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Steve Jobs - page 14

Journey to a trillion, and a look at Apple’s troubled history, on The CultCast

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CultCast MacBook Pro
Apple's the most valuable company on earth, but it almost wasn't.

This week on The CultCast: The journey to a trillion! How did Apple become the most valuable company on earth? We discuss, and remember the company’s troubled history. Plus: Is the i9 MacBook Pro a total ripoff? One YouTube reviewer says yes, and his tests are convincing. We’ll fill you in. And stay tuned for the sad decline of MoviePass. Is the troubled movie service still worth 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 Jobs’ daughter talks about her big secret

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Lisa
Lisa, photographed in 2005.
Photo: Lisa Brennan-Jobs/Wikipedia CC

Lisa Brennan Jobs, the oldest daughter of Steve Jobs, is coming out with her first book next month. Part of the story grapples with their complicated relationship. (He denied being her father at first.)

In an excerpt from her book, Small Fry, posted today, Lisa Brennan Jobs gives glimpses into some of her dad’s last months. She also talks about how it affected her psyche when he named the Lisa computer after her but didn’t admit it to her until she was 27.

Unearthed interview shows Steve Jobs knew the iPhone would be ‘huge’

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jobs figure
This plastic model of Steve Jobs has a better vision of the future of smartphones than many rival CEOs.
Photo: DAM Toys

Ten years ago, Apple co-founder and  then-CEO Steve Jobs understood that smartphones were going to be a big deal. And he realized software would be an important part of that.

With 20/20 hindsight, it’s easy to dismiss that vision. But Jobs was talking in August 2008, a year after the release of the first iPhone, and only a month after the iOS App Store debuted. Most people had flip phones, and PCs dominated the computing landscape.

You can now listen to an opera about Steve Jobs on Apple Music

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Steve Jobs Revolution
Now available wherever fine music is sold or streamed.
Photo: Pentatone

If you’ve ever wanted to listen to an opera based on the life of Steve Jobs, now’s your chance!

Called The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, the 95-minute production comprises 19 different scenes from Jobs’ life, taking him from childhood through the founding of Apple with Steve Wozniak to his departure and eventual return to the company he helped create. Here’s how you can listen.

Steve Jobs envisioned the App Store in 1983

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Steve Jobs on the cover of Time magazine in 1982.
Steve Jobs on the cover of Time magazine in 1982.
Photo: Time magazine

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a visionary. That’s a phrase that gets tossed around a lot, but in Jobs’ case we have solid evidence.

Speaking at a conference in the early 1980s, a decade before the Internet became a household name, he described something we do everyday: buy software online.

Steve Jobs stars in awesome ’80s computer archive from BBC

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Steve Jobs
BBC's archive is a glimpse into the personal computer revolution as it took off.
Photo: BBC

Are you a computer history nerd? Want to hear 32-year-old Steve Jobs ruminating after the future of computing, or Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talk phone phreaking and the birth of the Apple II?

If so, you’ll almost certainly be happy to hear about an amazing new archive of classic computer industry footage which just emerged online. Created in the 1980s by the U.K.’s BBC public broadcasting company, the footage comes from something called The Computer Literacy Project, aimed at inspiring a generation of people to code.

This Steve Jobs business card is a pricey addition to your Rolodex

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Steve Jobs business card
A Steve Jobs Apple business card and three sheets of letterhead is for sale on eBay.
Photo: MG Service/eBay

It’s hard to imagine Steve Jobs ever needing to pass out business cards. But even for titans of industry, business cards were standard issue and if you happened to have one from Jobs, its worth a few bucks.

A seller on eBay is hoping to get $9,000 for a couple of Jobs business cards and a few sheets of his Apple letterhead stationary.

Team meetings don’t have to be a waste of time [Deals]

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This handy app offers a bunch of useful tools for keeping your meeting organized and on track.
This handy app offers a bunch of useful tools for keeping your meeting organized and on track.
Photo: Cult of Mac deals

If you work with other people, you know the grinding feeling of being in a meeting that’s going nowhere. Getting together with your team should be productive, not painful. And with a little help, it can be. In the case of Steve Jobs, he had three ways to running productive meetings: keep meetings small, each participant should be responsible for one specific agenda, and don’t make meetings too formal.

