good, but
| generally he really hit the nail on the head. Functionally
| the MacBook Air in 2008 with the optional SSD is the template
| for the modern thin laptop today and differs very little
| internally from say, a Surface laptop 4.
| actusual wrote:
| Steve quotes in the video "I skate to where the puck is going
| to be, not where it has been" which is of course a Wayne
| Gretsky quote, and I think it captures this sentiment very
| well. Moving from leader to follower is such a classic move for
| an incumbent like Apple, and with Steve they never seemed to
| lose that insurgent mindset, even when they were absolutely
| enormous. They've steadily stagnated and truly lost that
| founder's mentality, and it sucks. I miss Steve Jobs a lot, and
| think about him often.
| sulam wrote:
| Honestly I don't see this. I realize it's a simple narrative,
| and it's one that plays well with the heroic arc, but
| businesses are not Aesop's Fables, sat on this earth to give
| us a morality tale to use to guide our children. The facts on
| the ground are far more complicated than "Apple was creative
| under Steve and isn't under Cook." Apple had MORE products
| when in the market when Steve came back as CEO, and he
| ruthlessly pared them down to the core. If Tim Cook killed
| half of Apple's lineup, would you say "wow, what a Steve-like
| move?" or would you say the company is simply resting on its
| laurels?
|
| Apple has been managed by Tim Cook for more years now than it
| was by Steve Jobs. By business measures it is significantly
| more successful. They haven't released the next iPhone-class
| product, but one does not simply walk into Mordor, nor does
| one make an iPhone of products every year, or even every
| decade.
|
| I think Apple is doing fine, warts and all. N of 1, but I've
| spent more money on their stuff in the last 4 years than I
| did in the 12 before that.
| actusual wrote:
| I think Steve was a product guy and Cook is more likely a
| business guy. I'm not making a value judgement either way,
| but I do see a lack of product vision/innovation under
| Cook, and I believe product vision/innovation is what
| excites me most about consumer electronics. I think the
| fact that Steve released several "once in a lifetime" level
| of success products in such a short time span is evidence
| enough for this.
|
| Something that Steve jobs did well was understanding that
| building great products and successful business metrics
| aren't necessarily always aligned, especially in a
| product's nascent period.
| hota_mazi wrote:
| The stagnation started well into Jobs' era, right after the
| iPad.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Apple has moved from being an incredibly innovative company
| under Steve Jobs to a much more corporate, mature company that
| relies more on incremental growth. They don't really have any
| incentive to change because of their success, and this
| fundamental pattern happens to every company (see GE's history
| after Edison). Apple simply isn't the company it was before,
| and that's a natural part of capitalism.
|
| Other Apples are emerging all the time, and will continue to
| emerge
| gumby wrote:
| Yeah, too bad they don't develop new ideas like the watch or
| AirPods or design their own CPUs from scratch.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yeah, real show-stoppers for a company that's quite
| literally the largest, most powerful corporation in modern
| history.
| paxys wrote:
| "Mature company that relies more on incremental growth" is
| exactly the stage where they get overtaken and fade into
| obscurity. It won't happen tomorrow, but slowly there will be
| new kids on the block who will make their tech look dated and
| uncool. It seems impossible to even think about but you'd say
| the same about IBM a few decades ago.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'm sure Jobs knew about this. I'm sure he told Cook to milk
| the market cow wide and deep to ensure survival of Apple
| while maintaining a steady brand, in the event that somehow
| something real genuine emerges again from Apple and they're
| ready to fire with 200B of cash.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Other Apples are emerging all the time
|
| How so? Are other people creating closed software platforms
| where they charge 30% off the top for their developers? I
| agree that they've gone more corporate over the years, but it
| was only after the realization that they could exploit the
| market with their install-base. It's quite literally, step-
| for-step identical to Microsoft's old Internet Explorer
| parable that got them in so much trouble. They're taking
| advantage of a market without any other options, which is not
| something that an emerging company can do, much less at the
| scale Apple does it.
| echlebek wrote:
| How do you explain iTunes then?
| passivate wrote:
| It takes years to develop stuff, and a final gatekeeping step
| will certainly prevent them from shipping junk, but doesn't
| teach people _how_ to create something that isn 't junk.
| duxup wrote:
| I think that's true, but there's also a danger of asking
| someone to 'be that guy' who isn't Steve. That seems like a
| bigger risk.
|
| And in the meantime Apple still has its own fairly cohesive
| idea of how you use their devices and software ... while places
| like Google cancel and re-releases apps with half the features
| as the one they canceled, and I don't think they have a real
| idea of how people use their stuff.
| killion wrote:
| Definitely, I don't see a way you could elevate someone to
| the level Steve was at. I think the plan was to have Jony Ive
| be the final word on design person.
|
| But with iOS 7 Ives showed he didn't get software and the
| "design is how it works" concept.
| Bud wrote:
| Not really. iOS 7 is an insignificant blip. Hundreds of
| other times, Ive showed that he was the best in the entire
| world at the "design is how it works" concept. Ive was the
| embodiment of that for his entire time at Apple. Jony Ive
| is the person who made it possible for Steve Jobs to say
| that without being laughed at.
|
| Don't diss Jony Ive. He is the man.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| iOS 7 was absolutely huge at the time, it was Apple
| shifting away from skeuomorphism and the industry soon
| followed. Granted, Google Material Design seemed to have
| been independently invented in the same timeframe, but
| iOS 7 led the charge.
|
| For good or for ill, iOS 7 is not to be discounted for
| its significance.
| na85 wrote:
| Jony Ive is the reason Apple has a fetish for thinness at
| the expense of functionality, is he not?
|
| He's a chump.
| [deleted]
| tptacek wrote:
| I can't think of much I would trade from now for something in
| the Jobs era. I can do without the rich Corinthian leather, the
| PowerPC, and the colored plastic. The new keyboards aren't
| great, but I've dropped this MBP at least 30 times and it still
| keeps chugging; I'm pretty sure an errant dust particle could
| have take out my first Intel Macbook.
