architect42  01  600

From left: Bobby Shriver, Jurvetson, and Jobs in 2007

Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, who worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT and Apple, writes in Businessweek about his memories of Jobs. He shared one story in particular -- from the NeXT years -- that would foreshadow Steve's vision for the future:

When I invited Jobs to take some time away from NeXT to speak to a group of students, he sat in the lotus position in front of my fireplace and wowed us for three hours, as if leading a séance. But then I asked him if he would sign my Apple Extended Keyboard. He burst out: “This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate. It’s a battleship. Why does it have all these keys? Do you use this F1 key? No.” And with his car keys he pried it right off. “How about this F2 key?” Off they all went. “I’m changing the world, one keyboard at a time,” he concluded in a calmer voice.

See Businessweek for Jurvetson's full piece.

Top Rated Comments

chrmjenkins Avatar
164 months ago
What's funny is that he was put in a situation where two possibilities are common. One - the person asked is thrilled to sign it for the fan. Two - the person is offended that this lowly fan is asking for his time. Instead, Steve sees past the request and sees a product to fix. Gotta love Steve.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RoboCop001 Avatar
164 months ago
Hahaha... naturally.

And now every key has a purpose. The F keys are used to trigger different things instead of being just F keys, especially on MacBooks. I don't think I've ever actually used an F key for a "Function" command. I've only used them for the other icons that are on them, such as brightness, dashboard, keyboard light, etc.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
r2shyyou Avatar
164 months ago
"Do you use this F1 key? No." And with his car keys he pried it right off. "How about this F2 key?" Off they all went. "I'm changing the world, one keyboard at a time," he concluded in a calmer voice.

Awesome. So awesome.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nagromme Avatar
164 months ago
If he popped off the keys AND signed it, that would be a great keepsake!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Yvan256 Avatar
164 months ago
This might also explain why the function keys on the most recent Apple keyboards are smaller than regular keys.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DESNOS Avatar
164 months ago
When did that happen? Apple keyboards still utterly, completely suck. They're the worst in the industry - at least for people who actually WRITE. And they're even worse for programmers, especially when you use a German version that has not even the brackets accessible in a usable way. Life would be easier if those damn stupid Apple keyboards would at least follow industry standards, but of course they don't. The only thing they have going for them is that they look quite nice. Yes, after iOS and iTunes "synchronization", the keyboards are the things that I hate most in the Apple universe, followed by Apple mice.

But the story is nice, and there are a lot of great stories about Steve Jobs. He was one of the most impressive characters in the computer industry and one of the very few who actually had taste.

I mean fixing the fact that the function keys did nothing genius...
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....