Steve Jobs’ hands-on approach to just about every project at Apple is part of his legend.
Ron Johnson, Apple’s first head of retail, offers fascinating detail about Jobs and the work leading up to the first Apple Store during a recent episode of the Gimlet podcast Without Fail hosted by Andy Blumberg.
Jobs was demanding and described by many as often difficult to work with. But Johnson says working with Jobs was a “gift.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had little time or interest in signing autographs for fans.
But if you are in possession of the rare exception, you have a signature considered the most valuable, according to a guide that tracks the values of the most sought-after autographs.
Steve Jobs was renowned for being hands-on when it came to overseeing Apple’s iconic ad campaigns. But if you really want an Apple ad that had Jobs’ writing all over it, you need to start scouring your personal savings.
That’s because a handwritten document describing the spec of the Apple-1 — Apple’s first ever computer — is coming up for auction this month. In it, Jobs’ describes the computer’s printed circuit board, which was being sold for $75, as a “real deal.”
This week on The CultCast: You need to be prepared if you want to lock down the best prices on the best gadgets this Black Friday. We’ll tell you the strategies to use to grab all the good deals most shoppers miss. Plus: The new MacBook Pro GPUs are a huge upgrade, but we’re pissed. (We’ll explain.) Also: Why Apple’s stock has fallen off a cliff. And we’ll wrap up with a Steve Jobs story so mundane, the internet has become fascinated with it.
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first hosting plan or domain.
Steve Wozniak thinks that his Apple co-founder Steve Jobs would be very happy with Apple today. That’s because it’s still a company which puts people above technology, Woz told CNBC.
“Steve always acted that way,” Woz said. “The users should be more important than the technology itself. You should not be a victim of the technology and what it can do. You should get to live your human life in the most human way possible.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was known to be incredibly demanding. But one retired Apple executive said when it came to standing in line in the company cafeteria, Jobs waited his turn like everyone else.
This would not be a surprising revelation about most people, but Jobs’ mercurial nature is the stuff of legend. The late Apple exec’s moods and commands have been the source material for books and movies. His character is even sung about on the opera stage.
The iPhone XR is out and, for the first time in years, Apple’s most exciting device isn’t the one that commands the really big bucks. For all the talk of an “Apple tax,” 2018’s coolest iPhone starts at just $749. That’s half the price of a top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max.
And that’s seriously great news for fans.
Do you want to own a chandelier that once belonged to Steve Jobs? How about a Jobs-owned thermostat, originally made in 1925? Or a silver-plated tea spoon? Or, heck, even Jobs’ old toilet? These, and roughly 146 more possessions, could soon be going up for auction.
At least, if some members of the Woodside town council, the small incorporated town in San Mateo County, where Steve Jobs once had a home, get their way.
Jony Ive says he is “truly proud” of Apple Watch, which he describes as a powerful computer filled with sophisticated sensors that we strap to our wrists. And we can expect Apple to continuing delivering products that are just as special in the future.
Apple Park is a game-changer for designers that will allow better collaboration than ever before, Ive reveals in a new interview.
The Beats Studio3 and Beats Solo3 wireless headphone lineups both got updated with new color options today.
Apple is putting out a new Skyline collection of color options for the Studio3 headphones. The collection’s four color options are crystal blue, desert sand, midnight black and shadow gray. Meanwhile, the Solo3’s have a new Mickey Mouse themed option to celebrate the famous cartoon character’s 90th anniversary.
Take a look:
There’s Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and … Steve Jobs Day? Yep, it’s true: If you live in California, then today — October 16 — is officially Steve Jobs Day.
So make sure to wear your best mock turtleneck, take the license plate off your car (note: don’t actually do this), put on a Bob Dylan album, and maybe brush up on your calligraphy to pay tribute to Apple’s co-founder!
Today marks seven years since Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56. Paying homage to his former boss, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a message on Twitter in which he made clear how much Steve meant to him personally — and to Apple as a whole.
When you compare the iPhone 4 to the iPhone XS, virtually everything has changed. All except the script Apple uses when introducing its new handsets to the public.
This is the tongue-in-cheek observation of James Brown, a YouTuber and Reddit user who posted a video comparing the use of adjectives from Steve Jobs in 2010 with Apple executives talking about the iPhones XS and XS Max at last week’s new product showcase.
September 18, 1989: Steve Jobs’ company NeXT Inc. ships version 1.0 of NeXTStep, its object-oriented, multitasking operating system.
Incredibly advanced for its time, NeXTStep is described by The New York Times as “Macintosh on steroids.” In an ironic twist, the operating system Jobs plans to use to compete with Cupertino turns out to be one of the things that saves Apple a decade later.