| allturtles wrote:
| > rich Corinthian leather
|
| What does this mean? Is this a metonymy for skeumorphic
| design?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wouldn't mind having Ping back. Yesterday's events
| demonstrate the world still has room for more social
| networks, even if only for a few hours.
| actusual wrote:
| But this isn't the point, and comparing the two eras is
| useless IMO. It isn't where we were that matters, it where we
| could have been if Steve were still driving the ship.
| dilap wrote:
| With the glaring exception of the butterfly keyboard debacle
| (typing on, what, my fourth right now? and already showing
| some signs of wonkiness), I agree hardware quality is amazing
| & best its ever been.
|
| The software though... Fit and finish has fallen off a cliff.
| So many weird glitchy anims and dumb usability issues.
| tptacek wrote:
| I've been a OS X user since the Titanium Powerbook and
| wouldn't trade Mojave for any cat version --- and, in
| particular, wouldn't swap the aesthetics of Mojave for any
| of them either.
|
| This is a thread about Steve Jobs, and, again, when I think
| of Jobs, I think of rich Corinthian leather. What a
| nightmare.
| dilap wrote:
| Haha, yeah I'm not going to argue for rich Corinthian
| leather, or the aesthetics of the old iTunes UI or
| brushed metal or whatever. The visual style now is great.
| But the usability and quality of the animations and
| general fit-and-finish is much lower now, I think.
|
| Some examples of pretty glaring failures that exist now:
|
| Tabs in mac Safari: _Very_ unobvious, sometimes even
| anti-obvious, which tab is currently selected.
|
| The Today tab in the iphone App Store app: Try scrolling
| when your finger starts its drag on a button. The scroll
| is completely lost. In practice, this just feels like
| sometimes you try to scroll and it doesn't work. Way back
| when the iPhone first came out, Apple wrote a whole
| detailed tech paper on how to get this right. (It's a
| little tricky because at the start of the touch, you're
| in a quantum state: is this a button tap, or the start of
| a scrolling drag?) That institutional knowledge and
| attention to detail seems to have been completely lost.
|
| On iPhone notifications, check out the animation as you
| long-tap to see options on a notification. The default
| behavior is a fade-transition to a slightly-smaller copy
| of the same content. Very jarring, almost glitchy.
|
| Check out in mac Safari the awful opening and closing
| bookmarks side area animation: As you open and close the
| bookmark area, the icons don't animate with it, and just
| jump into place after the anim is done. (I wanted to
| share a screen recording, but surprisingly there doesn't
| seem to be an easy, imgur-esqe site to share videos??)
|
| And on and on. Those are just the recent ones I remember.
| Overall both iOS and macOS are flickery, badly animated
| messes. (I guess arguably the level of polish was _never_
| high for macOS, but for iOS, it used to be very high
| indeed.)
| reayn wrote:
| >but surprisingly there doesn't seem to be an easy,
| imgur-esqe site to share videos??
|
| I thought you _could_ upload videos to imgur? Anyhow:
|
| Quick and easy:
|
| https://filebin.net
|
| https://litterbox.catbox.moe
|
| Signing up (free tier) is worth it imo:
|
| https://blackhole.run
|
| My personal favorite[0]:
|
| https://0x0.st
|
| 0. try out this little script i use to make uploading
| files from a CLI dead easy: https://gitlab.com/co1ncidenc
| e/dotless/-/blob/master/usr/bin...
| dilap wrote:
| Lovely, thank you!
|
| Unfortunately, all I have to give in return in this video
| of a sloppy Safari animation. :-)
|
| https://filebin.net/59kjnt15u834j7xl/safari-anim.mov
| reayn wrote:
| lol it's no problem.
|
| I've noticed the same animation issues in safari, and
| tbh, its very unlike apple.
|
| There are other apps in macOS which have collapsible
| sidebars (preview and finder come to mind), but they
| don't suffer with the same icon lag issue.
|
| And as far as I know, catalyst (which I assume is what's
| being used now for almost all of the new mac apps with
| the blurry sidebar) should handle these things
| inherently, it's strange that this seems to be a safari
| exclusive problem.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| The wireless mouse that can't be used while being charged
| is the one that gets me. I don't know that Jobs would've
| approved that
| duderific wrote:
| It seems likely that he would have, because the port
| being on the bottom (making it so you can't use it while
| charging) allows the form factor to be that much sleeker.
| Jobs would generally opt for the form factor over
| convenience - ever making phones/laptops slimmer and
| lighter at the cost of battery life, for example.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| This is apparently not cool these days. I think we've lost our
| spirit of what made SV great. Now it's just identity politics,
| pessimism and general stagnancy as Peter Thiel puts it. I
| honestly kind of want to go back to 2005 - what a time to be
| alive.
| amelius wrote:
| > I think we've lost our spirit of what made SV great.
|
| Innovation is what made SV great. Now it is just evolutionary
| updates at a very slow pace.
| naravara wrote:
| Don't forget "tech companies" that are basically just
| thinly veiled excuses to engage in regulatory arbitrage and
| skirt employment laws.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| If Jobs had been there, I can't help but believe there wouldn't
| have been a notch on the iPhone and the watch would have a
| longer lasting battery. My Samsung watch can go 2 days in
| between charges, so it should be possible.
| _moof wrote:
| Hard to say. Jobs oversaw all sorts of whiffs. The circular
| mouse comes to mind. And his ability to turn these kinds of
| errors into "it's good, actually" was so legendary that it
| had its own name.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
| Lammy wrote:
| > I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the
| top with taste who was willing to say "this is shit".
|
| It's _probably_ just a coincidence but I can 't help but notice
| how Apple didn't become a PRISM "Provider" until a year after
| he was dead, many years after the Googles/Facebooks of the
| world:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#/...
