Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff Works dot coming. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, the senior
Speaker 1: writer here at how stuff works dot Com, and sitting
Speaker 1: across from me, as always, is editor Chris Pallette. Here's
Speaker 1: to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers,
Speaker 1: the round pegs and the square holes, the ones who
Speaker 1: see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they
Speaker 1: have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them,
Speaker 1: disagree with them, glorify or vilify them about the only
Speaker 1: thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.
Speaker 1: They push the human race forward. And while some may
Speaker 1: see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because
Speaker 1: the people who are crazy enough to think they can
Speaker 1: change the world are the ones who do. So. We're
Speaker 1: doing a very special episode of tech Stuff, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's not something that we would normally do. We've already
Speaker 1: done two episodes about Steve Jobs, one of them specifically
Speaker 1: about Steve Jobs about because we were doing a compare
Speaker 1: and contrast with Bill Gates. In fact, the original concept
Speaker 1: of those two episodes, if you go back and look
Speaker 1: at the history of tech stuff. Originally we were just
Speaker 1: gonna do one episode where we're just going to compare
Speaker 1: and contrast the two men, and it became abundantly clear
Speaker 1: as we were recording the show that that was not
Speaker 1: going to happen because it was just too much stuff
Speaker 1: about both of those men. So each one got his
Speaker 1: own episode. Yeah, they're the thing that struck I think
Speaker 1: both Jonathan and me if I mean sure, I think
Speaker 1: I'm doing a little mind reading, but I think I'm right.
Speaker 1: The one thing that struck both of us is that
Speaker 1: these two guys not only influenced tech from a particular
Speaker 1: point in time, but they are eerily similar in a
Speaker 1: lot of in a lot of respects. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of parallels about the same age. They both dropped
Speaker 1: out of school to found a company, to found a company, uh,
Speaker 1: and they worked together for a very long time and
Speaker 1: against one another, both of them very strong personalities. Our
Speaker 1: second episode about Steve Jobs was really about what was
Speaker 1: going to happen to Apple once Steve Jobs stepped down,
Speaker 1: which he did earlier. Inn Now we're recording this episode
Speaker 1: the week that we learned of Steve Jobs as death. So, um,
Speaker 1: it's tough. It's weird to be upset about a CEO
Speaker 1: whom you've never met. But at the same time, it
Speaker 1: is impossible to deny Steve jobs as impact on technology
Speaker 1: and on us personally and professionally. So we know that
Speaker 1: you've probably heard multiple memorial and tributes, lots of people
Speaker 1: have been saying very uh deep things about Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: We're not really going to dive into his life or
Speaker 1: anything like that in this episode because one, we've done
Speaker 1: it before and to other people are doing that so
Speaker 1: much right now that there's just not a point. We
Speaker 1: wanted to talk more about how Steve Jobs work and
Speaker 1: how Apple's products have affected us, both on a professional
Speaker 1: level and on a personal level. And I think we're
Speaker 1: just gonna kind of share some stories. And again, this
Speaker 1: is not something we normally do. I mean, usually we
Speaker 1: like to be friendly, we like to have our our banter,
Speaker 1: but we don't tend to share a lot about ourselves. Um.
Speaker 1: In this show, little bits and pieces tend to come out,
Speaker 1: but this one I think is going to be maybe
Speaker 1: a little more um raw. Well, the you know, the
Speaker 1: point of the show is for us to talk about technology,
Speaker 1: not about us, and we we like to talk about
Speaker 1: technology and humanity, you know, how how people use technology,
Speaker 1: how technology have affects people. Um, And I think for once, uh,
Speaker 1: we've come across a technology related person who uh he
Speaker 1: was so larger than life at his company that it
Speaker 1: was hard not to follow. And I think the same. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's true, you know that, I'm sure that we have
Speaker 1: some people who are who don't particularly like Apple or
Speaker 1: its products because of the philosophy behind the company. Sure,
Speaker 1: I think I think we would be having this same
Speaker 1: kind of conversation about certain other people, including Bill Gates,
Speaker 1: because we're interested in in these guys. And you can't
Speaker 1: deny the impact. I mean, even let's say you never
Speaker 1: have bought an Apple product in your life, that you
Speaker 1: have no interest in Apple products whatsoever. The products you
Speaker 1: do buy, we're influenced by Apple and vice versa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so either the products you bought is uh, it may
Speaker 1: be that that the reason the products you bought looks
Speaker 1: the way it does because of Apple for one of
Speaker 1: two reasons. Either the company wanted to make something that
Speaker 1: looked sort of like Apple products because Apple products have
Speaker 1: such a undeniable appeal among a very large portion of
Speaker 1: the population, or it specifically does not look like an
Speaker 1: Apple product in order to go a totally different direction.
