Ex-PM blocked Steve Jobs knighthood A senior ex-MP claims Gordon Brown used his position as prime minister to block the offer of a knighthood for Apple supremo Steve Jobs. The startling claim, made in the Telegraph, was that Brown was still bitter because Stevey previously turned down an invitation to speak to the Labour Party conference. The anonymous senior …
"because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced"
That and this statement, albeit true, should have been followed immediately by: "...and disregarding end-user usefulness, 3rd party enhancements, and generally making hand over fist in his overpriced products."
Now where have I heard that name recently...
Oh yes.. An article on one of the gadget blogs yesterday where he said he was thinking of moving back to England... Gizmodo I think..
And if that means quitting Apple.. So what. The guy has something like 130 million to his name. He never needs to lift a finger for the rest of his life.
After reading your comment, I think I understand why. Imagine a talented designer working for a company where every design decision is credited to an arrogant picky salesman with poor dress sense, and nobody is allowed to give constructive criticism without getting jumped on by a whole shrill of fanboys. Must be frustrating, when your next great design doesn't fit in with the company image, so it can't be explored.
Perhaps he got sick of shiny minimalist crap and wants to design something cool.
Now you know what you have to do.. If he leaves Apple, he is a heretic. Must be shunned. So the designs he has already done can't possibly be his, and he is stealing the credit from the real design genius.. The Steve.
@John Bailey: "a company where every design decision is credited to an arrogant picky salesman with poor dress sense, and nobody is allowed to give constructive criticism without getting jumped on by a whole shrill of fanboys. Must be frustrating, when your next great design doesn't fit in with the company image, so it can't be explored"
It sounds to me as if you're blinded by a fixation with Steve Jobs. I'm talking about Jonathan Ive and his design work for Apple. Ask yourself this - would Jonathan be well off, respected, and acknowledged as a great designer if someone else was taking the credit for it? When have you ever heard anyone from Apple credit Steve Jobs for industrial design? He's the front man for company, the guy who's great at presenting. He doesn't talk about himself - he talks about Apple, the great team at Apple, the talented people he loves to work with.
We know about Jonathan because Apple has trumpeted his abilities - he's been brought forward to present his ideas, to talk about them in the company's advertising. Other designers would kill to have the freedom and mandate to explore design ideas the way he has. And Apple has rewarded him too - that's why he can afford to be independent if he chooses.
All of this is about design. The knighthood was proposed because Apple - fronted by Steve - has put design front and centre of everything they do. And that's unusual, especially in the tech world. Design is often sidelined or completely ignored (as reflected in many of the comments on this article). Do you know any industrial designer from any other tech firm? Fact is, many CEOs are paranoid about talented people and sideline them. All they listen to is numbers, bean counters. Steve is a successful CEO because he enables, focuses, and rewards the efforts of skilled people. He's flawed too, but who isn't?
We should appreciate design every much as we appreciate coding and other technical skills. The world is a poorer place without it, and I applaud an effort to acknowledge the efforts of those who are passionate about design.
He runs a company that sells overpriced hardware produced almost entirely in China.
So he costs jobs in the US because of the outsourcing and Apple Donates very little to charity when compared with other companies/CEO's
Unless its because he is the biggest Cult leader the modern world has seen i can't see any reason that he'd deserve a Knighthood, probably one of his inner circle in the British Government nominated him because He and the British Government have the same aims , i.e.impose a 1984 style culture on everyone.
"So he costs jobs in the US."
What is the relevance of this remark? Knighthoods aren't conferred on the basis of how much the recipient has benefited the US.
Kinda makes me want to advance the idea that anyone who reduces our former colony's status in the world deserves a bucketful of merit badges. Eventually the US will be so broke, we can afford to buy it back.
First up, at what point did you think I was being serious?
Second up, in jumping all over my sarcastic retort to US-centric stupidity, you have indulged in some more US-centric stupidity. Why do you think I should value US workers over Chinese workers?
What I really want to see is an end to the hypocrisy of US politics: anything to the left of hyper-capitalism is denounced as communism (eg. the current situation in Wisconsin) ... until some other country benefits from your alleged free-market ideals. If y'all don't want to be outsourced, join a fucking union and fight for workers' rights.
Workers rights, as in you have the right to not take a crappy job. You do not have the right to make the company offering that job change the description.
It's time we return to freedom and get rid of this tyranny. If works have a right to unionize, the firm as a right to fire them for being part of a union.
... and firms have the right to outsource all the skilled jobs to India and the unskilled ones to Mexico, and where's that leave the rest of you? Blaming it all on the liberal commie-socialists no doubt.
How about 95% don't get our lives turned to shit just so the other 5% can turn an extra dime? How about that kind of freedom?
