Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985
playboy.co.uk
playboy.co.uk
Playboy: More important, are you ignoring your potentially biggest rival, A.T.&T.?
Jobs: A.T.&T.. is absolutely going to be in the business. There is a major transformation in the company that's taking place right now. A.T.&T. is changing from a subsidized and regulated service-oriented company to a free-market, competitive-marketing technology company. A.T.&T.'s products per se have never been of the highest quality. All you have to do is go look at their telephones. They're somewhat of an embarrassment. But they do possess great technology in their research labs. Their challenge is to learn how to commercialize that technology. Also, they have to learn about consumer marketing. I think that they will do both of those things, but it's going to take them years.
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and this:
Jobs: I'll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I'll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I'm not there, but I'll always come back.
Huh. That's weird. AT&T phones were built like brick shithouses, for the most part. I wonder what model(s) he had in mind when he said that?
The AT&T phones were simple and obvious to use. They did exactly what they were supposed to do, and did it well.
When you look at Apple’s product timeline, you can see he’s always thinking several years ahead. Plenty of good products were just bridges to great products. Some products didn’t make any sense until later.
Probably one reason that people like to speculate about Apple’s plans is that Apple actually uses plans, as opposed to hopes. I doubt Microsoft or Google could give more accurate pictures of where they’ll be in 10 years.
I doubt that 10 years ago SJ could have guessed Apple would make money mostly on phones and music player.
Given that the iPod came out 9 years ago, in 2001, I'm sure the market was on his radar. Heck, the iPhone started development in 2004, 6 years ago. And I have to believe Steve has a vision and was simply waiting for the technology to catch up.
Of particular interest are the somewhat different take on the established giants like IBM, as well as this new "information highway" development.
Seems like he's believed that you can't make a good computer at the $500 price point for a long time now (his take on netbooks is pretty much the same).
They got a lot of people into the game.
I couldn't afford an Apple, but I could afford a C64.
Learned C on it.
Not being a gramar nazi but the word "irony" has a very precise meaning, misusing it devalues the language. Explicit in the notion of irony is contradiction, e.g. saying one thing while meaning the opposite (such as saying about the Kin mobile phone "now there was a successful product").
Sorry, personal bugbear, my problem.
EDIT: no, actualy I still disagree. Mere 'repurposing' in the "black is white" sense is not enough, there has to be contradiction.
"(It is also worth noting that of the 100 Americans named by Forbes, Jobs is one of only seven who made their fortunes on their own.) "
My, how things have changed.
(Not to diminish the work of those who started with "more" in life.)
Assuming they've done any work?
It would be really interesting to see how he would answer that question now.
That's a simple explanation, and the point is that people really don't have to understand how computers work. Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don't have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don't have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh--but you asked [laughs]."
Jobs has been on point for a while now; he's a man with ideals and beliefs about technology and its role in society. He has been on point with this message for literally decades and he has seen his ideas through to creation time and time again.
That's worthy of respect.
"If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years."
iPhone, OS X growing like wild today. About... 20 years after he said that. And Mac OS 9 (yes, the mac also started to suck), Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista, what better description than a dark age.
The largest, fastest, most important rollout of technology in the history of mankind. Seriously.
.NET, IE6, and Win32 aren't the most wonderful technologies in the world, but they're certainly not the reason for the "Dark Ages".
And re: patio12's point: Microsoft presided over a huge, fast, and successful technological expansion... it's just that it would've been bigger, faster, and more successful if they hadn't had such a "break their kneecaps" style of business strategy.
Make fart apps.
It is interesting to note that Steve Jobs' biggest hits came in his 30's, 40's and gasp 50's dwarfing what he did in his 20's.
30's - NEXT and foundation for MacOS X
40's - iPod, iTunes
50's - iPhone, iPad