Speaker 1: But either way, the decision for that design was at
Speaker 1: least somewhat based upon what Apple did. Apple did the
Speaker 1: same thing. In fact, before we get into our personal stories,
Speaker 1: one of the things I've said several times this week
Speaker 1: since his passing is that what Steve Jobs was really
Speaker 1: a master at was taking a look at existing technology
Speaker 1: that had not met with much success in the consumer
Speaker 1: market and find a way to make it work in
Speaker 1: the consumer market. So it's not necessarily that he invented things,
Speaker 1: but that he took stuff that just the average consumer
Speaker 1: either wasn't aware of or wasn't interested in, and turned
Speaker 1: that into way must have product. And that is genius.
Speaker 1: It may not be the sort of genius that you know,
Speaker 1: you get the light bulb that pops up over your
Speaker 1: head and you suddenly invent something phenomenal, But it may
Speaker 1: be that you look at something that no one else
Speaker 1: has given really a chance because it just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like anyone's interested in it. You do your magic, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly everyone once one and let's here's a quick
Speaker 1: rundown of some of the stuff that Steve Jobs was
Speaker 1: really able to to push out there. First of all,
Speaker 1: he's one of the geniuses who really did usher in
Speaker 1: the era of the personal computer. You know, personal computers
Speaker 1: didn't begin with the Apple Too, but the once the
Speaker 1: Apple to hit the market, they started to really become
Speaker 1: popular among consumers. They were still luxury products. They were
Speaker 1: very expensive, especially for the time. Um but before the
Speaker 1: Apple Too, personal computers were really in the realm of
Speaker 1: hobbyists and early adopters, and beyond that that market, you
Speaker 1: didn't see a lot of personal computers out there. Apple
Speaker 1: to change that. Now, other computers came behind the Apple
Speaker 1: too and even broke through other barriers, but that was
Speaker 1: one of those early successes. Then you have the Mac,
Speaker 1: which had the first real graphical user interface and mouse
Speaker 1: combination for a personal computer. Right, those those were not new.
Speaker 1: The mouse and graphical user interface had been displayed as
Speaker 1: far back as I think the late sixties over at Xerox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um you know that that actually makes this is
Speaker 1: a good time to point out a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Um uh. One of course, Steve Jobs couldn't have done
Speaker 1: all of these things by himself. Um, he knows or
Speaker 1: he he knew a lot about it. He knew a
Speaker 1: lot about how to encourage other smart and talented people
Speaker 1: to do their best work, sometimes by being aggressive with him.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he was a jerk. You know what we Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs had an amazing effect on technology, but he was
Speaker 1: also he was yeah, definitely abrasive, aggressive, insulting. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't want to paint a picture here where we're
Speaker 1: saying like he he had no faults. That's not the
Speaker 1: purpose of this podcast either. We're very much aware of them.
