Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak became fabulously wealthy using minimal resources beyond their own time and talent, working out of Job’s garage. Today, Jobs and the company he and Wozniak founded are making similar rags-to-riches stories possible with the iTunes AppStore and applications created by third party developers for Apple’s iPhone.
Steve Demeter, developer of a popular $5 iPhone game, Trism, announced he made $250,000 in profit in just two months, according to a story by Gadget Lab blogger Brian Chen. If his profits continue at their current rate, Demeter will earn $3 million by July 2009.
Demeter by no means tried to reinvent the wheel. Trism is basically a version of Bejeweled that uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to good advantage, giving the game what Demeter believes are the fundamental requirements for success at iPhone app development: unique gameplay and high replay value. He also designed support for an online leaderboard that creates community and says applications with great content sell themselves, something the developer of another popular game, Tap Tap Revenge, agrees with.
Bart Decrem was one of only four people who originally worked on Tap Tap Revenge, a free application that hit a milestone of 1,000,000 downloads just two weeks after its launch. Decrem’s company recently began inserting advertisements in the game, and it also has plans to release a premium version that will cost money in addition to the free app. He says iPhone development is “reminiscent of the early days of the web in terms of the amount of green fields and opportunity,” according to Chen. “You really don’t need a huge amount of capital. You need attention to detail and product, and that’s going to keep increasing.”
It’s iPhone launch day in the US and early reports from severalsources indicate a scene of controlled chaos across the country as Apple Retail and AT&T employees work to satisfy the demands of people who must have a new phone today. It’s nothing like the mayhem that attended demand last summer when the first gen iPhone made its debut, but AT&T’s on-site activation requirement seems to be making the purchase of of a new iPhone much longer process than the 15 minutes touted earlier in the week as the time it would take to get in and out with a phone.
Steve Wozniak was quoted in MacWorld admitting gadget lust would keep him in line overnight down in San Jose to get a new phone this morning, but said,””A lot of the people I know just aren’t going to upgrade yet.”
We’re not sure if Steve Wozniak had a hand in the negotiations, but Apple has lured Doug Field, Segway’s chief technical officer, to join Jonathan Ivie’s design team as Vice President of Product Design, according to a post Friday on the SegwayChat forum.
As blogger Jason D. O’Grady notes, writing for ZD Net the move is curious, given Field’s background as an engineer and Segway’s not-so-glorious reputation for product design. Asked about his reaction to the Segway’s original design, Steve Jobs famously said, “I think it sucks.”
Here’s hoping Field gets a better grade from Jobs at his first Apple executive review.
The amazing piece of engineer has a glowing blue logo that flashes yellow when the disk is busy. Heck even made his own keys for the board, laser-etching each key.
It seems like it must be in danger of bursting into flames at any moment, but Heck says it puts off no more heat than a pocket calculator.
Released in September 1986, the IIGS was a powerful computer for its time, with advanced color graphics and stereo sound — the GS standing for “Graphics” and Sound.”
Heck says the hack was requested by an unnamed party. My money’s on Woz.
Inside Steve’s Brain is the bestselling business biography of Apple’s unique CEO, Steve Jobs. An international hit, a New York Times bestseller and one of USA Today’s best books of 2008, Inside Steve’s Brain has been translated into 17 languages, and is now available in an expanded second edition.
“… enjoyable, well-written, very informative and, most important, up to date…” — CNet
Most of what is written about Apple CEO Steve Jobs is negative. Recent biographies are catalogs of tantrums and abuse. They paint a portrait of a sociopath who does little but scream and shout. There’s very little coverage of what Steve Jobs does right, and clearly, he’s doing everything right.
It’s hard to believe that one man revolutionized computers in the 1970s and ’80s (with the Apple II and the Mac), animated movies in the 1990s (with Pixar), digital music in the 2000s (with the iPod and iTunes), and now communications (the iPhone). No wonder some people worship him like a god. On the other hand, stories of his epic tantrums and general bad behavior are legendary.
Inside Steve’s Brain cuts through the cult of personality that surrounds Jobs to unearth the secrets of his unbelievable results. It reveals the real Steve Jobs, not his heart or his famous temper, but his mind. So what’s really inside Steve’s brain? According to Leander Kahney, who has covered Jobs since the early ’90s, it’s a fascinating bundle of contradictions.
Jobs is an elitist who thinks most people are bozos — but he makes gadgets so easy to use, a bozo can master them.
He’s a mercurial obsessive with a filthy temper — but he forges deep partnerships with creative geniuses like Steve Wozniak, Jonathan Ive, and John Lasseter.
He’s a Buddhist and an anti-materialist — but he produces mass-market products in Asian factories, and he promotes them with absolute mastery of the crassest medium, advertising.
In short, Jobs has embraced the traits that some consider flaws — narcissism, perfectionism, the desire for total control — to lead Apple and Pixar to triumph against steep odds. And in the process, he has become a self-made billionaire.
In Inside Steve’s Brain, Kahney distills the principles that guide Jobs as he launches killer products, attracts fanatically loyal customers, and manages some of the world’s most powerful brands.
