Remembering Steve Jobs

It is hard to believe that it has been three since the death of Steve Jobs. Apple and the world have moved on, but Steve is certainly not forgotten. His spirit lives on in Apple and its products. We also honor Steve by reflecting upon his accomplishments as a businessman and as a family man. In his 56 years, he made a number of memorable speeches and presentations, but I think the one that we can learn the most from is his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University. In this short speech, Steve reflects on the crossroads of his life and how he never gave up when all seemed lost. Never giving up on himself and tuning out the critics is what allowed Steve to accomplish great things and make a dent in the universe.

30 Years of Apple’s Macintosh

The original Macintosh (left) and today’s iMac (right)

Thirty years ago today, Steve Jobs unveiled the first Macintosh computer to the world. The upcoming Macintosh release was announced during an Orwellian ad shown during the Super Bowl (below).  The ad became an instant classic.

At an Apple event on January 24, a few days after the ad, Jobs presented the Macintosh to a crowd of Apple employees (below). To thunderous applause the Mac spoke to the audience and introduced itself to the world. The Mac was sure to be a hit. Unfortunately, it was priced to high for the average consumer, and the Apple II was more popular. The Mac was also plagued by delays due to production and design issues. Ultimately, the Mac’s failure was one of the reasons for Jobs leaving Apple in 1985. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, the Mac was reborn using Jobs’s NeXT software, which was renamed Mac OS X. The software has been at the heart of the Mac ever since it was released publicly in 2001.

Original Mac’s GUI (top) and the GUI of OS X Mavericks (bottom)

What made the original Mac unique was the use of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that used a mouse to point-and-click on objects that were on the screen. For computer users today, this is the norm, but before the Mac, a GUI was only available on expensive enterprise machines.

As the Mac turns 30, we honor the hard work that went into the building the original and the Apple employees and consumers that have remained loyal to the platform, even as Apple has introduced new product lines. Today, Apple celebrated the Mac’s birthday with a video and timeline of the Mac’s development. You may visit Apple’s 30th anniversary page by clicking here. Personally, I have been a Mac user since 2008. I have owned an iMac and currently own a MacBook Pro. I love the physical design of the hardware, simplicity and power of the software, and the integration of the hardware and software that makes a Mac unique.

Steve Jobs Bio to be Released in Paperback

Simon & Schuster announced that Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs will (finally) be available in paperback on September 10. The publisher announced that the paperback version of the biography will include a new afterword from Isaacson and a new cover image.

The cover will feature a picture of a younger Jobs taken by Norman Seeff. The original cover image, taken by Albert Watson, was taken later in Jobs’ life, but has a similar pose. When the paperback is released in September, it will have been nearly two years since the hardback was released, an unusually long period of time between releases. The hardcover version of Steve Jobs has been a best seller, and the paperback is expected to sell well.

The Original Cover

Isaacson has suggested he may make some changes to the book by adding more information and cleaning up some of the repetition. The new afterword is the only new material we can expect at this point, but more information could be announced at a later date. I look forward to comparing the paperback edition to the hardcover edition.

Steve Jobs

A year ago today, the world lost an innovator. Steve Jobs once said that he wanted this legacy to be a strong Apple. He wanted to do what his heroes Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were able to accomplish, create a lasting company. After his death, many questioned what Apple would do with its brilliant leadership. A year later, Apple is thriving with strong sales, soaring stock prices, and talented leadership. Jobs accomplished his goal, and his legacy has been solidified. 

Head over to Apple.com to see their tribute video to Jobs.

Steve Jobs Honored at D10 – UPDATED

Walt Mossberg, Ed Catmull and Larry Ellison

Last night at D10, in a special joint appearance, Ed Catmull and Larry Ellison sat down with Walt Mossberg on stage to discuss their memories of Steve Jobs. Catmull, the President of Pixar, discussed his memories of  Jobs and Jobs’s passion for combining technology with animation. Ellison, cofounder and CEO of Oracle, discussed his business dealings with jobs and their friendship which began with them being neighbors. Ellison describes first meeting Jobs when his peacock wondered into Ellison’s yard early one morning. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Ellison joined the Apple board. Although he left the board in 2002, Ellison and Jobs remained close friends. Few people knew Jobs longer than Catmull and Ellison – and Mossberg for that matter. A full video is not yet available of the event, but you can watch the highlights HERE. Once the full video is available, I will post a link.

Before Mossberg, Catmull and Ellison took the stage, a tribute video was played recalling the appearances of Steve Jobs at the past All Things Digital Conferences. Steve appeared at the conference in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 (he was on stage twice, his second appearance was with Bill gates), and 2010. After the video was played, Mossberg announced that full videos of these appearances have been posted to iTunes and are available for free. Having watched all of them before, I can attest they are both informative and entertaining.

UPDATE: The full video is now available HERE.

Aaron Sorkin Discusses Steve Jobs Movie at D10 – UPDATED

Yesterday afternoon, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was on stage with Walt Mossberg at All Things Digital’s D10 Conference. Sorkin is famous for his movies A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson’s War, and The Social Network. He is also known for his work on television including The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and most recently, The Newsroom. A few weeks ago it was announced that Sorkin would be adapting Walter Isaacson’s book, Steve Jobs, for Sony Pictures.

In yesterday’s interview, Sorkin said that he was in the very early stages of writing the movie, and he had yet to decide its focus. He said that it will be a challenge to write a script that fully portrays the complexities of Jobs’s personality. He explained that movies, especially those based on actual events, should be viewed as art as opposed to a photograph, meaning that a writer cannot include every aspect of a person’s life in a film. Sorkin and Mossberg also discussed the difficulties for writing television in an era with so many technological distractions for viewers. Sorkin is one of the few people at D10 not associated with the world of technology and highlights from his interview can be seen HERE. When the full video of the interview is available, I will post a link.