Speaker 1: But he got results. And and there will be people
Speaker 1: who say that Apple stole the idea for a gooey
Speaker 1: from Park Heck. Steve Jobs said at one point that
Speaker 1: you know, you don't copy ideas, you steal him. He
Speaker 1: said that, I think in nineties six when he came
Speaker 1: back to Apple. Yeah, yeah, so, I mean. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, Xerox was not in the business of
Speaker 1: making personal computers for people in the same way that
Speaker 1: Apple was. Um, and somebody will also probably point out that, uh,
Speaker 1: Steve and the Macintosh team at Apple did not necessarily
Speaker 1: get along all that well, Steve was actually backing the
Speaker 1: Lisa um where flopped a lot of There are a
Speaker 1: few reasons, one of which was the price. It was
Speaker 1: extremely expensive. Um. But you know, Steve also knew when
Speaker 1: the Macintosh had one and was supportive of it. Later. Yes,
Speaker 1: and again the Macintosh, you could you could come up
Speaker 1: to me and say, hey, Jonathan, but the Macintosh doesn't
Speaker 1: have it never had the kind of market share that
Speaker 1: Windows based PCs did. Windows based PCs were by far
Speaker 1: the majority in the market compared to the Mac. And
Speaker 1: I would agree with you, except I would also say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but Windows based machines are using a graphical user interface,
Speaker 1: and one could argue that the reason for that is
Speaker 1: because of the Mac. Specifically that they Microsoft licensed the
Speaker 1: Mac operating system look and feel for use in the
Speaker 1: very first version of Windows. So that was what the
Speaker 1: lawsuit was about, was whether or not they were allowed
Speaker 1: to continue with that past the first version. Right, So
Speaker 1: you've got you know that there's there's an example of
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs influencing the whole industry. Um. Then not just
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, obviously, but he's he's really the driving personality
Speaker 1: behind a lot of what Apple did the same thing
Speaker 1: with MP three players. MP three players existed before the
Speaker 1: iPod came out, but the iPod was arguably the first
Speaker 1: device that the average consumers saw and said I get it,
Speaker 1: I understand what that's about, and I want one. And
Speaker 1: it really helped once iTunes launched, because once iTunes and
Speaker 1: iPod were out there, especially if you had a Mac computer,
Speaker 1: it was a little more of a headache if you
Speaker 1: used a PC, a Windows based PC, but it just
Speaker 1: it was an ecosystem that worked great, and it was
Speaker 1: really easy to synchronize music, to organize music UM and
Speaker 1: of course the iPod eventually made it very easy to
Speaker 1: have a podcast. So there's one impact we can talk
Speaker 1: about right now. Without Steve Jobs and his work and
Speaker 1: the work that Apple did, we wouldn't have a show.
Speaker 1: It's not that podcasts wouldn't exist. They probably would. You
Speaker 1: would probably still have some people out there who were
Speaker 1: making audio and video content that you could subscribe through
Speaker 1: some RSS catcher program, but it would be a much
Speaker 1: more niche oriented thing. You wouldn't hit the broad audience
Speaker 1: that you can with UM podcast today because frankly, iTunes
Speaker 1: makes it so easy on the user to subscribe to them.
Speaker 1: So without iTunes, we would not have the audience that
Speaker 1: we do have, we'd have a lot of you because
Speaker 1: a lot of you, I know are using other ways
Speaker 1: of listening to us, but the vast majority of you
Speaker 1: are are using iTunes or an app and uh and
Speaker 1: so chances are we would have never even tried to
Speaker 1: start a show because we just wouldn't think we'd reach
Speaker 1: very many people. So there's an impact right there. Also
Speaker 1: things like the smartphone, I mean, the iPhone really brought
Speaker 1: the smartphone to the consumer market in a way that
Speaker 1: was unprecedented. Yeah, we talked about earlier types of smartphones, um,
Speaker 1: the Trio from Trio uh and and BlackBerry of course,
Speaker 1: but those were those were things that business people carried.
Speaker 1: There wasn't really a lot of reason to use um
Speaker 1: those devices for a lot of people. They just didn't
Speaker 1: They've got features that I don't really need. Why would
Speaker 1: I want email? I mean, I can do that at home.
