Tim Cook's Freshman Year: The Apple CEO Speaks Prior to his death on Oct. 5, 2011, Steve Jobs made sure that the elevation of Tim Cook—his longtime head of operations and trusted deputy—to Apple chief executive officer would be drama-free. “He goes, ‘I never want you to ask what I would have done,’” recalls Cook. “‘Just do what’s right.’ He was very clear.” ... In his most wide-ranging interview as CEO, Cook explains how Apple works now, talks about the perception that he’s “robotic,” and announces the return of Apple manufacturing to the U.S.
posted by The Deej
on Dec 6, 2012 -
144 comments
The idea that the form of a product should correspond to its essence does not simply mean that products should be designed with their intended use in mind. That a knife needs to be sharp so as to cut things is a non-controversial point accepted by most designers. The notion of essence as invoked by Jobs and Ive is more interesting and significant—more intellectually ambitious—because it is linked to the ideal of purity. No matter how trivial the object, there is nothing trivial about the pursuit of perfection. On closer analysis, the testimonies of both Jobs and Ive suggest that they did see essences existing independently of the designer—a position that is hard for a modern secular mind to accept, because it is, if not religious, then, as I say, startlingly Platonic.
—
Form and Fortune is an essay about Steve Jobs and Apple's design philosophy by Evgeny Morozov.
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 5, 2012 -
23 comments
In 1985, Apple started the "Apple University Consortium Europe" collaboration program, and one of the first universities to enroll was that of Lund, Sweden. To celebrate the collaboration, Apple CEO Steve Jobs came to Lund - and a 16 minute film of his visit has now been found and been made available by the University of Lund.
You can see the clip here (.mov).
posted by mr.marx
on Dec 16, 2011 -
5 comments
What touchscreens lack is something called affordance. It’s a lofty term for an object’s built-in ability to tell you how it works. A doorknob affords turning. The button on a car stereo affords pushing. A touchscreen affords nothing. It relies on software for any affordance, which in turn relies on total immersion for the user.... The days of analog affordance are gone. What we want, apparently, is to surround ourselves with touchscreens of varying size—tiny ones in our pockets, medium-size models for our laps and dashboards, and massive versions for our walls. We want tomorrow’s vintage shops to be lined with identical, blank, anonymous slabs. We want things to be vessels for software, and nothing more. -
A Slate piece asks if touchscreens are becoming too ubiquitous
posted by beisny
on Nov 4, 2011 -
97 comments
The iMac turns ten today. Unveiled on May 6, 1998 by a
button-down Steve Jobs, the iMac personal computer was Steve Jobs' antidote to the countless boring beige models in Apple's product line. Offering
"three easy steps to the Internet," the iMac proved to be a lightning rod for criticism (
small "hockey puck" mouse, no floppy drive, no SCSI, the debut of USB,
toy keyboard, no expansion possibilities), the first Bondi Blue iMac got people talking and sold by the truckload. Although the design may look a bit dated today, the candy-colored plastics
influenced consumer product design for the next several years. Even if you don't enjoy using an iMac, there's no denying its contributions to computing and popular culture.
posted by porn in the woods
on May 6, 2008 -
72 comments
Well, it's an old rumor, but many sources (including the
NYT,
WSJ,
Wired, and many rumor sites) are reporting that Steve Jobs will be announcing a switch to Intel at the
WWDC tomorrow. The WSJ claims Apple will be switching to x86 processors, while others speculate Intel will simply be manufacturing PPC chips, or only processors for a tablet PC. If the rumors are true, and it seems like they are, what of the Intel DRM
recently announced? Are we destined to have DRM hardwired into our computers no matter where we turn?
Curiously, the
major rumor site has remained mum on the matter. Your best bet to follow the drama will probably be
MacRumors, who will be providing live updates from Steve-o's keynote tomorrow.
posted by keswick
on Jun 5, 2005 -
111 comments
Folklore.org "is a web site devoted to collective historical storytelling. It captures and presents sets of related stories that describe interesting events from multiple perspectives, allowing groups of people to recount their shared history in the form of interlinked anecdotes."
[via Daring Fireball]
posted by kirkaracha
on Jan 26, 2004 -
2 comments
The hugely popular
iTunes is a success story. But not for Apple, which makes
virtually no revenue from the online download service.
"
When that 99 cents leaves your wallet, the RIAA monopoly swallows most of it, and the credit card companies swallow the rest. As the supplicant in this relationship, Apple is left holding the can." Steve Jobs -
"
We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it's not a money maker,"
posted by Blue Stone
on Nov 7, 2003 -
57 comments
Apple: Innovator & Oppressor of Independent Software: As they once did with Karelia's
Watson software and, to a certain extent, Panic's
Audion, Apple has "borrowed" a concept from an independent, third-party developer without credit or compensation. It would seem that Steve Jobs is not as far removed from Bill Gates as he would like the Mac faithful to believe . . .
posted by aladfar
on Oct 27, 2003 -
31 comments
It's all about shareholder value. Steve Jobs has received tremendous positive press for only accepting one dollar per year as payment for his CEO services at Apple. How does he do it, you ask? Well, he supplements his income by a) being a billionaire, and b) renting out his corporate jet to Apple, at a cost of over 1.2 million dollars, over the past two years. Which is an exceptionally generous rental fee considering that Apple itself paid $90 million for the jet, which it bought for Jobs in May of 2001. This data was disclosed along in the most recent quarterly report in which Apple announced layoffs of 260 employees, none of whom were given a jet.
posted by jonson
on Feb 14, 2003 -
13 comments
It's not the economy stupid: Right wing radio pundit Rush pins Apple's market share woes not on a nonexistant economic downturn (pay no attention to the plummeting chart of the DOW and NASDAQ) but instead on Steve Jobs' refusal to renounce his personal politics.
posted by nathan_teske
on Jul 23, 2002 -
41 comments
Steve Jobs Begins Macworld Keynote. Macworld keynotes often bring with them innovative products that mac fans generally go crazy for. Today's keynote is rumored to bring with it 17" iMacs. On the other hand, it is also
rumored that Apple will discontinue it's free and widely used iTools service in favor of a paid service. Is this right for a company that only has 5% of the market?
posted by devo
on Jul 17, 2002 -
88 comments
That's it. No earth-shattering news, no new enclosures, nothing to phone your friends about (unless an unreleased iDVD2, boring-looking [but spiffy]
new G4s and an OSX update 2 months away floats your boat).
Apple CEO Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote
leaves everyone just a bit disappointed.
posted by Marquis
on Jul 18, 2001 -
31 comments
Bill Gates created MacOS X? I came across this memo written by Bill Gates on July 29, 1985 to John Sculley, then president of Apple Computer. In the memo, Gates writes about the possibility of licensing the Macintosh operating system to third party companies. Here's where it get wierd, Bill suggests that Apple talk to AT&T about migrating the MacOS as a GUI layer on top of their UNIX. Makes me wonder who had the idea first, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?
posted by Brilliantcrank
on Apr 10, 2001 -
7 comments