The result is a unique book about Steve Jobs that is part biography and part leadership guide, and is impossible to put down. It gives you a peek inside Steve’s brain, and it might even teach you something about how to build your own culture of innovation.
The new Expanded Edition includes a new chapter about Apple after Steve Jobs.
Reviews
New York Times Best Seller, Hardcover Nonfiction – New York Times
“… a rich, essential read for (fans) to get inside Jobs’ head and discover what makes Apple insanely great.” — USA Today
“… to my delight it was very fact, quote and anecdote dense.” — Gizmodo
“… enjoyable, well-written, very informative and, most important, up to date… a treat to get a volume like this, with a unique approach, about him, from someone as steeped in Apple’s culture and history as Kahney.” — CNet
“… a fascinating look at the thought processes and inspiration behind Apple’s products and branding… I highly recommend it, even if you’re not an Apple user.” — ReadWriteWeb
“… a detailed, concept-oriented, blow-by-blow look at Apple CEO and what makes him tick.” — Macworld
“… a compelling sketch of the elitist, churlish visionary.” — U.S. News
“… a lively, enthralling look into the people and processes behind the success at Apple, and a glimpse into the motivations of the man who guides the company like no other CEO in business today.” — MacLife
“… from an avid fan, journalist, and author of two other Apple-related books.” — American Library Association’s Booklist
“… great idea for a book. Who wouldn’t want to get inside the head of Steve Jobs?” — BusinessWeek
Sample Chapter
Download a sample chapter of Inside Steve’s Brain — 300KB PDF.
About the Author
I’m the editor of Cultofmac.com and author of two award-winning books about technology culture: Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod. Until May 2009, I was the editor of Wired.com. I’ve covered computers and technology for more than a dozen years. I was a senior reporter at MacWeek, and have written for Wired magazine, Scientific American, The Guardian and The Observer in London and many other publications. I worked as a newspaper reporter in Great Britain for several years, covering, among other things, the war in former Yugoslavia.
I live in San Francisco with my wife, Tracy, and our four children. I’m originally from the U.K., and have lived in London; Brighton, England; and Barcelona. I like to ride my road bike, and I commute to work by bicycle.
Inside Steve’s Brain has been published in U.S and U.K editions, and has been translated into 17 languages, including:
Chinese
Japanese Portuguese (Inside Steve’s Brain was one of Brazil’s best-selling business books in 2008, and is still in the Top 10) Spanish
German
Russian
Thai
Arabic
Lituanian Turkish
Italian (Inside Steve’s Brain was a bestseller in Italy)
Czech
Bulgarian
Polish
Indonesian
The revamped Spaceship Earth ride at Disney’s Epcot Center has a special “Steve Jobs section,” according to the lifthill blog, which tracks news about rides and roller coasters, and was invited to a special preview.
But once at the Steve Jobs area, which is supposed to depict the birth of Apple computer in a garage, the lifthill blogger noticed that the lone figure in the garage looked a lot more like Wozniak than Jobs.
The figure is facing the wrong way, so it’s hard to tell, but it’s wearing the same shirt as Wozniak in a famous early photograph copied below, and has similar hair and beard. Conspriacy theorists note that Jobs is the single largest shareholder in Disney– but I can’t believe he cares that a section of Epcot bears his name or likeness (or not).
Anyway, there’s no second figure in sight, so one of them is slighted. And so too is the third Apple-founder, Ron Wayne, but no one cares about that.
But what is that thing the dummy Woz/Jobs is sitting in front of? It ain’t no Apple I or II — the first and only machines Woz created more or less single-handed. It looks like a big wooden Mac, but none of the Mac prototypes looked like that — they were much more finished.
After learning that the teen who first unlocked the iPhone got a Nissan 350Z for his efforts, Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen is willing to trade his classic Nissan 300-ZX for an unlocked iPhone.
Kevin’s car is similar to the car Woz drove (see below), but it needs a bit of TLC, so you might want to offer him an unlocked Razr instead. Or maybe just a regular razor. You know, for shaving. Bids in the comments please.
Sorry for the inactivity over the last week, everyone. A lot of traveling for work, coupled with a massive layover in Kentucky, has kept me from blogging. I’ve got a lot in the works, including an overview (and gentle mockery) of the first-ever issue of MacWorld from February 1984, featuring a profile of Mac fan Bill Gates (yes, I’m serious).
For now, though, enjoy some of the top stories from the week’s absence:
At a reunion of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club at the weekend, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recalled his hack0r early days with Steve Jobs. Reports CNet:
“… Wozniak related a story about figuring out how he and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had broken into the digital user group account of John Draper–the inventor of the blue box, a device that allowed its user to make illegal free long-distance calls from any phone.
“We found his resume,” Wozniak remembered, “and we were going to add something about his arrests, but we didn’t.”
Inside Steve’s Brain is the bestselling business biography of Apple’s unique CEO, Steve Jobs. An international hit, a New York Times bestseller and one of USA Today’s best books of 2008, Inside Steve’s Brain has been translated into 17 languages, and is now available in an expanded second edition.