Speaker 1: And you know, if part of it is the technology
Speaker 1: and part of it is making it look good, and
Speaker 1: you know that the iPhone really did that. They said,
Speaker 1: you know, isn't this cool? Don't you think this this
Speaker 1: would be fun to play with? And people said, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we've sort of established the tape that Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: You know, has had an enormous impact on technology. Um,
Speaker 1: whether directly through Apple or indirectly because Apple's products have
Speaker 1: influenced other other companies to try and either uh outdo
Speaker 1: Apple or to go a completely different direction because they
Speaker 1: felt that Apple had sewn up that particular space. Uh.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how how Jobs and Apple have affected
Speaker 1: us personally. Do you want to go first? You want
Speaker 1: me to go first? I'll tell my I'll tell my
Speaker 1: first story. Um. So I've talked about this before in
Speaker 1: the podcast. Uh. You know, as a kid, when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, I had access to a couple of
Speaker 1: different computers, but the first computer that I started to
Speaker 1: use that I really used extensively was the Apple to E. Now,
Speaker 1: my father got an Apple to E because my father,
Speaker 1: among other things, as a professional writer, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to have a computer so that he could write his books,
Speaker 1: save things to a diskette five and a quarter inch
Speaker 1: disc and uh and and be able. Actually, when I
Speaker 1: say save his books to a five ocquarter inch disc,
Speaker 1: I really mean save a couple of chapters to a
Speaker 1: five and acquarter inch disc. If you go back and
Speaker 1: look at my dad's bibliography, on the old Apple two E. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're talking about a couple of m couple of of
Speaker 1: disc holders full of discs, because I remember those books
Speaker 1: would take up like twenty discs total. Didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of storage space back then. Anyway, that was the
Speaker 1: computer that I really started to use frequently. And I
Speaker 1: really do believe that my love of technology somewhat. I
Speaker 1: I have to credit that somewhat to Apple into Steve Jobs,
Speaker 1: because it was those early experiences with the Apple two
Speaker 1: E that taught me to love tech. And without those experiences,
Speaker 1: I can't say for sure that I would have developed
Speaker 1: the same love. Now. I've always been some something of
Speaker 1: a geek and a doric and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I know, it's shocking, isn't it, um, But I don't
Speaker 1: know that that would have developed into that interest, right,
Speaker 1: I might have become a comic book geek and never
Speaker 1: really looked at computers instead of doing it the other
Speaker 1: way around. UM. So really, if you think of it
Speaker 1: that way and you extrapolate from that, because of my
Speaker 1: love of tech, in no small part, my love of
Speaker 1: tech is what helped me get my job as a
Speaker 1: writer at how Stuff Works dot com. If I didn't
Speaker 1: love technology, I wouldn't have even thought to apply to
Speaker 1: be a writer for a website. It's certainly contributed to
Speaker 1: becoming the writer for the technology channel on how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. When I first started at how Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: I was not at the tech writer. I was one
Speaker 1: of two staff writers, and that that's all we had
Speaker 1: for staff writers. Uh. Eventually we built up our writing
Speaker 1: staff so that we would differentiate and and and and
Speaker 1: specialize in various channels on the site, and it fell
Speaker 1: to me to be the tech writer, which I embraced
Speaker 1: because I love technology. And uh. That's also why when
Speaker 1: it came time to start launching podcasts and we talked
Speaker 1: about Technology pod us, I was one of the people
Speaker 1: talked to about doing the the Tech podcast. So I
Speaker 1: can say for two reasons now, I would not be
Speaker 1: on tech stuff if it weren't for Apple and Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: Because if I hadn't developed that love, I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: be here, and I certainly wouldn't have the the desire
Speaker 1: to talk about technology. But because of that I have.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the tech Stuff podcast and I'm
Speaker 1: a happy participant in it. M Um, Well it's um
Speaker 1: listeners who remember back when we talked about the Amiga.
Speaker 1: Remember that the Amiga was my first computer and UM
Speaker 1: I got that back in which was, of course the
Speaker 1: year after the UH the Macintosh came out, the Mac Classic,
Speaker 1: which of course wasn't Classic back then because it was
Speaker 1: brand new UM. And they both ran on similar processors,
Speaker 1: the sixty thousand series Motor Role processor UM. And it's
Speaker 1: it's funny because at the time, UM, those of us
Speaker 1: who were Amiga people, and there are still a lot
Speaker 1: of loyal Amigans out there, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: are using other operating systems like me UM. You know
Speaker 1: that at the time it was the Amiga versus the
Speaker 1: Mac and the Atar E S T. And then there
Speaker 1: were PCs out there, but those were business machines. Those
Speaker 1: weren't home computers. Those weren't the machines that people brought
Speaker 1: home because you couldn't do all the stuff you could.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like black, black and amber monitors. You know,
Speaker 1: they specific protocols and they weren't designed to necessarily run
Speaker 1: other kinds of programs. Yeah, so it seemed it seemed
Speaker 1: to a lot of us that you know, it was
Speaker 1: a three way race for what was coming in the future, UM,
Speaker 1: and you would have you know, the the PC and
Speaker 1: then you know the three of us, and I think
Speaker 1: there were there was a lot of infighting, at least
Speaker 1: that was my perception from the the Amiga side. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I had I had a friend who I
Speaker 1: teased a lot. He had a uh app well to
Speaker 1: see UM and I teased him about that because he
Speaker 1: had a monochrome monitor. And then I had a friend
Speaker 1: who got a Mac and I was really impressed with
Speaker 1: all the things. I had a couple of friends actually
Speaker 1: had Max and I you know, played load Runner on
Speaker 1: the machines and um, you know, I was really impressed
Speaker 1: with the typography. And this is actually interesting. I had
Speaker 1: never watched the two thousand five commencement address that that
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs gave at Stanford UM. But he said after
Speaker 1: he left Read College, UM, he had actually dropped in
Speaker 1: on some classes and one of which was a calligraphy class,
Speaker 1: which was really excellent. He said, you know, at the
Speaker 1: time it was just something he was really interested in.