How John Perry Barlow once roasted Steve Jobs

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John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow passed away earlier this year.
Photo: Crown Archetype

Given his influence and notorious temper, hosting a celebrity roast of Steve Jobs would have been pretty darn scary. But that’s what EFF co-founder, Grateful Dead lyricist and cyberlibertarian John Perry Barlow was once asked to do.

Even worse, it came at a time in Jobs’ career when seemingly everything was going wrong. The results earned Barlow — who passed away earlier this year — a severe telling off from Jobs’ wife, Laurene.

Steve Jobs would never approve this toxic portrait

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Steve Jobs art
Add cigarette ash and an ashtray to the kinds of art inspired by the late Steve Jobs.
Photo: Shin

The late Steve Jobs has inspired artists to immortalize him in bronze, on canvas, the silver screen and even the opera stage. There was even a guy who injected paint into bubble wrap to create a Jobs portrait.

But the oddest may just be a Jobs likeness made by a smoker arranging ash in an ashtray.

How controversial Theranos founder borrowed Steve Jobs’ look

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Elizabeth Holmes
The black turtleneck look was synonymous with Steve Jobs.
Photo: Max Morse/TechCrunch/Wikipedia CC

Apple and particularly its iconic co-founder Steve Jobs have inspired some great people, ideas and companies over the years. But Apple’s beloved former leader and highly regarded products were also singled out as an inspiration for controversial health tech Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

In a forthcoming book, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou details some of the ways that Holmes (the exec whose net worth was revised from $4.5 billion to zero after questions about the validity of her blood testing tools emerged) cribbed notes from Apple’s playbook.

How Steve Jobs got employees to tell him what sucked about his companies

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Steve_Jobs_2007
Steve Jobs had ways of making you talk!
Photo: Ben Stanfield/Flickr CC

Would you have liked to be the person to tell Steve Jobs that something about his company sucks? If not, you may not have enjoyed the experience of working with him.

In a recent Medium post, San Francisco-based marketing pro Andy Raskin relates a story overheard from a well-known (but unnamed) CEO. The CEO described the somewhat unorthodox, but effective, way that Jobs rooted out problems at Pixar, the company he ran alongside Apple. Here’s what he did.

Doom’s lead programmer recalls working with Steve Jobs

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Doom cover
John Carmack was one of the brains behind some of the biggest PC games of the 1980s and 90s.
Photo: Id Software

Id Software co-founder John Carmack was behind some of the most iconic computer game of the 1980s and 90s. This week, the legendary coder behind the smash hit games Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake shared some memories of working with Steve Jobs.

Writing on Facebook, Carmack described some of his interactions with Jobs over the years — for better and for worse.

So long, aluminum! Why the iMac needs a total redesign.

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Will the iMac design ever be this exciting again? The original iMac G3.
Will the iMac ever be this exciting again?
Photo: Apple

When the first iMac debuted 20 years ago, it shook the tech world with its completely unorthodox appearance. The blobby, curvaceous and colorful computer looked, in Steve Jobs’ words, good enough to lick.

It was a statement computer, both for those who owned it and for those who made it.

However, with the iMac not having had a substantial redesign since 2012, Apple’s all-in-one desktop is getting a bit long in the tooth. It’s time for Apple to give it an overhaul with a new iMac design that would get the world excited about Macs again — and prove Apple remains committed to innovative computing.

Bill Gates admits ‘Apple’s an amazing company’

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Bill Gates praises Apple
Bill Gates, who once headed Apple's arch rival, now has nothing but positive things to say about the company.
Screencap: CNBC

The co-founder of Microsoft joined the chorus of voices speaking positively about Apple today. Bill Gates’ relationship with Apple goes back to the very dawn of the company, and he and Steve Jobs were the best of frenemies.

Now that he’s a philanthropist rather the CEO of Microsoft he can speak openly about a former rival.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Why everyone was so wrong about iPhone X, and more!

