Steve Jobs - page 31

The formidable Economist magazine has blessed Steve Jobs with a rare cover story examining the potential impact of the Jesus tablet.

Even rarer, the iPad story is mostly positive, even if the religious imagery is over the top.

The Economist fancies Jobs’ chances of shaking up not just one industry, but three — especially media:

Jobs’s record suggests that when he blesses a market, it takes off. And tablet computing promises to transform not just one industry, but three—computing, telecoms and media.

Companies in the first two businesses view the iPad’s arrival with trepidation, for Apple’s history makes it a fearsome competitor. The media industry, by contrast, welcomes it wholeheartedly. Piracy, free content and the dispersal of advertising around the web have made the internet a difficult environment for media companies. They are not much keener on the Kindle, an e-reader made by Amazon, which has driven down book prices and cannot carry advertising. They hope this new device will give them a new lease of life, by encouraging people to read digital versions of books, newspapers and magazines while on the move. True, there are worries that Apple could end up wielding a lot of power in these new markets, as it already does in digital music. But a new market opened up and dominated by Apple is better than a shrinking market, or no market at all.

Read more: Tablet computing — The book of Jobs.

Via 9to5Mac. Thanks Seth.

Sharp-eyed observers have noticed what looks to be an iSight camera in the iPad Steve Jobs used in last week’s keynote.

Even though Jobs didn’t talk about a camera, and it’s not mentioned in Apple’s official tech specs, something that looks like an iSight camera can be seen when Jobs first holds the iPad up for everyone to see.

As he holds it up, the light catches the iPad’s surface, illuminating something underneath. That something looks like an iSight camera, similar to the ones built into MacBooks, under the screens.

In the official iPad podcast, it can be seen around the 1:23:40 mark.

It’s not conclusive, of course, but corroborates the prototype images published by Engadget in the run up to the event, which clearly show an iSight camera in the same position. And references to a camera have been found in both the iPad’s Address Book software and the iPad firmware.

The absence of a camera on the iPad has been one of the device’s most puzzling omissions. Although, as our own John Brownlee first noted, a camera in a tablet that’s sitting in your lap, staring up at you, doesn’t produce the most flattering camera angles.

UPDATE: A repair company called Mission Repair says the iPad’s frame clearly shows an empty spot for an iSight camera, and it is exactly the same size and shape as the iSight slot in a MacBook’s screen frame. (Mission Repair received a shipment of iPad parts on Monday, the company blog says).

Thanks NyxoLyno.

Apple has posted video of Steve Jobs unveiling the iPad. It’s available in QuickTime and MPEG-4 formats — Low, Medium, or High.

The presentation is also available as a podcast through iTunes. Here’s the iTunes link.

This is my last chance to say something before the great and terrible Steve holds his tablet aloft (and even then, rumormongers might have beaten him to the punch), so let me give you a bit of a long-view perspective, something usually left out when we’re discussing whether we’ll see a 10-inch or 11-inch LCD panel on the device.

You see, I’ve been thinking a lot about Apple and its insane run of success over the last nine years. Consider this: In 2001, Apple’s revenue was about $6.5 billion. In 2009, that revenue was $42.3 billion. Essentially, the company grew by more than 550 percent in eight years.

How exactly is that possible? Was it the great products? Partly. Great leadership? Sure. Killer marketing? No question. But more than all of those combined, the secret to Apple’s success was that it defined and followed the right strategy and the right era. Steve Jobs is king of the world right now because he hit on the idea for the digital hub.

Our old friend Farhad Manjoo has an insightful piece on Slate explaining why he hopes Apple’s tablet will be like a toaster.

Farhad hopes the tablet will have an iPhone-like operating system (as we’ve mentioned here before) that offers a somewhat restricted, locked down computing experience like the iPhone. That is, he hopes Apple has removed all the complexity of using and maintaining a traditional personal computer.

“The most revolutionary thing about Apple’s phone wasn’t its sleek case or the multitouch gestures, but the artful way in which it hid nearly every bit of complexity behind a display of easy-to-understand icons. The iPhone contains no visible “directory structure.” Your music is not in a particular place on your phone; it’s just on your phone, and you get to it by launching the music player. Other than charging it, the iPhone requires no maintenance. Backups and OS upgrades occur automatically, and because all programs are approved by Apple (and because even third-party programmers aren’t given deep access to the phone), you never have to worry about malware. And look how easy it is to install a program: Choose one from the store, press “Install,” and type in your password to authorize the purchase—and that’s it. The iPhone doesn’t ask you where you want to put the new program, or how you’d like to launch it, and whether you’d like it to be the default program for doing a particular kind of task. It just puts up a little icon on the screen. To run the program, click the icon. To do something else, hit the home button.”

