There are plenty of words used to describe Steve Jobs, but “wizard” isn’t one of the ones we hear too often.
That’s exactly what Jobs was, however, according to Microsoft co-founder and long-time Jobs frenemy Bill Gates. Speaking on CNN, Gates said that Jobs accomplished his Apple-correcting wizardry by “casting spells.” But Gates, as a “minor wizard,” was immune to Jobs’ hocus pocus.
This week on The CultCast: A new report details why Jony Ive is departing Apple, and it paints a troubling picture. Plus, Leander tells us about the “fiddle factor,” the unique quality that made Ive our time’s greatest designer.
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News of Jony Ive’s departure from Apple may have come as a shock to some, but to many others, it has been a long time coming. A new report claims Ive has been slowly reducing his responsibilities since the launch of Apple Watch.
Sources close to Apple have revealed that Ive has been visiting the company’s new headquarters as little as twice a week. “This has been a long time in the making,” one said.
News that Jony Ive is leaving Apple to start his own design company is rocking the tech world this afternoon. Apple has already signed up to be the first client for Ive’s design firm called LoveFrom.
In a new interview discussing his departure from Apple, Ive explained how Apple co-founder Steve Jobs helped inspire the name for his new company.
During his stint as Apple CEO, Tim Cook has repeatedly credited his predecessor, Steve Jobs. But he’s also worked to make Apple into a company that doesn’t slavishly follow the path laid out by Jobs. This is most clearly seen by Cook’s doubling down on privacy, and push to embrace social causes such as LGBT rights.
That mixture was on display Sunday, when Cook delivered a commencement speech at Stanford University. In doing so, he paid homage to the legendary June 2005 Stanford address delivered by Steve, while putting his own stamp on things.
Here’s how:
During the WWDC 2019 keynote, most of Apple’s latest creations drew enthusiastic applause, with one notable exception. The price of Apple’s new Pro Display XDR elicited a somewhat cooler response. But considering just how expensive the monitor is, the fact that it got any applause at all was pretty remarkable.
This is not the first time Apple has had to convince us to pony up for an eye-watering sticker price. Cupertino pulls from a well-established playbook for its keynotes, often employing behavioral science techniques to help soften the blow. (To our brains at least, if not to our wallets).
Small Fry, the memoir written by Steve Jobs’ oldest daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs, is out in paperback this week. It launched in hardcover in September 2018.
The book describes the difficult relationship Lisa had with her father, who famously denied his daughter’s paternity. The pair eventually forged a relationship, although it was often a challenging one.
Justin Long, the “Mac” to John Hodgman’s “PC” in the now-famous ads from Apple, said the funnier commercials were kept off the air by company founder Steve Jobs.
It’s not because Jobs lacked a sense of humor as Long revealed over the weekend to host Lola Ogunnaike on PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing.
The rainbow-colored stage that appeared recently at Apple HQ is about to get its first big-name act; Lady Gaga is reportedly going to perform at the opening event for Apple Park, the company’s ring-shaped campus in Cupertino.
Updated: She did! And Tim Cook tweeted about it early this morning.
Compared to many other high tech CEOs, Steve Jobs wasn’t ostentatious with his home. He didn’t live in a giant mansion with drivers, butlers and security. Instead, the Jobs family shared a relatively modest 1930s Tudor-style home in Old Palo Alto.
But looks can be a bit deceiving. A rare quarter-acre lot just came up for sale in Jobs’ neighborhood — and if you fancy building your home within minutes of where Apple’s late CEO lived, it’s going to cost you a whole lot. A whopping $9 million to be exact!
Apple devices famously hold their value well, and if they’ve never been used, they can fetch a lot more than they originally cost. But would you pay $19,995 for a classic iPod?
That’s exactly how much one eBay seller is asking for a first-generation unit that comes in its “unopened original box.”
Few modern-day figures inspire art like Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. His face has been painted on canvas, tattooed on forearms, vilified on the silver screen and deified in sculpture.
Now, Jobs is the first figure in an exhibit in New York next month featuring busts and full-body statues of Silicon Valley titans by Chilean artist Sebastian Errazuriz.
An abandoned 2016 musical about the rivalry between Steve Jobs and frenemy Bill Gates has resulted in the producer being sued for $6 million.
The musical’s producer allegedly told investors he had funding from Microsoft for the project. In fact, the musical was $1 million in debt at the time. It was ultimately canceled just two weeks before it was due to open.