| bryanmgreen wrote:
| I've thought a lot about his legacy lately with the permanently
| on-going horror story that is Facebook and Mark Zuckerburg.
|
| For all of Steve's flaws, from an outside observer like myself,
| it seems that his intentions/desires/goals for Apple, Pixar, NeXT
| were mostly, or at least equally, fueled by genuinely wanting to
| improve the lives of humans.
|
| Among the rarified air of modern radical world-changing
| billionaire CEO's, anyone else think this is why there is a
| fandom for Elon Musk and not like the likes of Bezos? Because,
| again, despite his flaws, he seems to be at least oriented
| towards some idea of greater good?
| ferdowsi wrote:
| Musk (and his PR machine) leans into his mostly manufactured
| image as an eccentric genius, which charms an audience who is
| susceptible to that type of thing.
|
| Bezos has had no significant public profile to speak of except
| as a brutal, unrelenting capitalist. He's clearly trying to
| change that with his post-Amazon charm tour in space.
| mattl wrote:
| Nice to see some acknowledgment of NeXT in the video. Often Apple
| stuff pretends that era never happened.
| Austin_Conlon wrote:
| I was watching a WWDC session the other day and it mentioned
| that "TextKit 1 first appeared on the system in OpenStep" https
| ://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021-10061/?time....
| It's a shame how little historical material there is on NeXT.
| steviedotboston wrote:
| oh wow oh wow oh wow
| geoffpado wrote:
| You seem to be getting downvoted, so to help give some context,
| these are supposedly Jobs's last words:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/oct/31/steve-job...
| smoldesu wrote:
| Shortly after his... other last words to his family.
| https://nypost.com/2018/08/02/steve-jobs-told-his-
| daughter-s...
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| From my experience... Cancer medication and treatment does
| awful things to people.
|
| I wouldn't judge Jobs for the things he said while dying.
| However I'd judge him for his actions while he was living.
| Or rather, listen to the judgements of people who were
| close to him. So I have a hard time admiring him, though he
| was at the centre of a lot of admirable stuff.
| [deleted]
| jamespo wrote:
| Unsurprised to see recently minted HN accounts take this
| opportunity to slag him off
| musicale wrote:
| Steve Jobs definitely contributed to a number of my favorite
| computing devices, and also helped to create my favorite computer
| company! (Though now we often call them tablets, phones, watches,
| etc..)
|
| Jobs and Apple are both polarizing, but I have to say they've had
| a pretty positive impact in my life in terms of computing joy and
| inspiration. That sort of joy and inspiration is an important
| reason why I am (still) in the computing field.
| animanoir wrote:
| Mixed feelings about him honestly. I still can't forget how he
| betrayed Wozniak.
| snek_case wrote:
| Having read multiple Jobs biographies, it also seemed to me
| that he may have been bipolar, but unmedicated because of his
| stance on medication. Sometimes very hard to work with or be
| around. People ascribe incredible genius to this guy, but
| forget that he could be a very impulsive, arrogant and
| sometimes cruel human being.
|
| Regarding Steve Wozniak, that's another big issue. Not only the
| betrayal, but it betrays a divide between Jobs and Wozniak. The
| original Apple II was a computer designed by Wozniak, and very
| open to tinkerers. Jobs didn't want the computer to be open or
| to have many extension slots, he wanted total control over the
| system. He designed his vision of a computer (the Macintosh),
| and it was a flop. Jobs killed the Apple II and sent the
| company on a downwards spiral that lasted several years.
|
| It kind of pains me to see that so many people in tech love
| Apple products, but forget that Apple is not a platform made
| for creative engineers, it's designed to be a closed system
| they have control over. They don't really value or encourage
| your curiosity. They don't want you to peek at what's inside.
| Even though Apple, like most tech companies, was started by
| creative engineers.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| It's not really a fair characterization to call the first Mac
| a flop; it sold reasonably well, though obviously not as well
| as the Apple II given the higher price point:
|
| https://www.cultofmac.com/479113/today-apple-history-
| first-1...
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| I wonder how many of us would fare if subject to the same kind
| of scrutiny Jobs is.
|
| As for the Wozniak thing, Wozniak forgave him. As he was the
| one wronged, we should let it go, too. Heck, if I didn't
| forgive my friends now and then, I wouldn't have any.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Woz's forgiveness speaks mountains more of Woz's character
| than it does of Jobs.
| biggieshellz wrote:
| Or how he taunted Alvy Ray Smith because of his Southern
| accent. Or how his example continues to be used to excuse bad
| behavior today ("but Steve Jobs did it that way").
| philwelch wrote:
| He occasionally did that to Tim Cook as well.
| google234123 wrote:
| You should get over it
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Let's not forget the wage fixing cartel that he started and
| really kept going.
|
| Ended when Facebook wouldn't play along.
|
| One reason developer salaries have popped so strongly in the
| last five years or so.
| amelius wrote:
| Indeed. No hacker deserves to be treated like that.
|
| Without hackers, Jobs would have been designing plastic
| utensils with rounded corners for Tupperware, or something like
| that.
| paxys wrote:
| He screwed over a ton of Apple employees. In Jobs' mind he
| truly deserved all of the credit and profits for their success
| because he was the vision guy. Woz and the rest of the team
| were just doing the boring implementation stuff.
| m0llusk wrote:
| This is a big oversimplification. Some people got screwed
| therefore he was always screwing everyone over. His career
| spans many years and quite a few people managed great
| contributions working with him in that time and got very well
| compensated and congratulated for that.
|
| Steve Jobs did give a lot of credit to the people who worked
| under him, just to pick out a couple of notable examples he
| frequently heaped praise on Avie Tevanian and also the guy
| who actually made the initial speculative potential merger
| call to Apple. And in doing so he specifically called out
| their accomplishments as being savvy and decisive and not
| just boring implementation stuff.
