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"his contributions to modern society" I'm reading this a lot, but I have a hard time figuring what Jobs contributed to society. There are a lot of cars and ther

by tintin 15y ago

"his contributions to modern society" I'm reading this a lot, but I have a hard time figuring what Jobs contributed to society. There are a lot of cars and there are 'perfected' cars like Ferrari. But does that mean the creators of Ferrari contributed to society?

philwelch 15y ago
I'm reading this a lot, but I have a hard time figuring what Jobs contributed to society. Everyone who uses a personal computer, smartphone, or tablet of any description, or has watched a 3D computer-animated film, has been affected, for the better, by his life's work. So have the millions around the world who make a living, directly or indirectly, from the businesses he built.
- Quarrelsome 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure there are many designers and engineers within Apple that we should be more thankful to and had more direct involvement with the creation of the products.
  - yardie 15y ago
    By that analogy you should be thankful to everyone everyday since everyone farm the fields, build the roads, build the trucks, drive the trucks, clean the roads, distribute the food, build the warehouses, run the logistics software, etc that put food on your table everyday. Also, those engineers and designers came from other fields because there wasn't a real PC industry until Steve and Bill came along. Even those engineers that worked with him commended him for being able to see the bigger picture.
learc83 15y ago
Imagine if every car manufacturer copied the design of the "perfected" Ferrari until almost every car sold was inspired by that Ferrari. Then I would say that the designer of that car had contributed to society. People forget what phones looked like in 2006. My parents now both have smart phones that look a lot like iPhones (but aren't) that they spend hours using a day. Like him or not, you can't argue Steve Jobs didn't have a huge impact on modern society.
- Toady 15y ago
  Steve Jobs wasn't the designer of the iPhone. Other people made it while he cracked the whip. For some reason, a lot of the press is giving him credit for everything at Apple in spite of his infamous reputation for taking credit for other people's work. Jef Raskin said these things in regards to the Macintosh project: "What I proposed was a computer that would be easy to use, mix text and graphics, and sell for about $1,000. Steve Jobs said that it was a crazy idea, that it would never sell, and we didn't want anything like it. He tried to shoot the project down." "After he took over, Jobs came up with the story about the Mac project being a 'pirate operation.' We weren't trying to keep the project away from Apple, as he later said; we had very good ties with the rest of Apple. We were trying to keep the project away from Jobs' meddling. For the first two years, Jobs wanted to kill the project because he didn't understand what it was really all about." "I was very much amused by the recent Newsweek article where he [Jobs] said, 'I have a few good designs in me still.' He never had any designs. He has not designed a single product. Woz designed the Apple II. Ken Rothmuller and others designed Lisa. My team and I designed the Macintosh. Wendell Sanders designed the Apple III. What did Jobs design? Nothing."
  - ghshephard 15y ago
    Chapter 10 of Issacson's book spends quite a bit of time talking about Raskin vs Jobs on the Macintosh. Raskin is sourced several times for that chapter. The Macintosh would have been a very, very different product if Jobs had not taken over, and demanded a very different system than the one Raskin had envisioned. The Issacson Analysis (backed up by Atkinson) was that Raskin had envisioned an underpowered, less expensive system that would not have had many of the features that made the original Macintosh "Insanely Great." I like Gladwell's analysis - Jobs was a great _editor_ He didn't necessarily create very much, but he was driven to relentlessly critique until something great emerged. It's amazing how valuable a function that can be, particularly in the presences of great engineers who can rise to the challenge. The reason people praise Steve Jobs is not because he designed anything (though he may have had a few design suggestions) - but because his singular drive to release great products resulted in so many being created (and then, quite logically, being copied by everyone else) The Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad all came about because of Steve Jobs, and have changed the technology that we use every day. Love him, or Hate him, you can't take that away from him.
lloeki 15y ago
> But does that mean the creators of Ferrari contributed to society? Yes. The amount of research thrown into the likes of a Ferrari end up trickling all the way down to your regular car. From tyre compounds to suspension design to chassis structure to aerodynamics to engine optimization, your daily car would be nowhere as safe, economical, durable and so on without cutting edge technology designed for those ultra high-end cars. I had a nasty car crash that would simply have reduced me to bits ten years ago, but survived with only a few bruises and a bunch of displaced vertebrae. I could have escaped the crash altogether had the car been a couple of years less, and had been equipped with ESP. It would have been impossible to fit such amount of technology in such a cheap and lightweight package without bringing cutting-edge technology and perfect realization to the table at some point, but that comes with an awfully high price tag which can only be afforded by consumer luxury segment and professional racing. R&D in automotive consumes absolutely unfathomable and ridiculous amounts of money. So yes, a F458, a Corvette ZR1, a Honda NSX-R, a Zonda Cinque, a Bugatti Veyron, an Aston-Martin One-77, a Porsche GT3 RS, a Nissan GT-R, a Tesla Roadster are vehicles of perfection that bring something to the table for society as a whole.

by tintin 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago

I'm reading this a lot, but I have a hard time figuring what Jobs contributed to society. Everyone who uses a personal computer, smartphone, or tablet of any description, or has watched a 3D computer-animated film, has been affected, for the better, by his life's work. So have the millions around the world who make a living, directly or indirectly, from the businesses he built.

