I was part of a writer/photographer team that interviewed Steve Jobs during his Next years; we conducted the interview at an Ann Arbor trade show the day before the 1989 Loma Prieta/San Francisco earthquake.
Until now, I never connected the two.
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Jobs was the consummate showman; the Next workstation hadn’t yet been released, but was supposed to pack engineering workstation power in a sexy 12″ cube.
The Next booth was built in secrecy behind shrouds, and when it came time to populate it with machines, Jobs lined up twelve people — each carrying a Next workstation — and sent them through the crowd.
I couldn’t decide if it was showmanship or megalomania, but later realized it was simply attention to detail — the act of someone who would later throw out expensive, “good enough” prototype smartphones because they featured more than one button.
The interview itself was predictably opaque; Jobs played things pretty close to the vest, and interviewers often tied themselves into knots looking for an opening, which Jobs never supplied. I remember almost nothing from the interview except that he warned us we’d get only one picture at its conclusion.
One.
In retrospect, that fact probably should have opened the interview.
I bought one of the original 128K Macs, a brilliant machine crippled by Jobs’ insistence that it have no expansion slots — one of the decisions that initially wounded the Macintosh in the PC market.
A sleek, no-slot PC is a pretty cripple, but a one-button mp3 player (or smartphone, or tablet) is no cripple at all, and the aesthetic that hampered Jobs in the computer world paid off in the consumer goods markets, where he really hit his stride.
It would be presumptuous to say Jobs eventually realized perfect boxes weren’t the goal as much as a perfect experience (though it neatly explains iTunes and Pixar), and I have little desire to join the thousands already casting about in the dark about a man we didn’t know.
I’ll simply suggest he had the effect on many of us of a long, rolling earthquake, and yesterday the rumbling ceased, and we are the poorer for it.
Absolutely. I was shocked by the news, not because I didn’t see it coming, but because of the effect that this man has had on my life through his innovations. I hadn’t really sat down to think about that until I heard of his passing.
Spent a good 15 minutes with my classes today, reminiscing and explaining the effect Jobs has had on us all.
professor(Quote)
I never got the hype.
Sorry.
I own 1 Apple device, a series-1 iPod touch. It works. Very well, actually.
I hope Apple can keep stirring up the market.
peter(Quote)
During the last ten years of his life his vision and work shifted entire industries and technologies — music and tablets being the two best examples — in ways that I doubt any other human being could. A slightly dimmer future, for sure.
Steve Z(Quote)
My list of best three inventions of our time:
Macs
Gore Tex
iPods
The fact two of those three came from Apple is testament enough.
Smarter and Better Looking Brother(Quote)
Odd.
I purchased an iMac in 1998 as a gift for an “inmate” at Laguna Honda Hospital, but I’ve never owned an Apple product myself.
I find the fact I’ve never owned an Apple product odd as I’m not actually a cretin (although I play one on several blogs).
Don(Quote)
I worked in electronics back in the 80′s and even did some work for Apple. The company I worked for designed and manufactured the power supplies and some test equipment for the II-E, Lisa and first Mac. One thing I’ve found is people outside of the tech world back when everything was new, exciting and being invented, or people that didn’t grow up in an area of the country where tech was as big as sports, really do not poses the acumen, at no fault of their own, to digest what we lost yesterday. And I’m not saying he was a great person, but I am saying people like him do not fall off trees. We are fortunate to live in these times.
Dan(Quote)
I’ve been a Mac user since day one and still have my Mac +. Somehow, though I lack the artistry to explain it amply in words, the Mac experience I know and my new found love for fly fishing seem connected. Suffice to say, both are elixirs for the soul.
Greg Zenitsky(Quote)
Well put Tom, hopefully Apple doesn’t lose it’s stride.
Kayak Fisherman(Quote)
My first Mac was a 128K (the original) that suffered from its lack of expandability, and while I loved the things, I dumped my Macs in the 90s after the OS became too unstable to trust with my daily work.
Nowadays I’m a Linux guy, and in many ways I take an approach to computing the exact opposite of Jobs’, but there’s no denying his impact on the digital world (hardware, media, all of it).
Tom Chandler(Quote)
I always coveted those NeXT machines, never had the money for one. His innate sense of what the public would want if only it existed was unsurpassed and something you really can’t teach. If there’s one thing kids today can learn from Jobs it is persistence. The man simply never gave up, never stopped doing what he did best.
About 20 years ago I read a book called The Journey Is The Reward by Jeffrey Young, the (unauthorized, naturally) story of Jobs’ life until shortly after he was ousted from Apple. Really interesting read if you can locate a copy.
Mark Coleman(Quote)
I have to say that black cube was pretty damned sexy — as was the idea of workstation power in an era when my Mac ground away for minutes at a time doing simple things.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Respectfully, I agree. I’m sure he was a terribly good marketeer and very clever chap, but the man invented a cell phone and, I regret, managed to convince me to compress my music collection. My mistake.
Jonny(Quote)
…21 of the 23 years I spent in the commercial print industry as a prepress technician/color retoucher were spent on a mac…from System 7 onward…I am eternally grateful to Mr. Jobs…
John P. Rivera(Quote)