| bigtones wrote:
| He didn't just screw over Apple employees - Pixar employees
| and founders too.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| especially when contrasted withg how Woz acted and continues to
| act. He just seems like a much more happy human being, and it's
| warming to see good things happen to good people.
| takahisah wrote:
| Ten years ago I was at Infinite Loop, when Apple held a special
| event in memory of Steve. Everybody was wearing sunglasses to
| hide their tears, even Tim and Jony. I remember Jonys speech
| quite vividly as it showed how truly close they were. He joked
| about how he would never unpack his bags upon arriving at a hotel
| because Steve would call him and say the hotel is shit so they
| had to move immediately after checking in. I think it's those
| human connections he made that made him so great. Lots of people
| have their Steve Jobs story. I don't know of many other people
| that make that kind of connection with people on such a deep
| level. Thanks Apple for posting this and thanks for remembering
| and celebrating him. I'm no longer an employee, but always a fan.
| May your best inventions be in your future.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I heard a Jobs story from someone who shall remain nameless:
|
| They all went out to dinner with Jobs (this was before his
| return to Apple), eight or more people. Jobs announced that
| he'd order for everyone, ordered all vegetarian dishes, and
| then ate nothing himself.
| nzmsv wrote:
| > He joked about how he would never unpack his bags upon
| arriving at a hotel because Steve would call him and say the
| hotel is shit so they had to move immediately after checking
| in. I think it's those human connections he made that made him
| so great.
|
| This is awful, no? There are people like that who can never be
| pleased. Usually narcissists. I fail to see where the human
| connection is in being a crybaby Karen.
|
| Not to diminish Jobs' accomplishments, but it's one thing to
| say "he was a complicated man, achieved a lot but was difficult
| to deal with" and quite another to being up that story as a
| positive. That just seems like Stockholm syndrome.
| Stevvo wrote:
| Maybe the hotels really were shit, and the response was
| somewhat reasonable?
| steinskeeper wrote:
| It was my dream to meet Steve. Would not have gone down this road
| of trying to build things I love if not for finding inspiration
| from watching him present all those products. Thank You Steve.
| basisword wrote:
| This thread reminds me of the last Steve Jobs related thread. So
| many people bashing Jobs based on stories they've read having
| never met him and knowing little about him. People seem to think
| they even know his private medical history based on only public
| reports. So much judgement and criticism and it feels completely
| unnecessary. It's the kind of pointless outrage type comments we
| tend not to find very often on HN, but Steve Jobs seems to bring
| it out in people. I don't doubt there are many valid criticisms
| of Jobs but it's depressing that a thread linking to a post about
| his 10th anniversary has almost no talk of the incredible
| contributions he made in life.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I like to think all reasonable computer nerds recognize the
| duality that created Apple: incredible engineering (Woz)
| combined with incredible passion, marketing and drive (Jobs).
| The problem is people point to Jobs as an example of
| unacceptable behaviours that are excused by his results. Yet
| somehow Woz showed us you could do really ingenious engineering
| AND be a decent human being, but they don't teach this in
| business school.
| animanoir wrote:
| This "contributions" you're talking about someone elsewhere
| would have done it, and we can just imagine how better the
| world would be if those contributions would be for the benefit
| of the world and not for a company.
| zamalek wrote:
| And even if someone else had made these "contributions," the
| nature of the them is dubious at best. The world is not a
| better place because of a phone, or a laptop, or a desktop.
|
| His one and _only_ innovation was the ability to say "no."
| "No" to superfluous features, and "no" to tracking. That is a
| rare quality, but hardly unique. Apple (under his leadership)
| even attempted to trademark ideas that were not their own.[1]
|
| It is very worrying that society continues to fawn over this
| greedy man, while quickly forgetting those who made genuine
| contributions.[2]
|
| [1]: https://lizerbramlaw.com/2011/10/12/apples-multi-touch-
| and-t... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_English_(com
| puter_enginee...
| eikenberry wrote:
| I don't think this is really unique to Jobs. In fact I think he
| gets a pretty big break because people like Apple and, well,
| he's dead. Musk or Bezos, for example, seem to catch a lot more
| crap.
| exBarrelSpoiler wrote:
| What about stories from actual Apple employees?
|
| https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=90_Hours_A_Week_...
|
| https://venturebeat.com/2011/08/25/michael-dhuey-apple-engin...
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-apple-employee-on-steve-j...
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/01/former-apple-employee-guy-ka...
| enraged_camel wrote:
| There's no doubt that Jobs was a very polarizing figure, had
| many negative character traits and made a lot of mistakes
| throughout his life. For what it's worth, I read his
| biography and he came across as repentant and apologetic when
| confronted, especially near the end when he knew he was going
| to die. He was a brilliant but flawed person, and he was
| aware of it.
|
| What really rubs me the wrong way is people who refuse to
| give him credit for his tremendous achievements, and belittle
| and ridicule him instead.
| exBarrelSpoiler wrote:
| Who is actually belittling and ridiculing him?
|
| Some Apple defenders seem to be stuck sometime between the
| mid-90s when Apple was on the verge of collapse, and before
| the introduction of the iPod. Apple is the most profitable
| company on Earth. Jobs' place in the history books is
| assured. This isn't some plucky underdog that's in need of
| defense anymore. Even the fiercest critic of Jobs will need
| to recognize his accomplishments, and Apple's success. And
| even if they don't, so what? Apple is a giant. It has
| outshone M$ and made their mobile attempts look like a
| joke. Steve Jobs is a secular saint, an icon. Who cares
| what a few trolls think?
|
| The most irritating thing about modern Apple fanboyism is
| that it lets the most profitable company on Earth and its
| leadership off scot-free. Anyone who criticizes Apple is
| put in the same company as bullies from decades ago who
| were on the side of Wintel and mocking a tortured genius.