Quarrelsome 15y ago
I'm pretty sure there are many designers and engineers within Apple that we should be more thankful to and had more direct involvement with the creation of the products.
- yardie 15y ago
  By that analogy you should be thankful to everyone everyday since everyone farm the fields, build the roads, build the trucks, drive the trucks, clean the roads, distribute the food, build the warehouses, run the logistics software, etc that put food on your table everyday. Also, those engineers and designers came from other fields because there wasn't a real PC industry until Steve and Bill came along. Even those engineers that worked with him commended him for being able to see the bigger picture.

learc83 15y ago

Imagine if every car manufacturer copied the design of the "perfected" Ferrari until almost every car sold was inspired by that Ferrari. Then I would say that the designer of that car had contributed to society. People forget what phones looked like in 2006. My parents now both have smart phones that look a lot like iPhones (but aren't) that they spend hours using a day. Like him or not, you can't argue Steve Jobs didn't have a huge impact on modern society.

Toady 15y ago
Steve Jobs wasn't the designer of the iPhone. Other people made it while he cracked the whip. For some reason, a lot of the press is giving him credit for everything at Apple in spite of his infamous reputation for taking credit for other people's work. Jef Raskin said these things in regards to the Macintosh project: "What I proposed was a computer that would be easy to use, mix text and graphics, and sell for about $1,000. Steve Jobs said that it was a crazy idea, that it would never sell, and we didn't want anything like it. He tried to shoot the project down." "After he took over, Jobs came up with the story about the Mac project being a 'pirate operation.' We weren't trying to keep the project away from Apple, as he later said; we had very good ties with the rest of Apple. We were trying to keep the project away from Jobs' meddling. For the first two years, Jobs wanted to kill the project because he didn't understand what it was really all about." "I was very much amused by the recent Newsweek article where he [Jobs] said, 'I have a few good designs in me still.' He never had any designs. He has not designed a single product. Woz designed the Apple II. Ken Rothmuller and others designed Lisa. My team and I designed the Macintosh. Wendell Sanders designed the Apple III. What did Jobs design? Nothing."
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Chapter 10 of Issacson's book spends quite a bit of time talking about Raskin vs Jobs on the Macintosh. Raskin is sourced several times for that chapter. The Macintosh would have been a very, very different product if Jobs had not taken over, and demanded a very different system than the one Raskin had envisioned. The Issacson Analysis (backed up by Atkinson) was that Raskin had envisioned an underpowered, less expensive system that would not have had many of the features that made the original Macintosh "Insanely Great." I like Gladwell's analysis - Jobs was a great _editor_ He didn't necessarily create very much, but he was driven to relentlessly critique until something great emerged. It's amazing how valuable a function that can be, particularly in the presences of great engineers who can rise to the challenge. The reason people praise Steve Jobs is not because he designed anything (though he may have had a few design suggestions) - but because his singular drive to release great products resulted in so many being created (and then, quite logically, being copied by everyone else) The Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad all came about because of Steve Jobs, and have changed the technology that we use every day. Love him, or Hate him, you can't take that away from him.

lloeki 15y ago

> But does that mean the creators of Ferrari contributed to society? Yes. The amount of research thrown into the likes of a Ferrari end up trickling all the way down to your regular car. From tyre compounds to suspension design to chassis structure to aerodynamics to engine optimization, your daily car would be nowhere as safe, economical, durable and so on without cutting edge technology designed for those ultra high-end cars. I had a nasty car crash that would simply have reduced me to bits ten years ago, but survived with only a few bruises and a bunch of displaced vertebrae. I could have escaped the crash altogether had the car been a couple of years less, and had been equipped with ESP. It would have been impossible to fit such amount of technology in such a cheap and lightweight package without bringing cutting-edge technology and perfect realization to the table at some point, but that comes with an awfully high price tag which can only be afforded by consumer luxury segment and professional racing. R&D in automotive consumes absolutely unfathomable and ridiculous amounts of money. So yes, a F458, a Corvette ZR1, a Honda NSX-R, a Zonda Cinque, a Bugatti Veyron, an Aston-Martin One-77, a Porsche GT3 RS, a Nissan GT-R, a Tesla Roadster are vehicles of perfection that bring something to the table for society as a whole.