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Comment by npalli | Hacker News Reader

It looks like the response was written when Jobs was still around. I doubt Woz would sound so belligerent now. In any case, if you watch some of Job’s old videos and biographical material, it was clear he knew coding. There was some mainframe terminal in his high school that he first learnt how to code.

Now Woz was clearly Genius level when it came to tight hardware/software engineering. So, it is not at all surprising Jobs had limited input when it came to the Apple I and II design. In fact Jobs mentions that Woz was the first guy who knew more about electronics than he (Jobs) did. In Woz’s response, quoted here, he mentions that Jobs was technical enough to alter/change/add to the design. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t know anything?

I find it sad that engineers project their own insecurities in this whole Jobs/Woz saga. Jobs was highly involved in not just the technical aspects but the overall vision of Apple I, II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad. He was one of a kind. There is no need to pull him down and artificially elevate Woz to something he was not. Jobs could work with the best engineers/marketeers/design/retail people during Apple II and the iPad. A whole 35 year period in technology. How would you think Woz would have fared in deep technical discussions involving the iPhone? How many engineers do you know who have worked at the highest level for 35 years? Technology was only one of the aspects that Jobs understood quite well.

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I agree. I think there is a real resentment among people who work hard to master technical details, only to have guys in positions like Jobs's more or less float over that. It's like, you didn't put in the hard work to learn endianness like I did, so you don't know shit.

The kind of knowledge and savoir-faire that Jobs had is not concrete, ineffable. Engineers tend to hate that, they think it's just a bunch of shit.

Jobs was extremely smart to brilliant. What he didn't do, and what he said he did, was design the Apple I. There was a front page article a few weks ago linking to a bunch of Jobs videos, and again and again he'd stand in a front of a bunch of people and claim to have designed the Apple I.

I guess none of us really know the score in that regard, but certainly everything in the rest of their careers backs up Steve's story.

Engineers hate lying, not soft skills.

Engineers hate lying, not soft skills.

Thank you for pointing out this very important distinction. I think it's important to realize that Jobs was human and not the most humane among us. It's easy to realize if you read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Brennan-Jobs

Development of the Apple Lisa computer began in the year of Brennan's birth, just as Apple Computer, the company her father founded, began to experience significant growth. Jobs initially denied paternity, and he and Apple claimed that the name was an acronym for "Local Integrated Software Architecture".[5] Steve Jobs swore in court documents that he could not be Lisa's father because he was "sterile and infertile, and as a result thereof, did not have the physical capacity to procreate a child."[2] Decades later, Jobs admitted to his biographer Walter Isaacson, "Obviously, it was named for my daughter."[

The guy swore under oath and penalty of perjury that he was incapable of fathering the daughter he in fact fathered and concocted an elaborate story to explain away why he named one of Apple's computers after this girl that he claimed was not his daughter.

So I agree with you; engineers tend to deal in reality. Many people are successful because they successfully sell non-reality to people when it suits their purpose. Engineers tend to have problems with such people.

I just want to say kudos to the above responses. I think they're right on the money. In fact, I think the main reason I got into engineering in the first place is that I couldn't stand people's bullshit. In engineering, it actually matters whether what you say is true or not, because if it isn't, the thing won't work.

Get over yourself.

There are plenty of fields where "it won't work" if you lie. Law? Surgery?

Let's leave aside for a second the enormous number of programmers who aren't actually engineers (with an engineering degree) who still use the Engineer title.

Sorry, I had to chuckle when I saw you include law as one of the fields where lying "won't work." For many parties, lying in court does "work" for them if they can get away with it. Recent case in point: the DEA using NSA intercepts to launch investigations, then lie in court about how these investigations originally started. [1]

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...

Litigation/trial law is but a small part of the Law profession.

Perjury is also a felony, despite the fact that your country's justice system doesn't seem to enforce it.

Although I agree that "There are plenty of fields where "it won't work" if you lie." But Law? Surgery? are not the examples you should choose, both had plenty of cases where lying did work.