| That's very outdated. And it blinds people from valid
| critiques.
| taytus wrote:
| Sometimes people (me included) can't separate the person from
| their creations/actions.
|
| I'm not saying they always should, but is just an observation.
|
| I think is fair to say that Jobs changed several industries and
| that has a lot of value to me, but there are plenty of
| documented situations when I was left thinking he was not a
| good person.
|
| I don't need to know him to learn from all those documented
| facts.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Well in the context of this post they're lionizing the
| individual as a stellar human, so I think it's fair to
| question you agree with this, or if it's even accurate.
| echelon wrote:
| I'm incredibly thankful for Jobs introducing the personal
| computer. Computers are devices that we can own and use, not
| intangible and unreachable academic things. We owe our careers
| in part to him and his work.
|
| At the same time, I'm profoundly upset at his introduction of
| the App Store and sidelining of the right to repair. Our
| devices belong to us. We should be able to do with them what we
| please.
|
| It's also incredibly anti-competitive to tell every startup in
| the world that what was once free to distribute, market, and
| form a relationship with their customer: "now you must sit atop
| Apple rails for (entirely artificial) reasons". It's
| extractive. There's so much more to solve in the world. Why
| take energy from those smaller than you? It lowered the fitness
| and innovation capacity of everyone else. Those dollars could
| be runway and additional labor for someone with bright ideas.
|
| Jobs was a human just like the rest of us. There was both good
| and bad in him, and he made a profound mark upon society. The
| world was shaped by his short time here. No question.
| soperj wrote:
| Woz was introducing people to the personal computer that he
| built before Jobs even came around.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > "Jobs introducing the personal computer" ??
|
| Um, no. Read some history.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Can we please update the title to clarify it's Steve Jobs. I know
| that's the original title on the site but it's a bit confusing
| when it comes to Steves and Apple. My heart dropped when I read
| it and thought it was Steve Wozniak.
| spicybright wrote:
| Still wish he was around. Apple has made some interesting stuff,
| but I think it would have been so much better with steve at the
| helm.
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but a big focus of his was user friendly
| affordable tech. Not luxury items like apple is now.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Well, I agree that Apple would have been even better with Steve
| at the helm. As for affordability apple has never been cheap,
| when the first iphone came out it was very expensive, $600 in
| 2007 which would be $791 in today's dollars. This is for a
| phone with no apps or app store and 8GB of storage which is
| really tiny.
|
| If we go back further apple products get even more expensive.
| The apple ii(released in 1978) was $1298 or $5543 in today's
| dollars, not exactly cheap!
| jamespo wrote:
| Typical for hardware at that time
| pjerem wrote:
| I don't think Apple was << affordable >>. Even under jobs it
| was expensive.
|
| But I agree it wasn't expensive for the sake of being expensive
| (the definition of luxury) like today where the high price is
| almost a feature. It was expensive because they always tried to
| be different and it allowed them to set higher prices.
| tumblewit wrote:
| I think it means 'user-friendly' cheap which is different
| than cheap. I don't see gnome to be user friendly much and
| don't even get me started on windows on mobile. iPadOS on the
| other hand is something 2 year olds or someone who has never
| used a computer can get used to in hours.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I don't recall affordability necessarily being a priority to
| Jobs.
|
| I'm not going to say Apple is about inexpensive products. The
| notion of luxury (outside some of their watch products, I
| guess) is a marketing angle though. They're accessible to
| enough peoples' budgets such that they dominate many market
| verticals. They've succeeded in this to such a degree that it's
| almost black magic to me.
| laumars wrote:
| I don't think I'd go as far as saying that. Apple has always
| had a premium price tag even under Jobs control. But I do agree
| that Cook has doubled down on the premium part of Apples
| product line (sometimes to the detriment of overall product
| quality, like those stupid MacBook "Pro"s with only 2x USB3
| ports and a keyboard which breaks after 10 minutes).
| smoldesu wrote:
| Steve Jobs wanted the computer to disappear, for better and
| worse. It was that kind of vision that at least made Apple
| kinda interesting to me, but their recent shift back to just
| "consumer technology" has really sucked all the air out of the
| room.
|
| I do wonder, same as you, what things would be like if he was
| still around. Maybe technology would be friendlier, and have a
| better place in this world. But at the same time, I remember
| how the man lived: eating fruit to supposedly stave off his
| cancer, violently berating his employees to get things finished
| faster, and even telling his daughter that she smelled like a
| toilet on his deathbed. Steve Jobs was a man, imperfect yet
| aligned just so that his manic side was completely hidden from
| the public (as opposed to, say, Ballmer). In any case, I'm
| tired of tech CEOs being self-important and elitist. Steve Jobs
| was the genesis for that, and his inability to admit when he
| was wrong ultimately lead to his demise.
|
| I'm saying this from a truly impartial, empathetic and caring
| place: Steve Jobs' behavior should serve as a warning sign for
| what happens when you let infinite ego expand unchecked.
| m463 wrote:
| I think he was a great integrator. He got people working
| together that needed to. Internally with groups at apple, and
| externally like the record labels and apple.
|
| I think he also listened to a variety of people and made course
| corrections.
|
| As to affordability: they always had high margins.
|
| wikipedia says of the original macintosh 128k:
|
| Introductory price: US$2,495 (equivalent to US$6,220 in 2020)
| jedberg wrote:
| I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he
| were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but
| certainly more interesting.
|
| I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and
| whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it
| seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic
| cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast
| resources to do everything he could to live.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Do you think Apple would've been able to survive without Steve
| Jobs to help bootstrap and reignite it? I doubt it personally.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I highly doubt it, too. Remember Jobs also not only saved
| Pixar from oblivion, he turned it into a powerhouse.