As opposed to the "freedom" of needing to feed oneself. Yeah. The job market ain't quite so free as y'all make it out to be.
“Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced. No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment.”
Bloody hell, this MP must have drowned in the cool aid. I don't think Apples Marketing/Reality Distortion Engineers at their most magical would try to pull that one off.
Having left parliament and the expenses, he must be skint and in desperate, desperate need of a free iPad.
If it is for a non UKnian, is an honorary knighthood, which wouldn't entitle him to call himself "Sir Steve Jobs" or owt.
Bob Geldof has one, as it goes. However, I personally would have a hard time imagining Sir Robert Geldof saying "send us your fockin' money", so it is just as well.
People who are not British and are awared a KBE actually get an honorary knighthood.
From what I can recall they are not allowed to be refered to as 'Sir' but they can put the letters KBE after their names. Bob Geldof, an Irish citizen, was awarded an honorary knight hood (although he is often refered to incorrectly as Sir Bob Geldof) as was Terry Wogan. The key difference between the two is that Wogan applied to become a British Citizen (as he was born before 1948 in Ireland he was automatically entitled to do so) and as a result he could then be awared an non-honorary kighthood and use the title 'Sir'.
So in answer to your question, nationality (and specifically not being British) does have a bearing on how the honour can be applied but not on who it can be applied too.
In general I agree with many here that Jobs wouldn't have deserved one anyway, surely a better candidate for an hour would be Jonathan Ive (the British man who designed many of the Apple products). Having just checked, it turns out he got a CBE in 2006.
Probably why Bill Gates got one. And Bob Geldoff. And Steven Spielberg. And Terry Wogan for that matter.
They can be elevated to the rank of Knight Commander, but can't use the title "Sir" (or "Dame" in the female case). Terry Wogan notably obtained dual citizenship and thus became eligible to call himself Sir Tel.
>>"With these vicious comments about Steve Jobs I expect you are all in favour of us having a Lord Fucking Prescott."
All?
Looking back up the thread, the great majority of the fraction of comments which were negative seem to be along the lines of "I'm glad he wasn't given one", which doesn't seem to be particularly vicious.
Aren't people allowed to have an opinion on the issue that *isn't* pro-Steve?
An honourary KBE is a special honour reserved for those who are not actually British, it's not actually the same as a regular knihthood. However I don't see how he could actually be considered an anything of the British Empire since California was never part of the Empire.
He isn't eligible for a peerage (e.g. Sir Jobs of Bridgend) because he's not a British subject, but the PM/The Queen can bestow a membership of a British Order* to anyone they please (i.e. CBE, OBE, MBE, etc.). Indeed, anyone can be nominated for a membership, but naturally the chances are slim of getting one if you've not done anything/bunged enough cash**.
* Though I'm not sure about Knights Garter which tend to be former PMs and the like.
** Of course, this sort of thing has been stopped. Honest.
Technically, a peerage means becoming a Lord, whereas a knighthood is just an honour with the right to use the title "Sir" before your name. Both have, as you rightly point out, become political favours these days...
The relevance of Jobs not being British is that under US law, you can't use foreign titles (so although Bill Gates has a knighthood, he cannot refer to himself as "Sir Bill Gates" in the US.)
>>"Am I going to get well and truly flamed for pointing out the obvious fact that (as far as I know) he's not British? I can't help but think that this should have some bearing on whether even the possibility of such an honour is forthcoming or not."
You *might* get flamed for not doing research before posting.
A good designer (e.g. Jonathan Ive) doesn't add a feature to a product that nobody (or very, very few) customers will ever be able to work out how to use.
A good designer (e.g. Jock Kinneir, Margaret Calvert) will go that extra mile to ensure the (British) road signs that help you make informed decisions while driving are actually legible at the speeds you're driving at.
A good designer (e.g. Harry Beck, designer of the iconic 1933 London Underground map—a design since copied worldwide) knows that form and function need to work *together*.
A good designer understands that user interfaces should be intuitive, invisible.
A good designer knows form and function are not enemies, but *allies*— both sides of the same coin. You're not supposed to choose which one "wins". Both should be equal, crossing the finish line together, hand-in-hand.
A bad designer (e.g. almost every 1980s and 1990s VCR designer, ever,) will add a clock to a device, but make it so bastard hard to set that almost every device sold ends up constantly flashing "12:00" at the frustrated purchaser, all the bloody time, utterly defeating the point of inventing that fancy "timed record" feature in the first place.
On the other hand, a _bad_ designer _wastes_ all the efforts of your precious engineers, programmers, marketers and salespeople by telling them to go and build a box of compromises nobody will want. Sales and Marketing employees will have to work their arses off trying to convince customers that Features X, Y and Z are good to have, even when they're fully aware that the device they're selling is such a pig to use, those features may as well not be there.