UPDATE: The full video is available HERE.

Tim Cook at D10 – UPDATED

On Tuesday night, All Things Digital’s D10 Conference kicked off with a keynote interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook. Presenters Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher began by asking Cook about his new postion at Apple and how the death of his friend Steve Jobs has affected him and Apple. Cook became visibly emotional when talking about Jobs, and he recalled that was a genius and said that Apple will remain true to its roots and move forward with its product strategies.

After a few softball questions, Mossberg and Swisher (mostly Mossberg) began to hit on some of the tougher subjects. Cook (reluctantly) discussed patent wars, the controversy over manufacturing in China, and the future of AppleTV. Mossberg asked him if tablets should be categorized as PCs and his response was a resounding “no“. Cook did hint at upgrades to Siri as well as a possible partnership with Facebook, despite saying that Apple was going to “double down” on secrecy. All Things Digital as put together a highlight video that you can see HERE. I will post a link to the full video when it is available.

At times, it seemed that Mossberg and Swisher were bullying Cook with topics that he did not want to discuss, something that Jobs would not have allowed. Cook is very soft spoken, but he is a master at dodging questions. Nevertheless, the information that came out of the D10 keynote was very interesting for those in the tech world. Of course, all eyes will be on Apple June 11 when Tim Cook will take to his own stage at the 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco

UPDATE (June 11): The full video has been posed, you can view it HERE.

Book Review: Insanely Simple by Ken Segall

Ken Segall. Insanely Simple: The Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success. New York: Penguin Group, 2012. 225 pp. $25.95 (Hardcover), ISBN 978-1-59184-483-9

Ad agency creative director Ken Segall provides an inside look at Apple under Steve Jobs in his book Insanely Simple: The Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success. As the title suggests, Segall’s focus is on the business side of Jobs’s stint at Apple following his return in 1997. This is somewhat different from Walter Isaacson’s book, Steve Jobs. Issacson focuses more on the personal life of Jobs and how that came out in his professional life. Segall does not dwell on Jobs’s personal life, but instead focuses only on the businessman. This makes the two books go together very well. In fact, the stories within Segall’s book would have fit nicely into the Issacson’s work.

As the book’s jacket blurb suggests, “you’ll be a fly on the wall inside a conference room with Steve Jobs.” For those who have read about Jobs’s business style, that can either be incredibly exciting or incredibly terrifying, and Segall illustrates both. There is no doubt that Jobs could be a tyrant and that comes out in the book, but at the same time, he was extremely focused and that is part of what made Apple successful. Being the “fly on the wall” is the greatest values of this book. The inside story of how two companies interacted. The stories of how Steve Jobs ran every aspect of Apple.

The books title, Insanely Simple, suggests that the the argument of the book is about Apple’s focus on simplicity as a market and business strategy. This is certainly not a new concept, but it is an interesting topic to cover. Segall was present at the creation of this strategy as Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and clearly outlines its development. Simplicity is certainly a central feature of all Apple products. Jobs’s goal was to make a product as easy to use as possible, and he often succeeded. Whether it is the Mac or an iOS device, the goal was the same for both. At times, the stories are more about Steve Jobs then they are simplicity, but Segall has clearly contributed to the overall understanding of Apple and Steve Jobs.

The reader is taken on a journey through some of the greatest business decisions. Segall’s insights and unique view, he did name the iMac after all, make this book worthy of sitting on a shelf next to Isaacson’s. The book’s title is a bit deceiving as it is more about Steve Jobs and his obsession with simplicity. A concept that Apple had not embraced while he was absent. Overall, Segall writes a solid narrative and I recommend the book to anyone who wished that Isaacson had highlighted more of Jobs’s business savvy.

The Lonely Mercedes

Four months after the death of Steve Jobs, people are still driving by his house to pay their respects. The above photo was taken last week and shows Jobs’s Mercedes SL55 AMG still parked out front. The car, without a license plate, was leased by Jobs on a 6-month basis. He was able to do this after he discovered a loophole in California law that allows a car to go 6 months before registration. Jobs took advantage of this fact.  Just one way Steve Jobs thought different.

The Whole Earth Blog in 2011

2011 was a busy year for me and for this blog. The Whole Earth Blog began 2011 with a different name and changed names twice before finding one that fit. This year was better than I could have ever imagined for this blog. I started the year with barely 200 visitors a month and ended the year with well over 2,000 per month! I credit this to the expansion of the topics discussed within the blog.

The stats for the year (Views per Month)

I posted on a wide variety of topics from my continuing education, auto news, tech reviews, the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, the Joplin tornado, the SS United States, and tributes to Steve Jobs and Harry Morgan. The popularity of the blog has been on the rise and I am very proud of the variety of posts that I am able to come up with. I thought, to celebrate the end of 2011, I would share the top ten posts of the year. And they are:

10. SS United States: A Ship in Distress

9. The Apple iPad 2 Review

8. Joplin, Missouri Tornado News and Updates

7. Welcome Pottermore

6. Pottermore (Beta): A Full Review

5. Own a Pair of Marty McFly’s Shoes

4. Is the First Generation iPad a Classic?

3. The Legacy of Steve Jobs

2. Who is Laurene Powell Jobs?

1. Graduate School and the iPad

I want to thank everyone for reading in 2011 and am looking forward to 2012 as I complete my college career and enter the “real world.”