I believe both fields have formalized codes of eithics, tho. you can be disbasrred or struck off the list of licesed practitioners for 'lying'. That being said, their is a continuum on considerations, even professionally. Physicians need to maintain a diplomatic bedside manner; counsel needs to advocate adversarially the strongest position, etc. In these examples, the notion of black and white is best not clung too strenuously. Perjury, negligence, and fruadulen billing, etc of course are at the othe end of the spectrum.

> There are plenty of fields where "it won't work" if you lie. Law?

The field of Law is based on interpretation and persuasive authority.

This ( http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html ) is part of what made me like computers:

>I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...

>> Engineers hate lying, not soft skills.

I think I ought to admit that as an engineer I probably shouldn't hate soft skills, but I do (I also do hate lying, but that's not a bad thing). I dislike the fact that it's hard for me to gain some of those soft skills, and the fact that they're often necessary for complete success. I'm willing to call that jealousy, but I think we should recognize that it's natural for that to creep in, and maybe that explains some of the comments towards Jobs.

Okay, sure, I was a bit blithe in that statement, aiming for a catchy, not all-inclusive statement. Good point.

Do you have a link to the page? I've never heard that Jobs claimed to have designed the Apple I. It's a strange claim for him to have made.

Sure, here [1]. First video, at 2:30. He keeps using "we" (I don't feel like transcribing the video). Now, if you parse the wording very, very carefully you could argue that Jobs never exactly says that 'he' designed it, but he keeps using 'we' - the computer was designed for them, 'we'worked on it for 6 months, etc. It's weasel words and phrases, and I have no doubt that every person in that room walked out thinking that Jobs co-designed the Apple I, and that Jobs thought up the idea. Whereas in reality Woz went to a homebrew meeting, came up with the idea, designed it, and then showed Jobs. Jobs came up with the idea of it being a kit, marketed it, and absolutely made Apple what it was. The third video, of Woz, explains that history.

And then how about this quote: "This whole vision of a personal computer just popped into my head. [In March 1975], I started to sketch out on paper what would later become known as the Apple I." [2]

[1] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jobs-ashton-kutcher-re...

[2] http://www.applegazette.com/steve-jobs/steve-jobs-quotes-the...

Your argument is ridiculous. One half of a two person team is certainly permitted to say "we". Sheesh.

What he clearly meant about the Apple I was envisioning the end-user version of the computer, not how the transistors were laid out. My goodness.

I don't think it is clear at all. Woz's description of their respective role is crystal clear, and Job's description is clear only if you already know Woz's description.

But, convince me, don't belittle me. What words did Jobs say in that video to convey that what he did was envision the end-user version of the computer (which I agree is what he did).

edit: I am not suggesting something unheard of, after all. Google 'jobs takes credit for others work' and relevant links fill the page. Here's the top one: http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-would-annoy-jony-i...

I Googled it, and there were 2 or 3 results...the Ive quote, something from Woz and maybe one more. I'd be curious what the complete context is on the Ive quote.

I think a good deal of the mis-placement of responsibility has to do with some people's attachment to novel-ness vs. other's respect for piecing together something marketable. I appreciate invention but understand that it is useless without marketing. Not so the other way around.

I Googled it, and there were 2 or 3 results...the Ive quote, something from Woz and maybe one more. I'd be curious what the complete context is on the Ive quote.

I think a good deal of the mis-placement of responsibility has to do with some people's attachment to novel-ness vs. other's respect for piecing together something marketable.

It is easy to claim Jobs takes credit for others work but I also think its fair to say that for most people who cofound a company, whether they are technical or not, they will often use the word "we" when describing something they've worked on.

The engineering portions of output are much easier to quantify. The non-engineering portions are much more difficult to quantify but much, much more important.

You just say we when you talk about your team or company to outsiders. It's pretty normal. You don't say our engineer bob spent months on it.

There's a lot of Steve Jobs hero worship I hear of this sort. What did the poster do to deserve being called ridiculous? He laid out a very compelling case that there was serious ambiguity in Job's statements to the public.

Do you think it does any good to elevate Steve Jobs above what he actually did? Who does that ultimately benefit?