Speaker 1: But he learned a lot about how letters look uh,
Speaker 1: and and fonts and typefaces uh, things like spacing between letters. UM.
Speaker 1: And he really wouldn't have necessarily chalked that up to
Speaker 1: something that he would need, but later typography became one
Speaker 1: of the core UH differences between the Macintosh and so
Speaker 1: many other computers. I remember taking my Amiga to college
Speaker 1: with me. UM. I started with the Amiga one thousand
Speaker 1: that I got in high school, and then UM Amiga
Speaker 1: three thousand, and I remember being frustrated because the campus
Speaker 1: I went to UM it was a mac uh mac school,
Speaker 1: so they had of course, you know, Apple has always been,
Speaker 1: or at least back in the eighties and nineties, was
Speaker 1: really pushing for the education market. And I've been remember
Speaker 1: being really frustrated that the fonts in the Amiga just
Speaker 1: weren't as when you printed things out. I wanted my
Speaker 1: papers to look like everyone else's papers, and people who
Speaker 1: had MAX could do so much more. And then the
Speaker 1: Amiga gradually, you know, commodore folded and UH it just
Speaker 1: gradually looked like I was going to be orphaned forever.
Speaker 1: Um it appears that way now, but just a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago it looked like, you know, there might
Speaker 1: be a home for the Amiga in some context. UM.
Speaker 1: But I got married and my wife brought her UH
Speaker 1: mac LC two UM with her and we she had
Speaker 1: a performer in college and then got an ELC two
Speaker 1: and that was my first what I would consider my
Speaker 1: first Mac. UM. And then you know, I just I
Speaker 1: liked the operating system. The more I used it, the
Speaker 1: more I liked it. UM. This was probably I guess. UM.
Speaker 1: So UM. You know, I got to the point where
Speaker 1: I really really enjoyed working on the operating system. I
Speaker 1: got a job where I could do that. I was
Speaker 1: into a little bit of graphic design type stuff. I
Speaker 1: worked in a newspaper that was a Mac shop. Um.
Speaker 1: It's where I needed to use Photoshop to h to
Speaker 1: work on paper and cork express to do layout. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, the more I used it, the more
Speaker 1: I liked it. And at that point, you know, it
Speaker 1: was the Mac operating system versus uh Windows three point one,
Speaker 1: which I mean Windows three point one was clunky. UM.
Speaker 1: I think most people would agree to to that, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I just decided that that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. And uh, you know, I ended up with
Speaker 1: the very first iMac on the day it came out
Speaker 1: in August of UM ended up getting several Macs over
Speaker 1: the years, UM and other devices to my first iPod
Speaker 1: was an iPod four G black and white scroll wheel. Um.
Speaker 1: Then I got an iPod Touch later on. And uh,
Speaker 1: I got the iPad the week it came out, not
Speaker 1: the first day it came out, but the first week
Speaker 1: it came out. I gave you no end of trouble
Speaker 1: about that. Well, here's here's another thing. I mean. Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs was famous for his reality distortion field where he
Speaker 1: could he could talk you into stuff. And I admit
Speaker 1: I was skeptical that a tablet would break in after
Speaker 1: all the years of windows tablets. Um. And this is
Speaker 1: after you know, several iterations of windows to the point
Speaker 1: where you know, I've had I've worked at several jobs
Speaker 1: where I needed windows, and I actually, um, actually don't
Speaker 1: mind windows, you know. And I've used into and uh,
Speaker 1: you know a couple other flavors of lenox, and I
Speaker 1: like those two. I still prefer the Mac interface. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, looking at the windows tablets and when
Speaker 1: you know the form factors there, and people are just
Speaker 1: not embracing this outside of certain fields like the medical profession,
Speaker 1: where it makes a lot of sense to have something
Speaker 1: like that. And then you know, I picked one up
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what this is this is different.
