I don’t think Apple was « affordable ». Even under jobs it was expensive.
But I agree it wasn’t expensive for the sake of being expensive (the definition of luxury) like today where the high price is almost a feature. It was expensive because they always tried to be different and it allowed them to set higher prices.
I think it means ‘user-friendly’ cheap which is different than cheap. I don’t see gnome to be user friendly much and don’t even get me started on windows on mobile. iPadOS on the other hand is something 2 year olds or someone who has never used a computer can get used to in hours.
I don’t think I’d go as far as saying that. Apple has always had a premium price tag even under Jobs control. But I do agree that Cook has doubled down on the premium part of Apples product line (sometimes to the detriment of overall product quality, like those stupid MacBook “Pro”s with only 2x USB3 ports and a keyboard which breaks after 10 minutes).
Steve Jobs wanted the computer to disappear, for better and worse. It was that kind of vision that at least made Apple kinda interesting to me, but their recent shift back to just "consumer technology" has really sucked all the air out of the room.
I do wonder, same as you, what things would be like if he was still around. Maybe technology would be friendlier, and have a better place in this world. But at the same time, I remember how the man lived: eating fruit to supposedly stave off his cancer, violently berating his employees to get things finished faster, and even telling his daughter that she smelled like a toilet on his deathbed. Steve Jobs was a man, imperfect yet aligned just so that his manic side was completely hidden from the public (as opposed to, say, Ballmer). In any case, I'm tired of tech CEOs being self-important and elitist. Steve Jobs was the genesis for that, and his inability to admit when he was wrong ultimately lead to his demise.
I'm saying this from a truly impartial, empathetic and caring place: Steve Jobs' behavior should serve as a warning sign for what happens when you let infinite ego expand unchecked.
Well, I agree that Apple would have been even better with Steve at the helm. As for affordability apple has never been cheap, when the first iphone came out it was very expensive, $600 in 2007 which would be $791 in today's dollars. This is for a phone with no apps or app store and 8GB of storage which is really tiny.
If we go back further apple products get even more expensive. The apple ii(released in 1978) was $1298 or $5543 in today's dollars, not exactly cheap!
I think he was a great integrator. He got people working together that needed to. Internally with groups at apple, and externally like the record labels and apple.
I think he also listened to a variety of people and made course corrections.
As to affordability: they always had high margins.
wikipedia says of the original macintosh 128k:
Introductory price: US$2,495 (equivalent to US$6,220 in 2020)
The initial price target for the Macintosh was $1495, but with the addition of new technology like the Sony 400K floppy disk drive, the team realized it would have to sell for a higher price like $1995.
Three months before the release, John Sculley decided to raise the price to $2495 and use the extra profits for marketing. Steve Jobs was upset at this but eventually gave in. I've often wondered how different things would have been if Steve had won that argument... probably not very, to be honest.
I don't recall affordability necessarily being a priority to Jobs.
I'm not going to say Apple is about inexpensive products. The notion of luxury (outside some of their watch products, I guess) is a marketing angle though. They're accessible to enough peoples' budgets such that they dominate many market verticals. They've succeeded in this to such a degree that it's almost black magic to me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a big focus of his was user friendly affordable tech. Not luxury items like apple is now.