We have a whole channel full of entrepreneurs here who deserve to know the true story because they may also have co-founders who claim too much credit or they may have resentful co-founders. They all need to know that friction does not mean that their businesses will fail.

Founders are human. Like Steve Jobs.

There are appears to be a strong trend these days in certain circles to demonize Steve Jobs in some way or other. Simply mentioning his name either here or on reddit (and probably a few other places) is often enough to garner a large number of replies saying he wasn't a genius and was just a salesman / marketer, etc.

The fact is, he did have a proven track record of being able to distill various concepts and functions into products that people loved -- not just liked, but loved. When presented with a prototype or the beginnings of an idea, he knew what to keep, what to throw away, and what to change. He knew how to keep at it until it was truly great. So great that it could turn entire industries on their heads. So great that whole companies would spend years trying to imitate the results. He did this many times during his life, enough times so that it is pretty much impossible to say that it was merely accident; he clearly knew what he was doing.

The results are so striking and so clearly beyond that which other people working at the same time were able to produce that I think it's safe to say Steve Jobs was exhibiting a next-level talent, one of those talents that even people whom we normally think of as extremely talented find difficult to even comprehend, let alone replicate. Because of this I think it is truly fitting to use the word "genius" when describing what he could do, even if it was not the skills of an engineer. I know using that word will probably incur some of the replies I was just talking about, but that's how I see it.

When it comes down to it, Steve Jobs probably could have been a good or even great engineer if he had set his mind to it, but he had a much rarer talent around which he chose to build his career. I can't help but feel that a lot of the vitriol directed at him is because people either do not understand or on some level actively resent what made him different.

I agree with a lot of this, but Jobs made plenty of blunders as well. Computers without disk drives, keyboards without arrow keys, etc - all things that were put on the market with Jobs vehemently arguing that it was the only, and correct choice, .... and then Apple backpedaled.

Which is not intended to counter your "next-level" talent claim - I wholeheartedly agree. I guess statements like "he knew what to keep" give me pause because he did, clearly, make plenty of blunders. As Woz said [1] "Steve never created a great computer. In that period, he had failure after failure after failure. He had an incredible vision, but he didn't have the ability to execute on it. I would be surprised if the movie portrays the truth."

One can be (must be?) flawed and still a genius. Some people (not you) deny the flawed part, and that rankles me. [1]http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jobs-ashton-kutcher-re...

edit: sorry, the floppy thing was NeXT, not Apple.

The mouse with one button, they finally gave in and have two now.

Um, am I the only one that feels that part of my job is to make my boss look good?

That's fine, as long as it's part of your bosses job is to tell customers how smart his engineers are. Making people look good is a two way street.

In my view, the good boss deflects as much praise as possible onto his team, and absorbs as much blame as possible.

I would get a new job if I were you. Not saying that you should, if that sort of stuff is your thing, but I would.

Some people care about doing a good job and getting paid well for it, not the "glory". And if the guy taking the spotlight shows his appreciation, staying in the shadow can be just as rewarding.

Or back on topic: I think someone like Woz would be totally miserable being in the spotlight and under constant pressure the way Jobs was.

Do you mind providing any reasoning why the person should "get a new job"? I tend to agree that a significant part of being employed is "making your leader look good". This is generally accomplished by doing good work and complementing your team, leader included.

Not sure how it will help. It will be just as true in the new job.

Not unless you create the new job!

When you are your own boss, making your boss look good is even more closely aligned with your personal interests.

You are not.

You absolutely are. Otherwise, what's the point in hiring you?

Um. What question is it that you think you're answering?

Here's the way in which I presume your comment was interpreted:

You are not [supposed to make your boss look good].

Not that I would've interpreted it that way, however.

Yes, sorry. He actually meant: "You are not the only one who thinks that part of your job is making your boss look good."

Kinda seems obvious now.

To be fair, most people who act like Steve Jobs are not Steve Jobs.

I don't see why you read this as belligerent, unless you think altering and changing designs is inferior to coding and original design. There were a lot of articles after Tim Cook took over that described Jobs' genius as that of a design editor, knowing what to cut and what to keep. Wozniak's comment here seems consistent with that.