Worst of all, a bad designer wastes *YOUR* time, by forcing you to use it trying to understand how to use the product, instead of just getting on with whatever it was you bought it to *do*.
THAT is what is so special about "Design". THAT is why it bloody well matters.
*
I don't agree with the notion of giving Jobs an honorary KBE—as others have pointed out, Jobs is a (damned good) salesman with an obsession over design; the *design work* is being done by Jonathan Ive and his team. (Then again, Mr. Ive already has a CBE, and I daresay he'll get upgraded to a knighthood eventually. He's still young.)
For a small island nation off the west coast of Belgium, the UK punches well above its weight in many creative sectors, including games. Design is one of the few things the British are actually very good at.
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you seem to have forgotten how that bastard gates raked in so much of our cash. he's done more than his fair share of poverty creation from overpriced, bug-ridden, and shit software, monopolistic business practices, crushing rivals, unfair competition, untold zillions of hardware upgrades to run his bloatware, mandatory shipment and purchase of windows with every pc whether you want it or not, etc, etc
100 odd years ago people sometimes said rockefeller and carnegie were nice chaps because they built arts centres and libraries. but they were evil monopolistic money-grabbing bastards too.
He lead the development of a free operating system, which is very useful for people who can't afford an expensive commercial one.
You could also claim that Linux is used for a lot of medical research. Of course it is also used for designing nuclear weapons, running stock exchanges and delivering Internet porn ...
Do they give knighthoods for services to pornography?
... not for his technological work (that part about assistance to technology etc was only added on as an addendum).
When Jobs or Linus give a few billion dollars to attempts to wipe out Malaria and other diseases in the third world, ill consider them worthy of a knighthood...
Shame on you all the Up-Voters on this post.
Bill Gates didn't get a Knighthood for crappy software, it's because he's actually tried to go out and make the world a better place, giving the world billions and billions in aid, funding malaria research etc.
The same cannot be said of Torvalds and Jobs. Arguments about who has the best software are just a non starter compared to this and completely irrelevant.
Given that The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has raised hundreds of billions of dollars for worthy causes throughout the world and Gates is donating his fortune to charity rather than leaving it to his kids when he dies (apparantly) and Torvalds and Jobs have given sweet FA in comparison that is why Bill Gates is deserving of a knighthood whilst the other two arn't.
Seriously, what has Jobs done for anyone other than himself? Little.
True, he has spoken in support of spare parts from road kills, etc. but this was only after he had boosted his position on a waiting list outside California.
Gates has put a lot of his cash where his mouth is; he lectures and travels constantly and he is fluent with the work he sponsors.
Personally I think knighthoods should be for those that have allegiance to the Queen which is down to a very few countries and certainly doesn't include the U.S.A.
"Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced. No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment."
This guy must have a nose permanently stained brown, wonder how much free Apple gear he has... and surely design a rather key first step to EVERY product, Apple designs are very same-ish anyway, nothing radical.
There are a lot of CEOs and companies who would be pretty offended by that statement, sure their market cap might not be as many billions of $ as Apple's but there is a lot of innovation out there and it's not all fruit based. Apple do nothing unique, they aren't even the first with most things... "Selling things for more than their worth because they are shiny and nicely made" is hardly a new idea, pretty sure that one predates microchips... and probably the existence of the good old US of A as well.
Why do yanks get knighthoods anyway? Don't we have enough candidates out of 60+ million people?
These awards from the Queen mean so very little when every MP can decide who was the most chummy to them.
These should be directly nominated from a department run solely by the royal household and not by meddling politicians with ulterior motives.
Even better idea, scrap the monarchy and have done with the lot of em and go back to issuing Blue Peter badges.
Chapter 1 - The Gates of Fortune
The good Sir Billius drew his steed to a halt, by the side of an artisans workshop in the hamlet of Cupertino. There he did spy the hunched and haggard figure of a jobbing master craftsman, named Steve. Sir Billius knew this Steve, from many years before, for they had once been rivals in the craft of making calculating engines. Such times were long past for Sir Billius. He had moved on to higher things and now walked among exalted company. So high were his achievements and so exalted the company he kept, that a foreign queen had bestowed the honour of a knighthood on him; hence his steed was well pimped. He wondered if Steve would recognise him and called to him thus; "Yo, Steve, long time no see! How's it hanging?" (Put some more introductory detail in here)
Chapter 2 - Joust a Minute
(Get somebody else to write this)
I believe it could be the fact that Jobs never "Brown nosed" the ruling party enough
We all know that one eyed Scottish idiot only returns favours for favours due to New Labour's cultutre of cronyism
Jobs refused to speak at a Labour Party Conference which is morally a good thing. It shows he has principles unlike the politicians who use famous names to prop up their profiles and hopefully their influence on society.