Speaker 1: And I've heard people say, oh, well, you know, the
Speaker 1: people who buy iPads, they buy iPads and and they're
Speaker 1: finding ways to make use of them, but they didn't
Speaker 1: really need one to begin with. But I would argue
Speaker 1: that that's true of the personal computer. Um and I
Speaker 1: think I may have even said that on this podcast before.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, at the at the point in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, uh, you know when I got a
Speaker 1: personal computer. Uh well, your dad had a good reason
Speaker 1: to have a personal computer. Uh MoMA wanted to do
Speaker 1: some finance stuff. To be fair, Dead also played video
Speaker 1: games about as frequently as I did. So yeah, their
Speaker 1: main times were Dead was quote unquote working on the
Speaker 1: novel when he was really playing Sid Meier's Pirates. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean for the most part, you know, people were
Speaker 1: doing spreadsheets or writing letters on them. They but they weren't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a part of our lives because that was
Speaker 1: pre uh pre internet in the home. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think as time has gone on, there have been
Speaker 1: more complex uh things, you know, more more complex software
Speaker 1: written for computers, and more types of games and more
Speaker 1: types of productivity software and all kinds of things that
Speaker 1: you didn't have before. And I think the iPad is
Speaker 1: doing the same thing for tablets. UM. Now you have
Speaker 1: the Android operating system in competition with it, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know some of the others too, UM. And they're
Speaker 1: competing with each other and making each other and making
Speaker 1: all of the different varieties of hardware and software better.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, a lot of people do
Speaker 1: have a place for a tablet in their daily routine. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's something that somebody had to convince us well.
Speaker 1: And and the first iMac was ridiculed for not having
Speaker 1: a serial or a parallel port or a floppy disk drive.
Speaker 1: That's that's interesting, you know, that's one of those things.
Speaker 1: I've had this discussion with a couple of people recently. UM.
Speaker 1: And that Steve Jobs one of the things he is
Speaker 1: he was known for wash not being the most um
Speaker 1: amicable to compromise. No, he was very He had a
Speaker 1: very focused way of approaching a project, and anything that
Speaker 1: was outside of that focus was you needed a darn
Speaker 1: good reason to be able to have it, have Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs consider it, and if you weren't able to defend
Speaker 1: that idea, then it just didn't fly. UM and his approach.
Speaker 1: His abrasive approach could carry over into company wide policy.
Speaker 1: And one of those big ones, one of the ones
Speaker 1: that still gets people up in arms, is the fact
Speaker 1: that iOS does not support flash, and uh, you know that.
Speaker 1: Here's the issue. HTML four, which is what we're using now,
Speaker 1: does not support rich Internet experiences, at least not to
Speaker 1: any big extent, which is why you have to have
Speaker 1: all these other things added on to your browser in
Speaker 1: order to be able to experience them, like flash or
Speaker 1: silver White, those would be the big examples, so to
Speaker 1: be able to create this rich content experience, which is
Speaker 1: something that we've grown accustomed to on the web now
Speaker 1: because as people have grown proficient in it, they've incorporated
Speaker 1: into websites in very clever and useful ways, so it's
Speaker 1: not just pretty, but actually functional. The problem is that
Speaker 1: again natively, HTML four does not support that, so you
Speaker 1: have to have these additional things added on to make
Speaker 1: it work. So Apple doesn't support that for iOS, and
Speaker 1: the the official argument from Apple is essentially that flash
Speaker 1: makes things unstable and it drains battery life, so that
Speaker 1: the reason why you won't find flash supported on an
Speaker 1: iPhone or iPad or iPod touch is because it would
Speaker 1: make the battery life drain much more quickly, and it
Speaker 1: would be an an experience that the user would not
Speaker 1: actually like. That's the official word. Um. There are other
Speaker 1: things that you can take into consideration. For example, a
Speaker 1: company probably doesn't want to empower a competitor by incorporating
Speaker 1: their product directly into the experience. An Apple does compete
Speaker 1: with Adobe on so flashes from Adobe, and Apple competes
Speaker 1: with Adobe in certain areas. So if if iOS supported
Speaker 1: U Flash, then by extension you could argue Apple is
Speaker 1: somewhat supporting Adobe, and that in business doesn't always make sense.