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cover
In this week's Cult of Mac Magazine: Everything you heard about iPhone X sales was wrong. In fact, it's Apple's most popular model.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: Analysts have been extremely pessimistic about the iPhone X, with almost daily predictions that Apple’s top-of-the-line model was a flop. And they were all dead wrong. Tim Cook just said the iPhone X has been Apple’s best-selling model for every week since it launched, and that sales of all the company’s phones grew last quarter. How did the analysts get it so wrong?

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Mother’s Day is around the corner on May 13, so check out our Watch Store’s Mother’s Day Gift Guide for on-time shipping. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

We talk iPhone SE leaks, Steve Jobs saving Pixar, and the brightest flashlight on earth on The CultCast

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MacBook Pro
Another episode of The CultCast, packed with this week's best Apple stories.
Photo: The CultCast

This week on a very feisty episode of The CultCast: New iPhone SE will steal one of iPhone X’s best features; how Steve Jobs saved Pixar, then stole all their stock; MoviePass ends its unlimited movie option; Gal Gadot promotes Huawei on Twitter … from an iPhone; and we wrap with the best iPhone camera lenses, wireless security system, and the most powerful flashlight on Earth in an all-new Under Review.

Our thanks to Udemy for support thing episode. Whether you’re looking to learn something new or just sharpen your skills, Udemy has over 65,000 courses starting at just 11.99.
Visit Ude.my/CULTCAST or download the Udemy app to learn anytime, anywhere.

Tim Cook vs. Steve Jobs: Who is Apple’s best CEO ever?

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And the winner for best Apple CEO is ...
Both great leaders, but who managed Apple better?
Photo illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Steve Jobs was a mercurial genius with a singular knack for turning bright ideas into shiny new products. Tim Cook is an operations wizard who hammered Apple’s supply chain into a manufacturing powerhouse.

If you’re an Apple fan, you know the widely accepted narrative. You’ve heard the stories about these powerful CEOs and their various strengths and weaknesses. But who helmed Apple most successfully?

We put Cupertino’s most capable execs head-to-head to determine which Apple era was really the best. Get ready to settle things once and for all!

Master the art of public speaking [Deals]

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Get the skills and confidence to be an effective public speaker.
Get the skills and confidence to be an effective public speaker.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

There are few things more stressful than public speaking. But there are also few opportunities to make an impact with your ideas or message. Just think of Steve Jobs, and what comes to mind? Probably a mental image of him speaking on stage.

Unseen Steve Jobs interview shares business secrets

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Jobs
Who wouldn't want Steve as their instructor?
Photo: Deliberate Think

Who wouldn’t have wanted Steve Jobs to have visited their university class for a casual Q&A with the students? That’s what folks at MIT were lucky enough to experience in 1992.

Running NeXT at the time, Jobs stopped by to drop some wisdom on everything from his thoughts on leaving Apple to the state of computing to his thoughts on the right way to run a company. Excerpts from the discussion recently landed on YouTube. Check them out below.

Steve Wozniak is quitting Facebook over data concerns

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Steve Wozniak wax sculpture fake eyes
Steve Wozniak is no fan of Facebook.
Photo: Madame Tussauds

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says that he is leaving Facebook over the continuing concern about its abuse of user data.

“Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and … Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this,” Woz told USA Today. “The profits are all based on the user’s info, but the users get none of the profits back.”

Happy 8th birthday to the iPad

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quotes on Apple
iPad obviously makes the list (but Apple Pencil doesn't).
Photo: Apple

Happy birthday to the iPad.

Apple’s revolutionary tablet first went on sale eight years ago today, two months after its big unveiling at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. It remains the best tablet money can buy, and recent rumors have claimed it’s going to get even better in 2018.

How Facebook data scandal could boost Apple

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Facebook employees
Facebook is one of many tech giants that builds is business on user data.
Photo: Facebook

Thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a backlash is brewing against the way tech giants like Facebook monetize data. This could result in government regulation, which has the potential to upend the business models of some of the world’s biggest companies.

Luckily, Apple is practically immune. Here’s why 2018’s biggest tech scandal could actually help the world’s biggest tech company.