I think Farhad has put his finger on the most important feature of the tablet. It’s not designed for nerds, like traditional PCs (even the Mac) but for ordinary consumers who have no interest whatsoever in learning how to use a computer.

If you can get your noodle around it, it’s an astonishing thought. Steve Jobs is attempting to reinvent computing again, but to do it right this time.

The tablet will usher in a new era of consumer-level computing that will be utterly different to computing in the past. Instead of mice and keyboards, there’ll be a new generation of software designed for fingers and voice. It’ll be a lot easier to use (see all those videos of toddlers using iPhones), and a lot easier to maintain. Thanks to Apple’s controls over app installation, it’ll be largely free of the viruses, driver issues and tech-support headaches of traditional PCs. Of course, we’ll sacrifice some freedom to tinker for all this — but who cares? (Our own Leigh McMullen for one. See his “My Tablet Won’t be Running any Silly Phone OS.”)

No wonder Steve Jobs is so excited about the tablet. All the way back to the Apple II in the late 1970s, his earliest ambition was always to make computers accessible to mere mortals — to make the computers “for the rest of us.” It’s the realization of his earliest dreams.

Unable to contain his excitement about the upcoming tablet, German blogger Richard Gutjahr has created 10 mock movie posters featuring the tablet, Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer and other Silicon Valley stars.

There’s a couple more of Gutjah’s posters after the jump. The full “Top 10 Apple Tablet Movies (…yet to be made)” can be found on Richard’s blog.

So what if Time magazine passed him over for person of the year:  Steve Jobs beat out a couple thousand CEOs around the globe to be named the best-performing CEO by Harvard Business Review.

Researchers looked at what execs brought to the table and to shareholders from 1,999 publicly-held companies worldwide during the entire time of their tenure.

Though they admit “it may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list,”  it does seem a little surprising that Bill Gates is absent. No shocker: Gates is out of the running because the research only considered execs who took the helm from 1997 on.

Even without Microsoft, tech execs took the lion’s share of the top 10, including Yun Jong-Yong at Samsung Electronics (ranked 2), John T. Chambers, Cisco Systems (ranked 4), Jeff Bezos from Amazon (7),  Margaret C. Whitman eBay (8) and Eric E. Schmidt Google (9).

So what put Jobs ahead of the pack?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meVQqYNGzYA

It took them eight months, but the planning commission in Cupertino granted Apple permission to rezone a nearly 8-acre property to expand the company’s campus.

Apple asked for the rezoning last year after purchasing the property back in 2006.

Check out Steve Jobs’ addressing the city council about Apple’s growing pains resulting in far-flung employees they considered leaving the town to reunite — keeping it soft until the end when he can’t help but mention that Apple is the largest local taxpayer. Council members make lots of kissy-kissy noises,  but they didn’t reach a consensus.

The 7.78-acre property on Pruneridge Avenue, south of the Hewlett-Packard campus, houses two office buildings currently occupied by Apple employees.
The buildings were already on the property from the site’s industrial days. Before Apple purchased the property in 2006, the city rezoned the industrial site to residential in anticipation of a 130-unit townhouse and condominium project that previous property owners Morley Brothers had proposed.

Via San Jose Mercury News, Mac Rumors

Steve Jobs quietly advised the One Laptop per Child project, founder Nicholas Negroponte said at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday.

Said Negroponte:

“I got an email from Steve Jobs (the night the laptop was revealed) he said you can’t build it for a hundred dollars, and my answer was oh yes I can. He was actually a very good critic, and each time we got to a point, I did talk to him.”

Of course, Jobs was right (Gizmodo reviewed the OLPC and concluded it was “a piece of shit”) but at least he tried to help, unlike Microsoft. Negraponte said Microsoft tried to “thwart” the project at several turns.

Jobs has a reputation as a bastard. And there’s no public record of philanthropic efforts (if any) but this shows he at least has a little bit of heart.

Via TheDigitalLifestyle.tv and Gizmodo.

In many ways, Pointy Head’s Knocking Live Video is exactly the sort of app Apple likes to march out in parade. The app allows any iPhone user to rap with figurative knuckles on the iPhone of anyone else with the app installed. Once notified via push that someone’s knocking on their handset, Knocking Live Video opens up, streaming live video between both iPhones.

It’s a neat idea: exactly the sort of simple, social and fun communication tool Apple and AT&T like to highlight in their “There’s an app for that” ads… whether or not — in practice — it is just likely to be used as a spontaneous pornographic transmission tool amongst frat bros out birddogging as to transmit video of your kids at the pool to a traveling spouse.