It’s not exactly breaking news that Steve Jobs was a great salesman. But a hilarious anecdote from Adam Fisher’s recent oral history of Silicon Valley, Valley of Genius, gives a great example of Jobs’ next-level skills.
Want to know how Jobs persuaded a product marketing expert from Microsoft to join his company NeXT? It turns out it involved little more than a bit of patented Steve Jobs charm — and a helping hand from a local Italian restaurant menu.
Why couldn’t you type the F-word on the iPhone? Why did Steve Jobs make weird eye movements during demos? What kind of manager was Scott Forstall?
These and other questions are answered in a new book by Ken Kocienda, a former iPhone programmer who spent 15 years at Apple helping to develop the first iPhone, iPad and Safari web browser.
Published this week, Creative Selection, Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, is a fascinating account of Kocienda’s career that focuses on how Apple makes great software. (read our review here)
Here are some of the most interesting things we learned from the book.
Back in 1996, Steve Jobs’ sister, Mona Simpson, wrote a novel about a Silicon Valley tycoon who has a difficult and distant relationship with his oldest daughter. He even denies her paternity altogether, and then hands out meager amounts of child support to look after her and her mom.
At the time, Jobs denied that the protagonist in A Regular Guy was closely based on him. Others thought differently, however. More than 20 years later, Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ new memoir describes just how accurate Simpson’s novel was. And what she thought of it.
Small Fry is the memoir of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the daughter Steve Jobs didn’t want. Frequently sad and occasionally disturbing, it’s not the airbrushed portrait of Steve that Apple would like to see in print.
But it also relays some charming moments, showing us a side of the Apple co-founder that we’ve never seen before. It’s a glimpse of Steve Jobs at his most personal.
“It’s this long process of demos and decisions and feedback that creates this long, iterative progression … that leads you from not-very-promising ideas to products you can ship.”
Curious what it was like to work at Apple during its Golden Age of design? What exactly did the creative process look like? On this episode of the Apple Chat podcast, I sit down with Ken Kocienda, a programmer who spent 15 years at Apple during the Steve Jobs era. He worked on the first versions of the Safari web browser, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. His new book, Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, chronicles his experiences working at the company and offers an inside look at the creative process that made the team successful.
On the podcast, Kocienda discusses his role in the development of the iOS keyboard, explaining how text entry evolved and offering insight into the autocorrect algorithm. He walks us through the Darwinian process of creative selection, describing how the demo pyramid functioned to provide feedback and move an idea from prototype to product. Listen in for his experience presenting a demo to Jobs himself and learn how the original spirit of the Macintosh lives on at Apple today!
When Steve Jobs died in 2011, pundits wondered how the company would continue to make great products without him.
The question is partly answered by programmer Ken Kocienda’s new book, Creative Selection, which describes his 15 years working at Apple helping to develop the original iPhone, iPad and Safari web browser.
Kocienda’s book is a remarkable insider’s story that shows how Apple creates the software that it’s rightly famous for.
Small Fry, the memoir written by Steve Jobs’ oldest daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs, is out today. The book details Lisa’s challenging relationship with her famous father, who early on denied his daughter’s paternity, before eventually forging a (still difficult at times) relationship with her.
Lisa has said the book was prompted by her apparent dislike of Walter Isaacson’s 2011 Steve Jobs biography. However, it seems that Lisa’s book is also going to stir up some controversy among Steve Jobs’ family.
You probably don’t know the name Gerry Roche, but he was heavily involved in one of the most significant events in Apple history.
Roche, who died over the weekend at the age of 87, was the executive recruiter who brought John Sculley from PepsiCo to Apple in the early 1980s. Sculley wound up overseeing a massive boom in Apple’s business, the launch of the Macintosh, and — perhaps most memorably — the departure of Steve Jobs.
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the firstborn daughter of Steve Jobs, has added her name to the list of people who weren’t fans of Jobs’ hand-picked biographer Walter Isaacson.
Isaacson wrote the mega-selling biography of Jobs published in 2011. However, since then numerous Apple insiders and people who knew Steve have criticized the book. Jobs’ daughter Lisa is the latest of these — saying that she didn’t trust the biographer, although she admits she never read his book.
The traditional life plan includes four years of college then a good job. But not everyone takes this path, and sometimes the lack of a college degree keeps some people from getting a job they are otherwise qualified for. But not at Apple.
Following a non-traditional career path is no problem getting hired at Apple. And that goes for positions beyond working at its retail stores.
Think for a second about Steve Jobs. What do you see? Most likely, it’s an image of the bespectacled, black turtlenecked tech titan talking on a stage. That’s because one of his greatest gifts was public speaking.