| philwelch wrote:
| At the very least, it would have been a lot more interesting to
| see Steve Jobs in those Senate hearings.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Another interesting what-if: what if Wozniak remained at Apple
| after 1985? How would the company have proceeded, especially
| after Jobs was removed- if he was?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think he did quite a bit out of the ordinary, according to
| reports like this (1):
|
| > "Through a legal, little-known practice called multiple
| listing, Jobs doubled his odds by getting on waiting lists in
| California and Tennessee. Competition was too stiff back home
| in California, and Jobs, his wealth and fame notwithstanding,
| may have died waiting. But in mere weeks he jumped to the top
| of the list in Memphis, ahead of dozens of others."
|
| I would have a much higher opinion of Steve Jobs if he'd have
| kept Apple manufacturing in the USA instead of helping gut the
| Bay Area's electronics manufacturing industry by outsourcing to
| Foxconn and others. He was basically another clever CEO with a
| rather ruthless streak, hardly the Heroic Idea Man he's
| portrayed as.
|
| 1. https://archive.naplesnews.com/news/southern-transplants-
| how...
| philwelch wrote:
| > I would have a much higher opinion of Steve Jobs if he'd
| have kept Apple manufacturing in the USA instead of helping
| gut the Bay Area's electronics manufacturing industry by
| outsourcing to Foxconn and others.
|
| He did. Apple's manufacturing wasn't outsourced until well
| after Jobs left the company in 1985:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-
| california...
|
| Meanwhile at NeXT, Steve Jobs built a massive automated
| factory in Fremont: https://www.cultofmac.com/617676/a-brief-
| history-of-steve-jo...
|
| None of these efforts worked out, which is probably one
| reason he didn't reverse Apple's trend of outsourcing after
| he returned in 1997. Tim Cook took charge of Apple's
| operations in 1998.
| paxys wrote:
| Tim Cook is the one responsible for their overseas
| manufacturing. Him successfully pulling it off is the reason
| he became CEO.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Some of Jobs' later success probably came from his knowledge of
| his own mortality. This enabled him to shoot for the moon and
| drive as hard as he could.
| jedberg wrote:
| He still would have had that had he survived I think.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he
| were still around
|
| There is no way Jobs would have been at the helm of Apple, even
| if he was still alive.
|
| He'd have been canceled, matter of fact he'd have been one of
| the first people to get canceled given that he'd be occupying a
| spot wanted by basically everybody, plus he had made so many
| enemies....and finally let's not dabble around it: guy had so
| many personal flaws and his personal relationships are a mine
| field.
|
| He'd have been #metoo'd or singled out for abusive behavior
| towards subordinates or some other thing.
|
| He was the one guy who could be taken down by basically every
| strain of SJW. They'd have had the time of their lives dragging
| him in so many battlefields of the culture wars, and he'd have
| lost on all of them.
|
| From a legacy standpoint death was the best thing for Steve
| Jobs, much like his idol John Lennon. Death freezes the public
| perception and stops people from digging dirt.
| downandout wrote:
| You are correct that Steve, like most high profile CEOs,
| would have been vulnerable to the cancel police. I think this
| is one reason that many high net worth Bitcoiners choose to
| stay under-the-radar: not being vulnerable to the whims of
| the social media masses seems like the ultimate luxury. Bill
| Murray, the actor, had a prescient quote about this in an
| interview that occurred before metoo and the rest of the
| culture wars heated up:
|
| _"I always want to say to people who want to be rich and
| famous: 'Try being rich first.' See if that doesn't cover
| most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other
| than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for
| money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour
| job."_
|
| I think people today want more money and less fame, having
| watched many of the people they looked up to be publicly
| destroyed by the masses. Everyone makes mistakes, but famous
| people pay outsized prices for them.
| GDC7 wrote:
| Oh for sure. Being famous today in the US is not worth it.
|
| Given how litigious the US is and how every surface of
| attack is exploited by the mob (offline or online) is
| simply not worth it.
|
| My prediction is that people have a natural desire to be
| appreciated , so Americans might look to find some social
| relevance in other countries.
|
| English speaking countries which are less litigious such as
| South Africa, Dubai, Singapore, New Zealand, the Caribbean
| etc.
| burnished wrote:
| You're talking about the idea of some one who hurts and
| abuses other people no longer being allowed to be a part of
| polite society, and the people that want that to be the case,
| like its a bad thing.
|
| It is just mind boggling. Do you read your own comments?
| GDC7 wrote:
| > You're talking about the idea of some one who hurts and
| abuses other people no longer being allowed to be a part of
| polite society, and the people that want that to be the
| case, like its a bad thing.
|
| No , the bad thing is that when somebody is dragged out in
| the court of public opinion all the positive contributions
| of that particular individual are not taken into
| consideration.
|
| I am now a wide eyed utopian, I am a very practical person.
| As a practical person I tell you that if society doesn't
| let the good things that one does offset the negative flaws
| that one might have....then people will ask themselves if
| it's worth to do good things at all.
|
| The SJWs I mentioned (and suspect also you) would
| retroactively cancel Richard Feynman because he grabbed by
| the waist some Brazilian dancer while he was teaching in
| Rio. Even if that meant succumbing to Hitler's Nazi
| Germany.
|
| Dick Feynman earned the right to dance with as many
| Brazilian girls as he wanted.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| You're going to have to explain what the Manhattan
| Project had to do with victory in Europe. And after that,
| please explain why Feynman's contributions to it were so
| critical.
|
| Finally, I'd like to ask for an explanation as to how
| Feynman's actions starting in 1949 could have had a
| causal effect on a war that ended in 1945.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > Finally, I'd like to ask for an explanation as to how
| Feynman's actions starting in 1949 could have had a
| causal effect on a war that ended in 1945.
|
| That's exactly what I mean, thank you! You have stressed
| the whole point!