I think it's worse than belligerent. It makes both of them look bad (both Steve and Woz), to show that perceived split between them. There's what you say, and then there's what you say.

It also makes engineers look bad because it only enhances the perception that we can only handle the raw technical aspects, and that we get bitter when someone passes us because of non-technical reasons. I don't know why engineers are singled out here because I've seen it happen in all other specializations. Perhaps it's in the way we generally react?

Split between them? You should read how Jobs got some work with Atari, got Woz to do the work and said they'd split it 50-50. Atari paid Jobs $5000, told Woz they paid him $700. Kept the rest.

Woz himself said that the money was no big deal. If this was a big deal, he should have confronted Jobs about it in person.

Unfortunately, society at large does not really care about "fairness." People have a tendency to blame the victim, and that victim would be us.

People do not intrinsically value what we do. They value what we can do for them. To that end, it's easy to understand why they would prefer the story of Jobs to the story of Wozniak. Saying that Jobs was not a coder did not significantly hurt Jobs. Jobs may have been an asshole, but he had enough charisma to go keep going. Saying that Jobs was not a coder hurt engineers because it pigeonholes us into the technical-only side of things. Woz did the engineering and hardware design. Jobs did everything else.

Ultimately, in any such situation, it is important to keep this kind of drama under the sheets. Most people are not like Jobs. Most management would not be able to deal with the fallout of these kinds of statements.

I know a lot of engineers IRL who resent Jobs because of these things. My response to them has always been: start your own business, because the more technical entrepreneurs there are out there, the less likely that a future Jobs figure would act the way that Jobs did.

>society at large does not really care about "fairness."

[Citation needed]

Perpetuating these sorts of things spreads them.

For some reason it won't let me reply to you. Anyway, He said the _money_ was no big deal, that he would have done it for free. The outright lie/ money grab was a big deal. If he'd learned about it earlier instead of 10 years after the fact he probably wouldn't have gone into business with him.

I didn't read it as belligerent. He stuck to facts only and avoided emotional vocabulary.

Totally agree. I don't understand why people are reading Woz's words are belligerent...maybe based on their own preconceived notions or experiences, but certainly not because of anything Woz said.

He simply stated the truth: "Steve didn't ever code."

It's not a judgement. He didn't say it made him inferior in any way. In fact, he praised him in the very next sentence saying "he was technical enough to alter and change and add to other designs".

I'm not sure any of this is a big revelation anyway...didn't we all pretty much know that Woz was the tech/programming guy and Jobs was the marketing/sales/business deal guy? They were amazingly successful together and it is doubtful that either one of them would have attained the same success if they had gone about it independently.

I disagree. I think it sounds belligerent. If he had stopped at "Steven didn't ever code" (which I'm not sure is accurate), maybe. But then he goes on to include zingers like "no original design" which is sort of a fighting phrase (and not part of the question) and "I did...all the feature choices" which we know is false, it becomes belligerent. Then Woz has to pile on even more about doing everything solely except for some tiny, trivial component. Belligerent in my book.

Agreed, this is classic Woz. He didn't take any of the offense that others seem to think he should have, nor was he heaping scorn on Jobs here. Just telling it like it is, as is his want.

I saw the Woz speak just a couple of months ago and he spent probably half an hour (total, not consecutively) of the talk bashing Jobs in various ways, talking about how Jobs would take credit for his work, etc. He portrayed Jobs as a slick marketer who wasn't ashamed of making use of others' successes for his own gain.

I was on the scene in those times (I wrote Apple Writer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) and I have to agree -- I think Steve's role at Apple resulted from a combination of his narcissism, his bullying tactics and his evangelism for the person computer, in equal measure. He ended up with an insanely great career. :)

I was on the scene at the time too, hired by the author of AppleWorks. The only reason AppleWorks became Microsoft Works for the Mac, a computer which desperately needed software at the time, was because the author of AppleWorks (Lissner) couldn't deal with Jobs despite being very willing. I'm not knocking Jobs, but Wozniak has every right to complain if that's what he chooses to do.

