Steve Jobs Would Have Celebrated His 69th Birthday Today

nice

While I am sure Steve would not have made all the same product decisions that have been made since he passed away, he always said that his greatest creation was Apple itself. He also told Tim not think "What would Steve do" when running the company and to avoid the pitfalls of The Walt Disney Company when Walt died and there was a vacuum of leadership and direction.

Having said that, it is curious to wonder what Apple and its product like would look like today had he not died in 2011.

Tim Cook: “We’re here to put a dent in people’s wallets. Otherwise, why even be here?”

The, uh, apple, has fallen very far from the tree.

That's sad, RIP. I was just discussing how great Apple used to be with him in charge, and how - little by little - the QA and overall "It Just Works" mantra is no longer true by the year.

I'm glad I got to be an Apple customer when things DID just work the way they were supposed to. It feels like Apple is simply skating by on his success, but the more fragmented and buggy they become, the further away they go from the original vision.

Edit: AND got in before the egregious price gouging Apple does these days, especially with essentials like RAM. Still using my 2012 iMac on a regular basis because the RAM was upgradeable and didn't cost $500 to upgrade from the awful base 8gb they still use.

Nearly 14 years ago Steve Jobs claimed that no one's going to buy a big phone ('https://www.engadget.com/2010-07-16-jobs-no-ones-going-to-buy-a-big-phone.html?_fsig=bLCXAeyu7J.3iO_gL0khTQ--%7EA').

Apple tried to bring back small phones and failed ('https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/16/there-is-no-iphone-15-mini/'). Android largely do not have small phones ('https://www.theverge.com/23913658/best-small-phone-dead-iphone-mini-z-flip-pixel-8') either.

I doubt Steve would have been able to make Apple Inc a more than $3 trillion company. ('https://fortune.com/2023/06/30/apple-history-3-trillion-market-value/')

Steve Jobs in 2004: no one wants video on an iPod.
https://www.engadget.com/2004-04-29-steve-jobs-says-it-again-no-video-ipod.html
Steve in 2005: the video iPod.
https://www.macrumors.com/2005/10/12/new-ipods-video-support-tv-episodes-music-videos/

Steve in 2008 about digital book readers: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/the-passion-of-steve-jobs/
Steve in 2010: iBooks
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/27/apple-releases-ipad-tablet-new-sdk-ibooks-and-iwork-apps/

It’s even been said that, despite his public comments against it, Steve was even convinced an iPad mini would be a necessary future product within the last several months of his life.
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/03/eddy-cue-worked-to-convince-steve-jobs-of-need-for-7-inch-ipad-in-early-2011/


Whenever people talk about what Steve Wood and wouldn’t do, they completely ignore the fact that the guy didn’t exist in a vacuum.
While he helped invent several well selling products, he also paid attention to what the market was doing.
The galaxy note launched in 2011, and was a massive success.
The note2 released in 2012, and was an even bigger success.
By 2014, outside of Apple, pretty much every flagship phone had between a 4.7 and a 5.7 inch screen.
To act like Steve wouldn’t have noticed, and would have just stuck his fingers in his ears and pretended that it didn’t exist, is simply laughable.
Especially when there’s literal evidence that Apple was messing around with much larger screen phone prototypes as early as 2010…

I doubt Steve would have been able to make Apple Inc a more than $3 trillion company. ('https://fortune.com/2023/06/30/apple-history-3-trillion-market-value/')

Perhaps, but I wonder if we wouldn't be better off as consumers. A lot of people seem to think we would. You can grow a company *and* make cool stuff. Like anything it's a continuum, and lots of people feel Tim Cook took it too far in one direction.