|
| Society feels comfortable in canceling people because
| these people already gave their contribution and for sure
| the person being canceled can't retroactively destroy all
| their contributions. If they could that'd be a powerful
| weapon of self defense, some sort of dead man switch
| against the mob.
|
| But they don't, hence society is emboldened to destroy
| that person because it's the path of least resistence
| towards getting what it really wants: Separating the
| contributions from the person who made them, thus making
| sure that they cannot benefit from them, socially or
| financially.
|
| Society would think long and hard before canceling people
| if it also meant automatically removing all their
| contributions.
|
| I bet you society would have not canceled Harvey
| Weinstein if it also meant the complete disappearence of:
|
| - Reservoir dogs
|
| - Pulp Fiction
|
| - Kill Bill
|
| - The Aviator
|
| - Gangs of New York
|
| - Wolf of Wall Street
|
| .
|
| .
|
| .
|
| Hypocrisy
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Society "cancelled" Harvey Weinstein because he raped
| multiple women, to the point where it was an in-joke in
| Hollywood. I don't think he's much of a good example
| except to identify how long it takes for justice to reach
| someone.
|
| Maybe someone like Aziz Ansari is a better example...
| except he wasn't really cancelled - just hit a bump in
| his career that he had to acknowledge. (Similarly, Louis
| CK).
|
| I absolutely would be OK with deleting every record of
| those movies, some of which are my favorites, if there
| were any point in doing so. The important thing is that a
| rapist is held accountable!
| GDC7 wrote:
| > Society "cancelled" Harvey Weinstein because he raped
| multiple women, to the point where it was an in-joke in
| Hollywood. I don't think he's much of a good example
| except to identify how long it takes for justice to reach
| someone.
|
| He caused lifechanging trauma to 10-20 people. That is
| not excusable.
|
| What is not brought up in the assesment of his persona is
| the amount of entertainment he provided to the world.
|
| The aggregate of 40 hours of AAA movies being enjoyed by
| 3 billion people between theatre, DVD, streaming, TV and
| piracy.
|
| But of course you can't call 3 billion people up to
| provide their account of what positive impact Wienstin
| had on their lives. Plus while the trauma caused is
| substantial, the entertainment provided to the
| aforementioned 3 billion people is marginal.
|
| When you judge somebody you should see the whole picture.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Feynman is a weird example - he talks about pickup
| culture and getting women to sleep with him. He also was
| a bad husband, spent a lot of time in a strip club
| drawing "art", and chased after Las Vegas Showgirls.
|
| I'm not certain he would have been cancelled - I think
| that's mostly projection - but it's useful to acknowledge
| he wasn't exactly a "good guy", despite his contributions
| to science.
|
| (The screed about the Nazis has already been debunked in
| another comment.)
| GDC7 wrote:
| > but it's useful to acknowledge he wasn't exactly a
| "good guy"
|
| What exactly constitutes a "good guy" for you?
|
| The only possible definition is somebody who wastes away
| his life, doesn't have fun, works all the times and gifts
| the discoveries of his endless hours of work to his
| subordinates so that they can claim as their own.
|
| Obviously rejects any compensation above minimum wage for
| the whole ordeal, so that he could not even have the
| temptation to spend, because he needs that minimum amount
| to eat.
|
| Not even Jesus Christ would manage to make it into your
| tier of "good guys".
|
| What has the world come to...Feynman being thrown under
| the bus on HN.
| planb wrote:
| Interesting idea. But Musk and Bezos are still in charge...
| danieldk wrote:
| _I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he
| were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but
| certainly more interesting._
|
| I agree. As a user of Apple products, I think Apple makes great
| products. And I don't believe Apple can't innovate because Jobs
| is gone (they basically set category standards in smartwatches,
| wireless earbuds, and ARM desktop computers since then).
|
| But Apple was certainly more _fun_ with Jobs. Many keynotes
| since Jobs have been cringeworthy, with the studied jokes, to
| slick presentations, etc. Jobs had natural showmanship and was
| confident enough in that to do present more spontaneously. Made
| the keynotes more fun.
|
| Also I feel like product had larger design deltas. In the ten
| years since Jobs, Macs have mostly been aluminium/space grey
| (though they are definitely improving with the new iMacs),
| there was much more variety and evolution in the design the ten
| years before.
|
| Plus, the NeXTcube was the probably most beautiful computer
| ever.
| Arubis wrote:
| For better and for worse, Jobs being so strongheaded about his
| own health and care was just another expression of precisely
| the same attributes that made him such an effective innovator:
| convinced his taste was right, he willed reality to bend to his
| perception of it. That works well on humans; it's (mostly)
| ineffective on disease.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I knew another person who was so strongheaded about his
| health that he could bend reality. It didn't work for him,
| either.
| Zababa wrote:
| Shouldn't people be free to do whatever they want with their
| own life? I think that if he valued his principles more than
| his life, he should be free to do so.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Right, OP wasn't suggesting he shouldn't have been free to do
| what he did. The fact that he changed his mind when it was
| too late suggested even he knew he'd made a mistake.
| mankyd wrote:
| OP isn't suggesting what Jobs did should be disallowed.
| Merely they are expressing disappointment in what was
| probably a poor decision healthwise.
| [deleted]
| thamer wrote:
| Screenshot of the front page of Hacker News the day Steve Jobs
| died: https://i.imgur.com/yheyTOh.png
| xutopia wrote:
| Steve would not have allowed the godawful tabs in the latest
| Safari. There are so many things wrong with them!
| diego_moita wrote:
| What I remember the most about Jobs' death are 2 things:
|
| 1) Most of the media did an heavy coverage of his death and
| legacy.
|
| 2) Exactly 1 week after his death one of my personal heroes died
| too: Dennis MacLister Ritchie. Almost no one paid attention.
|
| From computers to micro-controllers, from satellites to abs
| breaks, Ritchie's legacy goes far deeper and wider than Jobs'.