The only problem? Knocking Live Video uses Apple’s private APIs to achieve its live video streaming.

Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington has written a nice essay giving thanks this Thanksgiving — to Steve Jobs.

Arrington rightly points out that our world would be very different if Jobs hadn’t returned to Apple 12 years ago. Mobile phones would still be horrible, computers would still be ugly and the music industry would have collapsed.

“… What would our world look like without him? We’d likely still be in mobile phone hell. Chances are we still wouldn’t have a decent browsing experience on the phone, and we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying third party apps like Pandora or Skype on whatever clunker the carriers handed us. Even if you use an Android, Palm Pre or newer Blackberry today, you must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom. Think back to the phone you had in 2006, and then tell me you don’t love Apple for the iPhone alone (yes, I’ve moved on, but the iPhone was the genesis).”

I’m with Arrington. Let’s give thanks for Steve Jobs.

Isamu Sanada’s day gig is photography, but his passion is Apple mock-up design.

An amateur designer of fantasy Macintoshes with a website that showcases dozens of his speculative designs for Apple gear, Sanada got his mock-up cred back when he posted an amazingly prescient take on the Titanium G4 PowerBook months before the real deal was released.

Though he’s gotten lots of praise for his designs, Sanada has been quoted regarding his design chops humbly, saying, “Apple’s thought is more splendid than my thought.”

Hit the jump for more Steve Jobs lookalikes and if you find one out and about — or happen to be one yourself — send us a pic or post it on our Facebook wall and we may feature yours in a gallery post down the road.

Is this Steve Jobs driving a tank in a classic Apple TV spot from the late 1990s? That was the rumor at the time: Jobs was making cameos in Apple commercials.

Ken Segall, the TBWA ad man responsible for naming the iMac and Think Different, reveals the truth after the jump. He also shares some rare behind-the-scenes photos he took during the filming of this commercial and another from the same era.

Meet Ken Segall — the man who dreamed up the name “iMac” and wrote the famous Think Different campaign.

Segall is a veteran creative director who worked at Apple’s agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, back in the day.

“I’ve put in 14 years working with Steve Jobs on both Apple and NeXT,” says Segall. “I’m the author of the Think Different campaign and the guy who came up with the whole “i” thing, starting with iMac.”

Segall collaborated closely with advertising legend Lee Clow, chief creative officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day, whose retirement was widely — but prematurely — reported last week.

In this exclusive interview, Segall talks about working with Steve Jobs, how Jobs initially hated the word “iMac,” and the importance of the Think Different campaign to Apple.

Forget Balloon Boy and Billy Mays this Halloween. Dress up as your favorite demonic CEO instead.

You’ll scare the pants off work colleagues when you walk in the elevator, and the neighboorhood kids will be in a bag of hurt when you give them apple slices instead of sickly sweet candy.

Hit the jump for a full-size mask that you can print and cut out.

Thanks Dan Draper for the fantastic image of Steve Jobs and Forbes for the idea.

When you’re among the top achievers in your given field of endeavor it only stands to reason you probably choose the best tools available to do whatever it is you do, both professionally and personally.

Our survey of some of the best of the best across a wide range of endeavors shows lots of those at the top of their games choose Apple gear when it comes to computing and entertainment and we offer here a gallery of 10 top machers from the fields of media, sports, entertainment, politics and elsewhere who choose Apple products to enhance and enable their achievements.

There’s a reason the game is called Follow the Leader, isn’t it?

Via ObamaPacMan

For someone’s who makes makes only $1 a year, Steve Jobs sure is rich.

Jobs has been ranked 43rd on Forbes annual list of the 400 richest Americans — his highest ranking yet.

Jobs has a net worth of $5.1 billion, Forbes says, thanks mostly to nearly $4 billion worth of stock in Disney. Jobs became the largest individual Disney stockholder after the company bought Pixar in 2006.

“Best investment: bought Pixar from George Lucas in 1986 for $10 million; created string of hits (Finding Nemo, Toy Story). Sold to Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion in stock,” says Forbes. “Today is Disney’s largest shareholder; stake worth $3.9 billion.”

Last year, Jobs placed 61st on Forbes’ list, and despite a decline in net worth of about $600 million, he comes inside the top 50. The economic climate hasn’t been as kind to other billionaires, poor souls. His previous highest showing was 49th place in 2007.

Jobs climbed up the ladder thanks to a massive 90% rebound in Disney’s stock price, and a similar doubling of Apple’s. Just six months ago, in the middle of the slump, Jobs slipped to 178th place.