Speaker 1: So there's that level playing as well. Of course that's
Speaker 1: not the that's not the public message. Um, But that's
Speaker 1: a frustrate a lot of people, both users who want
Speaker 1: to go and use websites that are using flash and
Speaker 1: therefore they know long they can't access that information. This
Speaker 1: is particularly a pain in the butt if you happen
Speaker 1: to be looking for a place to eat and the
Speaker 1: menu is in a Flash application, and happens so frequently. Um.
Speaker 1: But jobs is other point he was making is that
Speaker 1: he wanted to push for the development of HTML five.
Speaker 1: The development and the rollout of HTML five because HTML
Speaker 1: five was a solution to the problem of h m
Speaker 1: L four does not natively support rich Internet applications. HTML
Speaker 1: five was going to be built with the support built
Speaker 1: in so that you didn't have to rely on a
Speaker 1: third party solution to be able to have these experiences
Speaker 1: on a web page. UM. Personally, I like that lution.
Speaker 1: I like an elegant solution where it's across the board. Now,
Speaker 1: if I were Adobe, I would not like that solution
Speaker 1: at all because I'm like, well, you know, where's the problem.
Speaker 1: We we've fixed that problem already. UM. But it's it's
Speaker 1: the difference between say that you're building a building and
Speaker 1: you want to patch a hole in the wall versus
Speaker 1: you want to tear the wall down and build a
Speaker 1: strong wall from the ground up, right. I mean that's
Speaker 1: two different ways of achieving the same thing. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's just that Jobs when he would message that out,
Speaker 1: was not gentle about it. On the other hand, Apple
Speaker 1: did embrace the portable document format the PDFs um in
Speaker 1: Mac os ten. It's been the standard, you know. It's
Speaker 1: that you don't have to have the professional version of
Speaker 1: Acrobat to save a document as a PDF, and you
Speaker 1: haven't for years UM. And that was that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that they touted. They said, this is
Speaker 1: a feature of the operating system, UM, which I appreciate,
Speaker 1: and they having a native PDF you here, And it's no,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal. It's part of the the mac
Speaker 1: Ostna operating system, right, So it wasn't something that they
Speaker 1: applied across the board to every single you know, element
Speaker 1: and and and I will admit to having problems with
Speaker 1: flash not only on my Mac, but on occasionally on
Speaker 1: PCs as well running windows. UM. Actually I don't think
Speaker 1: I never had one with the one too, but I
Speaker 1: don't use it as often. UM. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because immediately after they made the announcement, everybody, Oh, Apple,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You know you can't do that,
Speaker 1: And then you started hearing it's kind of got a point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's just that I happen to have a lot of
Speaker 1: friends who developed for flash, they developed applications and flash
Speaker 1: or or they they're animators who animate and flash and uh,
Speaker 1: and they harbor some very strong feelings against that policy,
Speaker 1: which is understandable, you know, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's I liken this yesterday to UM if the United
Speaker 1: States a few years ago tried to make a move
Speaker 1: of to make the dollar coin a popular choice for people,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're more durable and they last longer than
Speaker 1: dollar bills, right, so in the long run there they
Speaker 1: cost less. It makes it's economical. But people just seemed
Speaker 1: reluctant to make the move from paper to coins. And
Speaker 1: part of the reason is because the United States did
Speaker 1: not discontinue the paper money. Now, if they had done
Speaker 1: the the what I would consider the intelligent thing, although painful,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna have you're gonna have a transitionary period
Speaker 1: where people are just gonna complain, like the Dickens. But
Speaker 1: if they wanted, if they wanted to really make that transition,
Speaker 1: they had to stop making the paper dollar bills and
Speaker 1: stop circulating them so that when they got into banks,
Speaker 1: they would be replaced with the coins, so that you
Speaker 1: would gradually take the dollar bill out of circulation and
Speaker 1: you'd have no choice but to use the coins. Now,
Speaker 1: you definitely have a period where people would grumble and grown,
Speaker 1: but but you would get to that point that you
Speaker 1: wanted to get. You would reach the destination you needed
Speaker 1: to get to, and you would do it much more
Speaker 1: quickly and efficiently and without this kind of wishy washy approach.