| Almost every programmer today touches some of his legacy every
| day at work. However very few magazines and newspapers mentioned
| him. I suspect that, even here at HN, many programmers don't even
| know who he was.
|
| I think that's sad...
|
| * Edit: Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson created the most
| influential, revolutionary and innovative software system in
| history, the Unix operating system. He also created the most
| influential of all programming languages, C.
| disneygibson wrote:
| Ritchie's contribution was so fundamental that it was almost
| impossible to actually recognize his achievements. It's like
| honoring the guy that invented the pencil.
|
| Jobs, on the other hand, ran a company that sold products which
| billions of people knowingly interacted with on a daily basis.
|
| No need to compare the two. One built the foundation, the other
| built the pretty house on top of it.
| musicale wrote:
| > One built the foundation, the other built the pretty house
| on top of it.
|
| Though the original Mac didn't use UNIX or C. ;-)
| philwelch wrote:
| Steve Jobs was a celebrity. Celebrities are, well, celebrated.
| People who do important work don't necessarily become
| celebrities. I used to find that deeply unfair, but I'm not
| sure being well-known among the common populace is necessarily
| something to be desired in the first place.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Really? I mourned Ritchie's passing much more than Jobs.
|
| I think perhaps the reason it feeling like that is that Jobs
| was a figure that consumers knew, but I definitely think folks
| in engineering mourn Ritchie's passing more.
| soperj wrote:
| Dennis Ritchie's book on C is pretty well required reading for
| anyone going through a computer science program no?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I suspect there are CS programs that don't even _teach_ C at
| this point.
| soperj wrote:
| That seems really weird to me. We even did a machine
| language course even though we will never do any machine
| language programming. It's good to understand what the hell
| is going on. C is amazing in explaining how memory
| management works, since you have to do it all yourself.
| float4 wrote:
| For an undergrad course on compilers that I took, I had
| to build a parser, implement a state machine and a few
| other things. All in Haskell.
|
| For my master's I took a course on static analysis, for
| which we had to perform usage analysis, type error
| diagnosis, implement a type checker etc. All in...
| Haskell.
| soperj wrote:
| We did something similar, not in Haskell unfortunately.
| We did have a programming languages class that introduced
| us to haskell. It seems so damn intuitive. As a web
| developer though there just isn't the support for that
| language unfortunately.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| C teaches you how PDP11 memory management works. Modern
| PC/server hardware doesn't work like this, neither do
| modern applications that use accelerators, and while the
| system works hard to present this virtual address space
| to your runtime, you don't need to think about it in many
| languages, from LISP to Swift. Most devs write
| Javascript.
|
| I say this as a person who loves C and taught it lovingly
| to undergrads for many years.
|
| Embedded system programming is a lovely niche, but we
| don't need to design CS curricula around it.
| soperj wrote:
| I would hope you wouldn't be designing cs curricula
| around javascript, because even javascript frameworks are
| moving to typescript.
|
| This seems like not teaching calculus because you can do
| it on a calculator. I didn't do a degree that focused on
| C development, but I still had to know how to do it. God
| forbid any of your graduates end up working on an
| operating system at some point.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > I would hope you wouldn't be designing cs curricula
| around javascript
|
| I didn't propose that.
|
| I'd expect a good curriculum to expose students to
| several languages, so that picking up another one is not
| an ordeal.
| solveit wrote:
| I went through the joint honours degree in mathematics and
| computer science at Oxford (that's basically a particularly
| rigid double major for people unfamiliar with the British
| system). I did not learn C, mostly because I spent a good
| deal of effort trying to stay as far from actual
| implementations as possible, but I'm sure it's quite
| possible for even straight CS students to not learn C. I
| don't believe that any required courses (which in
| particular does _not_ include a course on operating
| systems) use C.
| mattnewton wrote:
| It was not for me; C wasn't even taught outside of an
| elective on operating systems, the main CS course was mostly
| Java and python with one quarter focused on C++.
| soperj wrote:
| That's really sad. I mean, we weren't actually taught any
| programming language, but we had courses that required C,
| so the Ritchie & Kernighan book was part of the deal.
| approxim8ion wrote:
| It wasn't in my program. There was a lousy textbook that is
| only popular among engineering programs in my country, and
| only a few offhanded mentions of K&R.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> and most of all to stay humble in our own beginner's mind.
|
| This sounds highly revisionist based on how he approached and
| treated people who knew more about him in many areas.
|
| and this:
|
| >> We were blessed to have him as husband and father.
|
| My own father may be a nobody to history but he's a superior
| husband and father to Jobs on any scale.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Now, it is no place to compare fathers like that. You can both
| be blessed to have your respective fathers. :)
| anhldbk wrote:
| 10 years. Still I remember his speech at Stanford 2005 [1]
|
| "Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped
| it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the
| single best invention of life."
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
| [deleted]
| pupppet wrote:
| He was no saint but it was a more interesting world with him in
| it.
| exBarrelSpoiler wrote:
| A tempting opportunity to exercise Godwin's law.
| ksec wrote:
| I cant help but think Apple is using Steve to tell us what Apple
| really is. Since Tim Cook has failed to communicate that message
| across to its audience. ( May be apart from certain ideology
| group ).
|
| It may also help to temper the new born hatred against Apple from
| their long time supporters.
|
| I really wish he was still alive, and continue to be the yard
| stick of quality so we dont have Apple Music, spending two years
| on the _next song_ and then another two years reversing that.
| [1], Apple TV+, as Steve would have partnered with Disney. A
| whole generation of MacBook with Butterfly Keyboard. Apple
| without an Editor is like a Giant Design Studio, everything looks
| great, from UI to Industrial Design. But they are more forms over
| function.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/B9Ve-mEy1oY?t=260
| foobarian wrote:
| Steve would never have let them make phones with those enormous
| camera bumps.
| soperj wrote:
| iTunes was always a complete pig.
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