As you all have read by now, Steve Jobs decided to resign as CEO of Apple. While I don’t expect Steve to be too far removed from the innovation factory that is Apple, this is a big milestone in my view. Looking back on his career and the influence he personally had on computing and mobile technology is quite a journey. My first paid programming job was on an Apple IIe with no hard drive. Wow! I’m dating myself with that fact.
Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO.
There are many innovative people in the Apple culture and I’m sure they will be effective at continuing the pioneering work Steve has done. But Steve’s persona and presence has had a massive influence on the worldwide markets including application developers, service providers, musicians, movie producers, and publishers – as well as on consumers of this content.
And, of course, to companies like Antenna, the impact of the iPhone on our business was enormous. It was a true game changer that turned the topic of mobile applications, formerly known only to geeks like me, into pop culture.
There will never be another Steve Jobs. “Steve knows what people want” was a quote that we heard a few years ago referring to his talent to define a creative innovative product. This is big. Think about it – the Apple ecosystem of content, devices that access the content, and apps that manage it. There is nothing like it and likely never will be in my lifetime. There’s no app for that.
Tags: Apple, Dan Zeck, Mobile Mastery, Steve Jobs
The man in still very much alive and will have much more to give to humanity, but even right now his contributions to society should be mentioned in the same breath with the greats like Edison and Da Vinci. He’s not an inventor, but he surely has vision and knows how to what people want–even before they do themselves (I didn’t know I really needed all my songs in my pocket!). The most similar parallel is to Henry Ford. There were other car companies back then, just like there are many computer companies today, but both Ford and Jobs had the vision and executed like no other. Congrats and best wishes!
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The wireless industry has lost one of its biggest influences, but hopefully Jobs will still provide some of that guidance from his chairman role. Kudos and thanks to Steve and his team for their innovation and drive to make the mobile device more than just a voice product.
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I’ve been thinking about this all day and watching the Twitter feeds bursting with love and admiration – and respect for what Jobs has given the world – simply beautiful technology. I can’t think of many other CEOs that have that kind of following. For me professionally, I will always be grateful to Apple for creating the iPhone – and making this market tip! Finally people understood what i did for a living.
And for me personally, I hope that Jobs gets well.
I have faith that Apple will continue to make great products where design is not showy or gimmicky, it just IS:
“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
You gotta love that.
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Dan – nice post. You’re spot on. Steve Wozniak was on Piers Morgan the other night, and had some very interesting perspectives on Steve Jobs. We all think of Jobs as a technical genius – Wozniak painted him almost as a marketing expert. He made a few comments which alluded to Wozniak being the real techie, but Jobs being the person with the vision. Steve knew what people wanted and he could think about the impact their inventions would have and how people would use them. In essence, his greatest gift was knowing what users wanted – even before they did.
He has been the face of apple. He is a great CEO, leader and capitalist. Yet he has helped Apple to stay ‘cool’ within the tech community even with those who tend to be anti establishment and anti corporate.
He will be missed, and the challenge for Apple moving forward may not be product design – but rather market perception.
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