

Steve Jobs a music visionary? Judge for yourself - wallflower
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10152343-93.html

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smoody
I remember when Jobs was caught by surprise by the then-Windows-only process
of ripping and burning CDs using Winamp, etc. Apple had zero momentum in that
area. I read an interview where he admitted to being 'caught by surprise' by
the whole phenomena and he declared something to the effect of "Trust me, it
won't happen again." Next thing you know, Apple came from a position of being
in last place to becoming a market leader. AOL, on the other hand, bought
Winamp, had all the raw materials and the dedicated users required to rule the
music universe and what happened? (that is a rhetorical question ;-).

I'm not sure I'd want him as a boss, but I have tremendous respect for the man
and his ability to hire great people and demand the best from them.

~~~
sam_in_nyc
Very nice write-up... I remember the days when Winamp was King. I even got an
Infrared receiver for my PC, and had it working with Winamp. It was pretty
sweet being able to fast forward / rewind / shuffle, etc... with a remote.
This was in the Napster days I guess about 7-9 years ago?

What bothers me is the hysteria surrounding Apple. They make a white remote
with 4 buttons and suddenly it's "incredible design" and "pure genius."

~~~
gdee
I might be wrong, but I believe Winamp is still very much The King. Platform
market share and all that...

~~~
Zev
I know plenty of audiophiles who swear by foobar now instead of winamp. They
want winamp 2.x back, something about AOL ruining winamp with 5.x? I can't
remember the exact reasons.

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wallflower
Panic's story about Audion and iTunes has been posted here before, and it's
still an excellent insider look into Apple from the POV of a ISV.

<http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/>

"We were thrilled to say the least. So much so, we had almost forgotten about
the fact that the answer to our SoundJam mystery was about to unfold, right
before our eyes, in one week...

iTunes was, of course, and I'll say this now, brilliant. It single-handedly
taught us an entirely new philosophy on software design. Do you really need
that Preference that 1% of your users will use?"

~~~
jfarmer
Wow, just spent the last 15 minutes reading that. What an engrossing story.

Here's two things I've learned about making things happen: say "yes" to
everything you can and do your best. And don't worry about "fair," worry about
doing the best for yourself and your customers.

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Tichy
"Jobs correctly predicted that attempts by the major labels to find a
technological solution to piracy would fail. When it came to subscription
music services, he said the public would reject them."

I think most people on HN have predicted the same thing. To create something
like iTunes, presumably a huge army of lawyers was necessary. Not saying that
other people could have been as successful, but it was definitely not
something some guy in a garage could have done, because of the legal issues.

~~~
FlorinAndrei
An army of lawyers, plus a brilliant rock-star entrepreneur usually described
as "the smartest man in the room" who can pull it off, based on smarts and
bravado.

~~~
Tichy
Definitely not saying just anybody could have done it, with enough lawyers on
his hand. Also the iPod itself probably helped (I guess it was part of the
sales pitch to the music industry).