I have a personal revelation about that. Until Apple Works got under way, Apple was paying me a lot of royalty income for Apple Writer because I had negotiated a rather high percentage in the early days, before either Apple or I understood what a normal royalty rate might be. After seeing me refuse to accept a reduction in the rate, Apple got fed up and started the Apple Works project with a much more favorable arrangement with Lissner (I think he might even have been employed as a programmer). In principle that should have produced a good outcome, because Apple Works was a much more ambitious program that did a lot more than mine.

But after the Apple Works initial release, Lissner left and refused to work on the code base any more. So Apple asked me to take Apple Works over with the same arrangement Lissner had had, but by then, spoiled by the royalty arrangement and having heard too many stories about Steve's behavior, I refused.

In retrospect, I had no difficulties upgrading Apple Writer and accommodating user suggestions, because I was hundreds of miles away and I wasn't an employee. By the time Apple asked me to take over Apple Works, I understood that fully -- Lissner's circumstances were unbearable -- as a result of which there was no imaginable incentive that could have gotten me into a closer working relationship with Steve.

I remember some shouting on the phone between Lissner and Jobs but I was just a young pup at the time and didn't understand what was going on. I think all Lissner wanted was a little respect since AppleWorks was a major seller for the Apple II line, but Jobs being Jobs he probably came across like, so what, the Apple II is dead and the Mac killed it (he was right of course.) Lissner got rich anyway and lost he drive to work on the Mac version. Our small team in Santa Cruz continued to build it, then Gates came down to meet us and bought it. Works ended up being the first really useful program on the Mac, followed a little later by Excel. I remember hearing a lot of good things about Apple Writer, but of course I used AppleWorks. Those were heady times.

Thank you for your work. I greatly enjoyed using Apple Writer.

You're most welcome. At the time there was a rather stupid magazine article titled, "Will Success Spoil Paul Lutus?" When I saw it I laughed and said, "I hope so."

Did it? :)

>>who wasn't ashamed of making use of others' successes for his own gain.

Trust me, that is nearly a mandatory skill you will need to have to succeed in a place of any significant size.

If you think you can just be successful by working hard you are living in a perennial state of delusion.

> If you think you can just be successful by working hard you are living in a perennial state of delusion.

That sentiment divides the stories of the well-known and the truly great. Einstein prevailed by working hard, not by stealing the work of others. The careers of many scientists follow the same pattern -- a conscientious attribution of credit where due, followed by an important personal breakthrough. Darwin is another notable example.

If you work independently and the outcomes of your results are judged by an impartial authority you will succeed by working hard. The best example I can come up with is are exams. In an exam if you study well and appear for the examination you will win.

Same applies to scientists. They work individually, and pretty much do work and are judged in isolation.

If you work with a group of people. Politics is a inevitable consequence due to human nature and you will see how that will effect hard working people.

> Same applies to scientists. They work individually, and pretty much do work and are judged in isolation.

I don't think this is true any more.

Historically, you had individual scientists working hard on very specific problem areas.

Even this didn't get rid of the divide between (perceived) genius and (perceived) success. Witness the classic example of Edison vs. Tesla.

However, modern scientists seem to work predominantly in groups, and are subject to the same petty intrigues and political nonsense as the rest of us.

> > Same applies to scientists. They work individually, and pretty much do work and are judged in isolation.

> I don't think this is true any more.

True, and to me unfortunate. Some recent LHC papers have more than 1000 authors, each of which actually contributed something to the outcome.

"Did Higgs yield the most authors in a science study?" : http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57509551-1/did-higgs-yie...

Quote: "Two articles by the teams are each about 30 pages long. The combined author list takes up 19 pages of single-spaced text and appears to have roughly 6,000 names. Wouldn't that be fun to cite as a footnote in full?"

> However, modern scientists seem to work predominantly in groups, and are subject to the same petty intrigues and political nonsense as the rest of us.

All true. The movie portrayal of a 19th century scientist working alone toward a basic discovery is now a popular myth.

