

Steve Jobs would never have written this post - zachinglis
http://zachinglis.com/2012/steve-jobs-would-have-never-written-this-post/

======
marknutter
People view Steve through rose colored glasses and then become indignant
whenever those glasses get knocked off. It's selection bias, pure and simple.
Steve was wrong about as many things as he was right. The magic of Steve Jobs
was in taking something complicated, utilitarian, ugly, and confusing to the
average person and making it accessible, beautiful, and enjoyable to use. You
apply that formula successfully enough times, across a wide enough range of
ideas, you are going to hit some home runs.

~~~
indiecore
>The magic of Steve Jobs was in taking something complicated, utilitarian,
ugly, and confusing to the average person and making it accessible, beautiful,
and enjoyable to use.

That and a fucking _massive_ reality distortion field that is STILL around.

~~~
marknutter
I don't think you understand what was meant by Jobs' "reality distortion
field".

~~~
mcormier
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field>

------
adrianhoward
I've said it before, but we've got a few years before we really see the post-
Jobs apple. Like the OP I find it very strange that people keep coming up with
comments about Jobs wouldn't do X.

Steve has been dead for only a bit over a hear. The time it takes to deliver
products like the iPad Mini or iPhone 5 are a _tad_ longer than that.

We'll see the real post-Jobs Apple in another four or five years time. After
we've had the products that aren't even on the drawing board delivered by
people hired after Steve died.

~~~
dcminter
Jobs had a reputation for killing products at late stages - after lots of
money had been committed. Traditional big companies aren't good at that for
reasons that I won't examine. If that reputation was deserved then a year is
more than long enough.

------
StefanKarpinski
100%. If any old jackass could say with any accuracy what Steve Jobs would or
wouldn't do, then there wouldn't have been much magic to being Steve Jobs,
would there?

------
bluetidepro
Great post, Zach. I couldn't agree more. I even had the same thoughts
yesterday, when a few of those types of posts popped up on HN. And I
completely agree, although yes Steve had that old interview where he hated the
idea of this middle sized iPad, I think at some point he would have had to
make something like this to cave in to the market demand. And sort of like you
mentioned, products like this are not made overnight. I would not be surprised
if the early talk of the iPad Mini was when Steve Jobs was alive. I'm not sure
if anyone can really publicly confirm or deny that.

~~~
culturestate
SJ was famously against things before he was for them; the surest way to
figure out what Steve-era Apple would do next was to listen for him to say
some variation of "this is a bad market and Apple is not interested in it."

Tablets: "What are these things good for besides surfing the Web on the
toilet?"

eBooks: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that
people don’t read anymore..."

Video iPod: "You can't watch a video and drive a car...We're focused on
music."

~~~
isleyaardvark
No offense, but I really dislike that sort of phrasing about people being
"famously against things before (they were) for them". I can't help but think
of all the problems caused by stubbornness, and the recent article on HN about
how Jeff Bezos said the people who were right often were the ones that would
change their minds. (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4674270>)

~~~
001sky
There is an art to being open-minded, but disciplined at the same time. I
don't think anyone would argue Jobs was anything other than _focused_.
Completely different from a flip-flopping politician. I'd almost say Job's
flip-flopping instances were the exceptions that prove the rule, expecially
because they seemed to be successful (in the market). There are
(comparatively) few cases the flipped-into-flops, ya know? (pardon the pun
=D).

------
rmc
Whenever Apple messes up people say that now. However remember Apple messed up
under Jobs. Remember the iPhone's poor signal? What do you think would happen
if the response to the Maps app poor quality was "You're using it wrong?",
that's what happened (essentially) under Jobs.

------
jmilloy
>Can you remember when the iPad came out and everyone said it was a giant
bloated iPhone (myself included.) Now it’s indispensable to most.

This is a little OT, but I just find it hilarious when people say this sort of
thing. Something like 10% of people in the US have an ipad.

~~~
sedev
Ten percent of the US population is (a) a very large absolute number and (b)
easily enough that you're likely to see an iPad every day if you look around
you.

Then if you move into San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Seattle, New York, Los
Angeles, and similar population hubs - the places that matter in the US - you
can expect to see rather higher than 10% market penetration, especially if you
then look primarily at affluent people (like engineers and entrepreneurs) in
those areas.

Ten percent is not a small number here.

------
davidw
Steve showed us the way with the Gourd, and all who claim the Shoe are
heretics.

------
DannoHung
Steve Jobs said a lot of bullshit a lot of the time. In retrospect, I think he
was trying to throw people off the scent.

~~~
grey-area
Yes, in particular these statements come to mind:

"I’m not convinced people want to watch movies on a tiny little screen" -
before ipod had video

"We didn’t think we’d do well in the cellphone business." - before the iphone
was released

"There are no plans to make a tablet" - before the ipad was released

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is...people don’t read
anymore,” - about kindle, before launching ibooks

Either he was very good at misdirecting competitors, or he was good at
changing his mind.

~~~
padobson
_Either he was very good at misdirecting competitors, or he was good at
changing his mind._

I'll take the latter. I have every reason to believe that he vehemently and
even violently against putting iTunes on Windows, but that, more than anything
else, is what turned Apple around.

~~~
DannoHung
We know for a fact the tablet thing and the phone statement are both bullshit.
They'd had prototypes in development for years and at the time of those
quotes.

------
djbender
Mr. Jobs specifically asked that people not refer to him in this manner. Makes
me sad every time someone does it.

------
grimey27
Steve Jobs was smart enough to pivot when a market opportunity arose, despite
what he said previously.

------
rsl7
Steve would never have released the Cube! Or an ibook shaped like a toilet
seat!

------
drivebyacct2
I'm so tired of popular HN comments because drawn out blog posts that volley
back and forth. I'm also tired of talking about Steve, regardless of what
direction it's in unless it's a purely historical one.

