Profiteers cash in on Steve Jobs' signature glasses In the latest example of the tsunami of adulation that has followed Steve Jobs' untimely death – and the latest reminder that there's a dollar to be made from every tragedy – the eyeglasses worn by the Apple cofounder on the cover of Walter Isaacson's biography are flying off store shelves. As reported by The Wall Street …
Actually, I'd guess it's at least even money that SJ was following the lead of canonical different-thinker John Lennon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEPhLqwKo6g#t=0m17s in his choice of specs, and apparently Lennon's were a gen-u-ine NHS-issue model http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S30dv5OsK0Y , so arguably the NHS ones are the real thing.
Pass me the sick bag.
He was not a genius, he was a very good marketeer and that is all. Even his own biography states 'He was never much of an engineer. He didn't know how to code or programme a computer. That was Wozniak's job.'
He wasn't a designer either, that was Jonathon Ives role so can someone please explain why the word genius is being used so often to describe him?
> He was not a genius, he was a very good marketeer and that is all.
Perhaps a bit more. I'm no admirer, but I can't help remembering an old SF novel by Poul Anderson, titled The Man Who Counts.
In that book, travelers are stranded in a far place, with not quite helpful natives. Their leader is a merchant who does none of the actual work, but it's his scheming and chivying that actually saves them. And the soldiers and engineers he led do realize it.
why the word genius is being used so often to describe him?
Because this world favours the maximum income from the minimum outlay and Mr Jobs excelled at that.
He was the ultimate blag artist.
He sold mass produced goods at handbuilt prices.
He also understood that gadgets that look like gadgets (covered in buttons and slots) only really appeal to geeks and Trekkies, everyone else likes gadgets that don't look like gadgets (as few buttons as possible makes the sheep feel safe).
Who much more of these "Steve Jobs" stories must we endure?
Steve Jobs did NOTHING! there, I said it. He did NOT invent the Ipod. He did NOT invent the IPhone, He did no invent the IPad. He did NOT even come up with the ideas for these pleasure items. Anyone that thinks he did this is an idiot. Period. Anything you say he did, do your research and you will find the truth. He simply saw the obvious, and pushed hard to make it happen. And even then, he wasn't alone.
He was at heart an opportunitist, seeing potential in previouly existing products and copying the design but crucially engineering it to be an Apple 'idiot proof' product, where previosly you had to know some of the ins and outs of using a traditional computer (such as the early days when a computer meant ZX Spectrum, BBC Mircro, Commodore 64, Amiga, XT PC etc.), he gave the average consumer the ability to use high end hardware/software without the need to know how to use a computer, just how to move a mouse, or as is the case nowadays, touch a screen.
I could not possible love that man, I look at those products, and they have "i DON'T TOUCH" written all over them. He deliberately went for maximum lockin. That was not an accident. He did a "demolition by neglect" on a historic house, which exposed his attitude to others as being like "If I can't have it, you won't either".
However he was a genius, without doubt. When he did the second coming bit, Apple stock was $13. Last year Apple stock cap equalled Microsoft's, This year .... It was ...
That is genius at work. Genius makes the difficult look easy.
I know why he played the years after his cancer diagnosis the way he did, believe me, you will too. You have to complete as much of your life's work as you possibly can within that horizon that is getting closer and closer.
adiue.
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