>That sentiment divides the stories of the well-known and the truly great. Einstein prevailed by working hard, not by stealing the work of others.

Well, Poincaré might want to disagree. Well, it's not like he "stole the work of others", it's about gaining from their successes. And Einstein did that too, as any scientist did: he "stood on the shoulders of giants" (Maxwell, for one).

> And Einstein did that too, as any scientist did: he "stood on the shoulders of giants" (Maxwell, for one).

Yes, certainly true, but not by stealing or failing to attribute prior work. And I agree with your suggestion that Maxwell might be a more important figure in the shaping of modern physics than most people realize.

+1 for the citation.

There is actually quite a bit of historical controversy regarding Einstein's work on relativity and whether he deliberately avoided crediting the work of Poincare, Lorentz, Minkowski, and others. His initial paper on special relativity had no citations, despite the existence of a lot of relevant work by others.

> His initial paper on special relativity had no citations, despite the existence of a lot of relevant work by others.

It's important to remember that what we now understand to be special relativity, with its spacetime interpretation, was crafted by others (primarily Minkowski) after the original paper. This is important to remember when reading the original paper -- we might be suffering from perfect hindsight.

But I might have chosen a bad example, because it's true that Einstein tended not to attribute the work of others as much as he should have. Compare to Newton's "standing on the shoulders of giants" remark.

After a few months Einstein wrote an 'addon' paper in which he included all citations.

Darwin and Einstein were a once in a generation geniuses, I'm not sure much can be extrapolated from how they worked.

Engineers, of which I am one, tend to see the world in pure dialectics, so they often have very difficult time understanding why accomplishment is not purely evaluated by some rational universal force and recognition made manifest commensurately.

Self promotion is a skill that we all need, and do not think for a moment that people like Einstein were not well skilled in it.

As for claiming credit in higher proportion to one's contribution, that is evil in proportion to the exaggeration. However, perception being limited as it is, no one, not even the other contributors are in a good position to judge.

As for outright lies, they are, well, outright lies.

I surely hope I never have to work with you.

Such as when Jobs got Wozniak to create Breakout for him and took the entire bonus without telling Wozniak.

I like Woz better because he is a better person that Jobs. That's all. The fact that he is a more technical person is just icing on the top.

There's a difference between "knowing how to code" and actually doing it. I know a lot of people who know the basics HTML/CSS, but most of them don't do it for a living for whatever reason. Just because "Steve didn't code", doesn't mean "Steve couldn't code"...

Perhaps Steve's greatest contribution to Apple was being its ultimate guinea pig. He wasn't an engineer, so he wasn't bogged down by the insecurities and fears and analytical thinking that plague the engineer's mind. He could "let go", as it were, and really evaluate the products coming out of his company for what they ARE, and their usefulness, unlike an engineer who always has the potential of making really geek-oriented products that fill a specific niche and aren't very useful outside that niche.

Off-topic, but do you consider knowing just HTML/CSS being knowing how to code? If so, do you consider knowing something like LaTeX, Markdown, or reStructuredText to include knowing how to code?

Not that I'm any authority, but I generally considering "knowing how to code" to require at least being able to use some sort of branching operation as well as some some sort of looping/recursion (which yes, is really just branching).

There is a difference between "coding" and "programming". Programming is an act of producing a formal computational solution for a problem. Coding, on the other hand, means literally encoding that formal specification of computation in a way that computer will be able to execute. In that sense, yes, HTML/CSS is a coding as the end result can be executed on a computer to produce a visual representation of the page.

What you are talking about is a programming, although I do not understand how branching and recursion are the same. I am not aware of the way to express one by another.

I've always considering "programming" and "coding" to be synonyms, but you've pointed out an interesting distinction I've never considered. Thank you.

> What you are talking about is a programming, although I do not understand how branching and recursion are the same. I am not aware of the way to express one by another.

I meant this at a really low level. Recursion is just a conditional jump and a stack push. When I said branching, I was thinking of the jump instructions in assembly (which allow you to jump to any point in a program, including instructions that have already been executed).

A lot of engineers are incapable of seeing the value that someone like Steve Jobs brings in the technology industry. These might be the same people that wonder why Linux has not succeeded on the desktop.