Jobs has drawn only a $1 annual salary from Apple since returning to the company, although he has received massive stock option grants and a private Gulfstream jet.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates remains at the top of the list for the 16th year in a row, despite a drop in worth of $7 billion. Gates still has $50 billion to his name.

Twenty five years after Apple aired its famous 1984 commercial, it’s Steve Jobs that is being portrayed as Big Brother.

In a remake of Apple’s famous 1984 ad, which famously portrayed IBM as a force of oppression, startup doubleTwist has Apple pegged as the oppressor.

The Apple tablet is 10.7-inch device that runs the iPhone OS and is ready to go, subject to Steve Jobs’ final approval, iLounge reports.

Citing a rock solid source with a proven track record, iLounge says the “iPad” looks like a jumbo iPhone with a curved back and an approx. 720p touchscreen. The device will be announced on January 19 and ship in May or June — the delay is designed to build iPhone-like hype.

It will come in two configurations: One with built-in 3G networking and another without. “Think of the 3G version as a bigscreen iPhone 3GS, and the non-3G version as a bigscreen iPod touch,” iLounge says.

The device is not designed for a work or productivity. It’s for media consumption.

“It’s a slate-like replacement for books and magazines, plus all of the media, gaming, app, and web functionality of the iPhone and iPod touch,” iLounge says. “It is not meant to compete with netbooks. It’s an iPhone OS media player and light communication device.”

And Steve Jobs is 80 percent likely to give the green light for a January 19 launch.

Why January 19? That’s the big question.

Steve Jobs made a welcome return to the public eye last week at a special music event to introduce Apple’s 2009 holiday iPods.

“The September music event was classic Apple. It marked the return of the world’s greatest corporate storyteller,” says communications coach, Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience.

Gallo’s book will be published later this month by McGraw-Hill and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon. Gallo’s written some insightful analyses of Steve’s presentations in the past, so we asked him to take a look at last week’s event. After the jump, Gallo breaks down his top ten presentation tips from Jobs’ latest speech.

Apple has posted some nice, high–res video of today’s “Rock & Roll” special press event. The video is available here and has been added to Apple’s Keynote podcast, although it isn’t yet linked from the iTunes front page.

It’s worth watching for four reasons:

* To see Steve’s heartfelt thanks to his liver donor, to Apple’s staff, and the Apple community, whose best wishes seems to have genuinely buoyed and touched him.
* The gaming demos. The iPhone/iPod touch platform is maturing into an important and fun game platform. The demos make this very clear. It isn’t for hard-core gamers, but the rest of us — the millions of casual gamers that only Nintendo seems to know how to engage.
* To see the preview of iTunes LP, and look for clues what the format might be like on a multitouch device (which I think is what project codename Cocktail is really about).
* To see Steve, who’s magnetic and charismatic and utterly watchable even when he’s very unwell. Who knows how many more times we’ll get to see him? These opportunities are getting rarer and rarer. Here’s hoping he makes an appearance at CES in Las Vegas in January to introduce the Apple tablet. And that he puts on 30lbs eating ice cream. I know it worked for me.

Remember John Lennon’s famous quip that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus?

Well, now Steve Jobs is bigger than the Beatles, says music-industry pundit Bob Lefsetz.

“Steve Jobs’ appearance today is the biggest story in the world,” he wrote today.

“What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where the biggest rock star doesn’t even play an instrument? I don’t know if you were online at 10 A.M. (1 P.M. on the east coast), but a roar was heard on the Internet louder than any audience explosion ever noted on a dB meter.  Steve Jobs hit the stage!”

Lefsetz has banged on about Jobs being a rock star before, but he is absolutely right.

Who’s heard a peep all day about the Beatles? It’s all been about Steve Jobs. And that’s because Apple has got someting new and fresh and honest, while the music industry is once again repackaging something old, something “that meant something once,” Lefsetz says.

Go read the whole thing.

Why doesn’t the new iPod touch have a camera? And why can’t the nano take still pictures? Steve Jobs gave David Pogue of the New York Times some answers…

Steve Jobs received a standing ovation at the beginning of today’s “Rock&Roll” special event. Watch the video after the jump and hear him thank the donor whose liver saved his life. It’s humble and touching.

Steve Jobs has just taken the stage and is getting a long standing ovation. “I’m vertical, back at Apple, loving every day of it,” he said.

“I’m very happy to be here with you all. As some of you might know, I had a liver transplant,” he told reporters and Apple staffers gather at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

His voice is very soft.

He said he now has the liver of a 20 year old who died in a car crash, and he thanks him for his generosity, says Gizmodo.

“I’d like to thank everyone in the Apple community for the heartfelt support — it meant a lot. I’d also like to thank Tim Cook and the rest of the Apple team, they really rose to the occasion.”