Plus Jobs attending a tatty, false and lie filled New Labour function is the equivalent of the Queen attending the opening of a Portaloo
No loss Steve, being "deprived" of a KBE is just not really a "loss"...
fanboi much?
Granted honours have somewhat lost their credibility but I don't see why a chap who makes billions out of exploiting Chinese workers to manufacture kitsch trinkits for the fashionably unaware and technologically clueless should be honoured.
White headphones don't look cool, they make you look like a douche and the audio quality.. well let's not go there.
No A/C required.
I wasn't implying Michael Dell should be knighted.
At least my iRiver and Senheisers reproduce high quality sound, not to mention the better build quality. Believe me it's not audiophilic posturing, it is noticeable, when people try my headphones the usual reaction is "I must get a pair of these". My iRiver ifp899 has lasted me 5 or 6 years of heavy use.
If you really can't tell the difference, I feel bad for you son.
My 1st gen iPod Nano is still going strong with 5 and half years of heavy use too. Do I get a medal? WTF have a pare of headphones (nice brand drop BTW ) got to do with it you numpty?! And drop the 'son' rubbish, it's quite clear that you are loud-mouthed kid. Fucking "Senheisers". Jesus...
I make no comment regarding whether Steve Jobs deserves a knighthood or not, I'm answering the question of his eligibility as a non-Brit or non-Commonwealth citizen. He is actually eligible as a US citizen (furriner) for this one.
The KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) is an honour that can be conferred on people regardless of nationality in recognition of execeptional effort, service or achivement. The main thing is that non-brits are not allowed to use Sir or Dame as their title. This exactly the situation with Bill Gates.
The honour confers letters after the name, has a nice gong with it and a chance of tea and cake with Madge, what it's worth beyond that I don't know.
Hope that clears a few thing up.
OK, perhaps I'm joining two and two together using the Enron accounting method, but why is this guy is an ex-MP?
Did he stand in the last election and lose, or was he asked not to stand by the Labour party for previous irregularities in expenses?
In the interests of non-bias, there may be other alternatives ;)
The nomination was so fawning I assumed it was Tom Watson, surely the greasiest of the greasers; but that's not possible as he's still an MP (there is no justice in the world).
So I assume it can only be Jacqui Smith. Think about it - an ex Home Secretary in love with all sorts of expensive high tech oppressive micromanagement of peoples' lives. She was hoping His Steveness would tell her how to have people queuing round the block for identity cards. Perhaps by calling them iD cards?
OK so maybe no money, but he's given away everything he's ever written to everyone. He's probably the reason that Microsoft has cut the prices it charges to poor nations for its software. I think that counts as helping the world. BillG has given away 100% of his output? I don't think so.
Not wanting to be cynical - on the reg - but corporate charities (like IKEA or Welcome) are a little different from your local oxfam shop.
Gates and MSFT pay very little tax due to a lot of this creative accounting - yes he is giving away a lot of his fortuen - but what else do you do with it after the first $100Bn?
It also buys a lot of personal and commercial influence - they are currently being investigated in a few countries for large charitable donations being immediately followed by governments abandoning opensource and making big MSFT purchases.
The gates foundation also operates like any other US fund - and some of it's investments are a lot less ethical than many high street banks.
"The same cannot be said of Torvalds and Jobs. Arguments about who has the best software are just a non starter compared to this and completely irrelevant."
Linus put the chance to learn, in the hands of every man, without a price. Plus, he works for wages, like most anyone else. So, he gave tremendously to the human race, that which is without price ...unlike those "other two" mentioned. Perhaps the Knighthood should have gone to Melinda? Besides, if it wasn't for the "Woz", Jobs would have been pandering to blue-rinsed old ladies for free drinks, while trying to sell them Earth Shoes.
All he did was watch star trek and copy the padd!
And as for innovation, I was using PDA's for years before the IPhone came out, I was watching movies and doing things on my symbian pda phones well before the iphone came out.
All Apple did was buy out a keyboard company (fingerworks) to get the touch tech, (which stopped me from buying one of their lovely keyboards), then they stick in a pretty(ish) case with a pretty standard pda phone and a pretty interface and bam you have the iphone.
Then a few years later, stick the a pda in a bigger pretty case and here comes the ipad, just a large iphone.
All they did was make it pretty and have good marketing along with Apple fanboys to buy it.
I for one am glad he did not get it.
Bill Gates, while I am not a microsoft fan, he did deserve it for his non MS work.
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