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length or continuity. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on Apple’s manufacturing operations.
This is Part 2 of a two-part section on Apple’s misadventures in manufacturing. Part I is here.
Steve Jobs carried his dream of end-to-end control over manufacturing to NeXT, the company that Jobs founded after being booted out of Apple in 1985. It was here that he learned a tough lesson about manufacturing: that sometimes it’s more trouble than it is worth. Or, perhaps more kindly, that great manufacturing capabilities mean nothing if you don’t have a product people want to buy.
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on Apple’s manufacturing operations.
Steve Jobs always had a deep fascination with automated factories. He was first exposed to them during a trip to Japan in 1983. At the time, Apple had just created a new floppy disk drive called Twiggy. During a visit to Apple’s factory in San Jose, however, Jobs became irate when he discovered the high failure rate of Twiggy drives Apple was producing. More than half of them were rejected. Jobs threatened to fire everyone who worked at the factory
A 10-year Apple employment plaque signed by Steve Jobs is up for auction. The 6 x 12-inch framed plaque was given to Apple employee Suzanne Lindbergh in 2000. It is signed in black felt tip by Apple’s former CEO and co-founder, whose autograph is considered one of the most sought-after from collectors.
Online bidding is currently at $4,189. The item is expected to sell for upward of $15,000 when biding closes on April 10.
Apple has been working towards its TV ambitions for more than a decade now, ever since it launched the original Apple TV in 2007. However, a new anecdote from technology journalist Nick Bilton makes clear just how unsure the company has been in the past about its goals with television.
Bilton recalls a meeting with Steve Jobs in 2010. During the encounter, Jobs backtracked on his previous claim that TV was going to be a core business for Apple. Things have certainly changed!
Disgraced tech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes was known to worship the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and she wore a black turtle neck every day to show it.
How could someone who tried to emulate Jobs become a fraud that puts her in the company of Bernie Madoff?
Alex Gibney gave a thoughtful response to that question this week when his documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley debuted on HBO.
Tim Cook will give this year’s commencement address for graduating students at Stanford University.
This is same school where Cook’s predecessor, Steve Jobs, gave one of the most memorable commencement addresses in history in 2005. No pressure, Tim!
Apple built its world-dominating status by being brave. Not only did it create hit products, but it never worried about “cannibalizing” existing products to make way for the future.
Will that same strategy hold true at a time when Apple’s dominance is faltering? If the company is going to thrive through the next wave of tech, it’s going to take a whole lot of Dutch Cupertino courage.
Steve Jobs may have been referenced in a hip-hop track or two, but Apple’s co-founder and urban fashion aren’t exactly things you’d expect to find together.
That did not stop rap T-shirt designer Marino Morwood from picking Jobs as the subject of his latest creation. Having focused stars like Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. for his previous designs, his Steve Jobs T-shirt could bring Apple’s late CEO to a whole new audience!
February 19, 1981: Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh project, sends a memo to Apple CEO Mike Scott, listing his many complaints about working with Steve Jobs.
He claims that Jobs, who joined the Mac team the previous month, is tardy, shows bad judgment, interrupts people, doesn’t listen and is a bad manager.
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, an opera based on the life of Apple’s late co-founder and CEO, bagged the Grammy for best opera recording last night.
The Santa Fe Opera Orchestra recording of composer Mason Bates’ opera triumphed over nominees including Doctor Atomic by John Adams, Alceste by John-Baptiste Lully, Der Rosenkavalier by Strauss and Rigoletto by Verdi.
Apple tapped Deirdre O’Brien to be its new retail boss today in light of the news that Angela Ahrendts plans to leave the company.
While O’Brien may not be a household name to most Apple fans, she’s been with the company for more than three decades. From the days of Steve Jobs saving Apple from bankruptcy to watching Tim Cook leading the company to a first-ever $1 trillion valuation, O’Brien has seen huge changes during her tenure with the iPhone-maker. Now she’s set to be one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley.
Here are six things you didn’t know about the new Apple retail boss.
Apple CEO Tim Cook took to Twitter today to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Mac.
Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and former CEO, unveiled the very first Macintosh on January 24, 1984. The machine had been teased in a now-famous Super Bowl commercial two days earlier.
“It changed the way we think about computers and went on to change the world,” Cook says.