6 ms·

Keep on thinking of Steve Jobs saying companies like these are features not products

by thenightcrawler 6y ago

superbcarrot 6y ago
Hmm can you share more about this? It makes sense on the surface but it would be great to know what the context was.
- nickelcitymario 6y ago
  > In 2009, Steve Jobs wanted to pay more than a hundred million dollars for Dropbox. As Houston later told Forbes’ Victoria Barret, when he politely turned down his hero’s offer, Jobs declared that Dropbox was a feature, not a product. Jobs was right: To do what we all want it to do, syncing has to be baked in to all the gadgets we use today. OS companies are warming to that notion—and they don’t need Dropbox to do it. https://pando.com/2012/02/26/steve-jobs-was-right-dropbox-is-a-feature-not-a-product/ https://pando.com/2012/02/26/steve-jobs-was-right-dropbox-is...
- anonymouse008 6y ago
  Other folks have said it was in context of trying to buy Dropbox, which is true. I believe Steve already saw the fully realized platform of cross device computing in 2001. iPod illuminated the idea that context can birth new device classes, so naturally if you're going to have the same person use multiple devices, their context should morph to the device while being consistent in a global user state. This means that a file syncing (and by extension file sharing) feature is absolutely required to be fluid and desirable as a consumer product. Firewire was created in part because of this desire for the file sharing to be seamless - now Dropbox had a real-world tested wireless and continuous implementation running on Apple hardware, of course it's an acquisition target (I'm just surprised he didn't go higher knowing how much trouble MobileMe / iCloud accounts were at the time).
  - WoodenChair 6y ago
    Actually this goes way before the iPod. At NeXT they already had a (pretty standard in Unix environments) setup where you could login to any machine on the network and have access to your personal Home folder. I remember reading this was one of the reasons he didn’t right away change over to using a Mac when he came back to Apple.
DSingularity 6y ago
Do you remember in what context he say that?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- webwielder2 6y ago
  Apple was trying to buy Dropbox to incorporate into the OS.
jjoonathan 6y ago
I sure hope not. Every vertical company wants my files locked in their walled garden, but I want my files to be horizontally portable. This is a fight where it's nice to have a $10B company in your corner.
- weeboid 6y ago
  In the near future, storage will be a home appliance, with networking and command-and-control. As simple to use as a microwave, unlimited storage with service plans similar to changing water filters.
  - qmmmur 6y ago
    Is this sarcasm?
    - triceratops 6y ago
      Sounds reasonable to me. We already have homes with outlandish smart stuff (washers and dryers, I mean really!). If you have a fridge to store your food and a closet to store your clothes, why not a personal data storage unit?
      - themacguffinman 6y ago
        Because it's not necessary and pointlessly inconvenient for most people? If you could store your food and clothes in the cloud, we wouldn't have fridges and closets either.
        triceratops 6y ago
        That's true. Have an upvote.
      - qmmmur 6y ago
        Yeah we could call them hard drives and sell them in shops.

Keep on thinking of Steve Jobs saying companies like these are features not products

superbcarrot 6y ago

Hmm can you share more about this? It makes sense on the surface but it would be great to know what the context was.

nickelcitymario 6y ago
> In 2009, Steve Jobs wanted to pay more than a hundred million dollars for Dropbox. As Houston later told Forbes’ Victoria Barret, when he politely turned down his hero’s offer, Jobs declared that Dropbox was a feature, not a product. Jobs was right: To do what we all want it to do, syncing has to be baked in to all the gadgets we use today. OS companies are warming to that notion—and they don’t need Dropbox to do it. https://pando.com/2012/02/26/steve-jobs-was-right-dropbox-is-a-feature-not-a-product/ https://pando.com/2012/02/26/steve-jobs-was-right-dropbox-is...
anonymouse008 6y ago
Other folks have said it was in context of trying to buy Dropbox, which is true. I believe Steve already saw the fully realized platform of cross device computing in 2001. iPod illuminated the idea that context can birth new device classes, so naturally if you're going to have the same person use multiple devices, their context should morph to the device while being consistent in a global user state. This means that a file syncing (and by extension file sharing) feature is absolutely required to be fluid and desirable as a consumer product. Firewire was created in part because of this desire for the file sharing to be seamless - now Dropbox had a real-world tested wireless and continuous implementation running on Apple hardware, of course it's an acquisition target (I'm just surprised he didn't go higher knowing how much trouble MobileMe / iCloud accounts were at the time).
- WoodenChair 6y ago
  Actually this goes way before the iPod. At NeXT they already had a (pretty standard in Unix environments) setup where you could login to any machine on the network and have access to your personal Home folder. I remember reading this was one of the reasons he didn’t right away change over to using a Mac when he came back to Apple.

DSingularity 6y ago

Do you remember in what context he say that?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
webwielder2 6y ago
Apple was trying to buy Dropbox to incorporate into the OS.

jjoonathan 6y ago

I sure hope not. Every vertical company wants my files locked in their walled garden, but I want my files to be horizontally portable. This is a fight where it's nice to have a $10B company in your corner.

weeboid 6y ago
In the near future, storage will be a home appliance, with networking and command-and-control. As simple to use as a microwave, unlimited storage with service plans similar to changing water filters.
- qmmmur 6y ago
  Is this sarcasm?
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Sounds reasonable to me. We already have homes with outlandish smart stuff (washers and dryers, I mean really!). If you have a fridge to store your food and a closet to store your clothes, why not a personal data storage unit?
    - themacguffinman 6y ago
      Because it's not necessary and pointlessly inconvenient for most people? If you could store your food and clothes in the cloud, we wouldn't have fridges and closets either.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        That's true. Have an upvote.
    - qmmmur 6y ago
      Yeah we could call them hard drives and sell them in shops.