Which values are you talking about in this case? I'm just curious to see what is so great, in your opinion, about Jobs contribution to IT world? Since personally, being a tech enthusiast myself, there has never been so far anything produced by Apple that I couldn't live without.

Whenever anyone says this, I wish I could draw.

I have this cartoon in my head in which one caveman is stood at a stall selling round wheels, surrounded by eager punters desperate to buy them for their stone age carts, whilst a bunch of other cavemen stand around with square wheels that no-one wants to buy complaining that they invented the wheel first and that they can't see why the round wheel is so much of an improvement.

Except for the fact that round wheel vs squared is totally out of the world comparison being it something related to core functionality of an object and not something which concerns look and feel or interfaces (mouse, multitouch) or aesthetics which is what Apple mostly innovated in. So your draw, could at maximum be same two cavemans both with round wheels except second wheel is chromated, has more comfortable lock/screws system and... costs double price. Also if first caveman wheel's customers are power-cavemans (haha) they'd could invest same money on two wheels... So your draw had to be a nice refined solid wheel vs. white space where a bike stood before going riding. Which in real world terms is a 'project realized' -> multitrack song/indie game/3D animation/cpu intensive ERP made, sold and cashed.

Ok, now is time for those flashy details.... I'd like one of those trendy expensive flashy wheels ... I'm sure it will fit in perfectly in my new large white-walled sexy cave...

That's a pretty shallow analysis of Apple's products.

Well, go on, add something more then.

Personal computing, WIMP interface, WYSIWYG fonts, object oriented operating systems, multitouch interface, digital music distribution.

Jobs invented none of them, but they represent a few things that would either not exist or be radically different (i.e., far worse) today without his contributions.

> they represent a few things that would either not exist or be radically different (i.e., far worse)

Do you really think we would be swimming in a sea of technological shit if Apple didn't come up with its own technological innovations ?

I don't think so... Of course look and feel would be slightly different... but that would also have happened in case one "Orange" company had existed too.

Probably the main differences would be 1) less instagram pics 2) podcasts not called podcast but audio files 3) you got me...

Everyone thinks everything we have now is obvious. It's not.

Take fonts. The Macintosh came out in 1984. It took over a decade for WYSIWG and fonts to catch on. By 1995, Wordperfect for DOS was still massively popular.

We think the desktop metaphor with on-screen typesetting just "makes sense" today. Why shouldn't we just be typing on a virtual piece of paper, working directly with fonts of the desired type and size?

But that is an entirely new metaphor. Writing and publishing never worked that way. You'd write a draft on paper or a typewriter, then give it to some layout guy who would work with the typesetter to get the press set up.

The early text-mode-only word processors extended this metaphor is a natural way - you became the layout guy and the typesetter using markup inside your draft, and the software and printer would work to get you the output you wanted. This was a big deal, and to many, was the way it was going to work forever.

The iPhone is "obvious", and that's how all phones work now, but there was nothing like it in 2007 and there were plenty of skeptics that predicted failure because of its lack of a stylus and physical keyboard.

If we could be shown the world without Steve Jobs, it wouldn't surprise me at all today if we all had to drive over to our local IBM "Computing Center" where we could pay to send people "Electronic Mails", and we'd all think we were living in a futuristic wonder world.

I appreciate having bosses and sales guys around to play up the BS so I don't have to.

I agree. I also think that Jobs probably recognized that Woz was well beyond him technically and that he would just get in the way for the most part. Nothing worse than someone "who used to code" deciding to "get their hands dirty" and just end up slowing down the whole process.

>> I also think that Jobs probably recognized that Woz was well beyond him technically and that he would just get in the way for the most part.

Absolutely. IIRC, this is at least strongly implied if not explicitly stated in Job's biography.

Yeah, it's fun to make shit up that but let's not ignore the fact that while Woz was technically employed at Apple until 1987, he did not play any role of significance at Apple after his plane crash in 1981, and was never involved in the Mac project at all. Any importance Woz may have had to Apple effectively ended in 1981.

> while Woz was technically employed at Apple until 1987

I think that Woz is actually still employed at Apple even today. According to both his personal website and autobiography he still takes a paycheck (Wikipedia says around $120k a year). Like you say though, he has no involvement at Apple anymore despite the salary.

That probably makes him technically the only Apple employee who's allowed to openly critique new product releases in public!

That effectively makes Woz responsible for 50% of Apple's success so far.

Well you can count any way you like if you absolutely want to make it so. But I count Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and the App Store as pretty good successes.

>>if you absolutely want to make it so.

I'm just stating history as is.

Apple I and II were something like what search business is for Google. They were basically their bread and butter for nearly the entire early years.

And Woz had almost entirely designed and built them. The products you mention are all large team products.

Look at it anyway. If you count for the individual efforts. Woz is way ahead of any one at Apple.

I think Jobs and Bricklin were at least as important for the success of the Apple II as Wozniak. Yes, Woz worked magic on the hardware and the software, allowing for an aggressive price for the feature set, but Jobs and Bricklin made that hardware enter the office; Jobs by insisting that that the case looked friendly (http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/apple2.html gives a nice overview), and Dan Bricklin by writing VisiCalc.

If Jobs and Bricklin hadn't been around, Woz' design might be a footnote in history, smaller than the Commodore Amiga.

Oh, so in your version of history, Apple had about as much success prior to 1981 as they did after? Interesting.

>I find it sad that engineers project their own insecurities in this whole Jobs/Woz saga.

You seem to be the one projecting here, if you're seeing this terse recitation of facts as belligerent. I am happy you posted, though, because you inadvertently caused this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6296217

> How would you think Woz would have fared in deep technical discussions involving the iPhone?

I think he would fare quite well, even if he hasn't done any coding or engineering since leaving Apple in 1987.

He has done coding and engineering since leaving Apple. You might want to do a little research like read his biography or scan his web site....

You misinterpreted my statement. I meant to emphasize "even if," my point being that even the level of technical knowledge and experience he had in 1987 should easily qualify him to have intelligent technical conversations about the iPhone.

Page source indicates that this has been posted on 05 Jun, 2012. (Submission dates are invisible because of a CSS rule.)

I'm guessing the submission dates are hidden because they're incorrect. Here's another one[0] that says it was posted in 2011, but there's an ed mark saying that "at this time" meant "pre-2000."

Edit: It's on the wayback machine since at least August of 2000.[1]

[0]. http://www.woz.org/letters/relationship-steve-jobs

[1]. http://web.archive.org/web/20000817233800/http://www.woz.org...

Are you implying that you know better than Woz would on the topic?

What exactly was so belligerent about Woz's response?

It seemed like a straight-forward, facts-only response to me.

Steve Jobs never claimed to be a programmer. He had bigger sources of pride. He was a technician at Atari. 'npalli' seems to be offended by Woz stating the facts. I wouldn't expect Woz to submit to the hero worship of Jobs that a lot of people seem to expect these days. That'd be like asking my ex-wife to sing my praises.

Unfortunately, straight forward and concise, when in the web medium, can sound belligerent depending on the perspective of the reader. When I'm reading someone technical like Woz I have to consciously apply a matter of fact tone to the content to avoid thinking it comes off as rude.

can sound belligerent depending on the perspective of the reader.

Ah yes, I can see how anything that wasn't utterly worshipful of Steve Jobs would sound belligerent to an Apple fanboy.

Now you came as rude and tasteless.

Nobody asked for something "utterly worshipful", and nobody sounded like a "fanboy" in this thread, and surely not the original commenter (oh, and using such words as "fanboy"? Are you fifteen years old?).

His concern was if this was an accurate portrayal or if Wozniak was resentful and downplayed some of Jobs skills.

Nobody expected Woz to say that Jobs had Bill Joy level programming skills.

Just about everything you said was incorrect.

Please, take your special brand of crazy somewhere else.

It looks like the response was written when Jobs was still around. I doubt Woz would sound so belligerent now.

It sounded pretty matter of fact, and not belligerent at all.

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