Speaker 1: That's what jobs as philosophy was with the flash and
Speaker 1: HTML five was. You know, you ripped that band aid
Speaker 1: off and you don't you know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: support flash, and if our products are popular enough, that's
Speaker 1: going to push for the development and roll out of
Speaker 1: HTML five and it's going to ramp that up. And
Speaker 1: if we don't do that, we may never get to
Speaker 1: HTML five because there's not there's not an incentive to
Speaker 1: do that. So I can definitely see it from jobs
Speaker 1: as perspective. I can also see it from my friends perspectives,
Speaker 1: who you know, are actually making their livelihood developing things
Speaker 1: using flash, So I can see it both ways. Well,
Speaker 1: even Adobe has done what I consider the intelligent thing, um,
Speaker 1: which is, although they still of course are actively developing
Speaker 1: flash and and moving it forward, they have also come
Speaker 1: up with a a rich HTML five editor um that
Speaker 1: they've released a beta of, and um, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: see HTML five websites become more robust and uh, it's
Speaker 1: impressive to see the development. And I mean again, this
Speaker 1: is this is the same kind of thing where HTML
Speaker 1: five is a lot less likely to cause problems. UM,
Speaker 1: but I could see why Adobe would be very upset
Speaker 1: about that, you know, from a from a developer standpoint of,
Speaker 1: you know, creating new productivity software. UM. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you could definitely see. Uh. You know, people say
Speaker 1: the same kinds of things about the closed environment of
Speaker 1: iOS and the mac os. Ten. Um, you don't have
Speaker 1: MATC clones. That's a big part of why the Mac
Speaker 1: section of the h the the piece of the pie,
Speaker 1: if you will, is very small. Um. It's hovered around
Speaker 1: ten percent, was as low as you know, I think
Speaker 1: under five at one point. It's been climbing for the
Speaker 1: last while. Uh, lowly, very very slowly. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: to um are have multiple computers. I have a Windows
Speaker 1: computer and a Mac at home. UM, So you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's disproportionate in some ways. And
Speaker 1: it's also possible to run Windows on a Mac. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if people count that too, because we caught
Speaker 1: talking about copies of Windows and you have you have
Speaker 1: one on your Mac, then that's counting one on both columns.
Speaker 1: But anyway, when Steve Jobs had been fired from Apple, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the the following administrations decided they wanted to
Speaker 1: allow clones, and they had, They had allowed Motorola and
Speaker 1: some others to um to come up with clones, and
Speaker 1: they were licensing copies at the mac os for people
Speaker 1: to use on other machines. And some of those other
Speaker 1: machines were really good, um. In fact, at that point
Speaker 1: some of them were considerably better than Apples, which the
Speaker 1: quality was starting to flag at that point on some
Speaker 1: of the machines, the product lines were confusing, and and uh,
Speaker 1: when Steve came back to power at at Apple, um,
Speaker 1: you know, he ended, he ended the cloning. UM. And
Speaker 1: people complain about you know, well the app store prevents uh,
Speaker 1: people from having choice. Um. But it has been argued
Speaker 1: recently that Android is not completely open, and Google has
Speaker 1: had to pull things from the Android app Store that
Speaker 1: have proven embarrassing for them. UM. So I mean there's
Speaker 1: a trade off to be made either things that actually
Speaker 1: contained malware or things that were made malware more of
Speaker 1: a possibility because they introduced vulnerabilities. I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's the danger that Google runs with their philosophy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I could see an argument again, I could see
Speaker 1: an argument for both. A closed system is gonna work
Speaker 1: much more fluid. Each piece is going to work very
Speaker 1: well with each other piece of the software. So my
Speaker 1: iPod is going to think very well with my map.
Speaker 1: And that was the thing is that Steve Jobs had
Speaker 1: a very like I said, he had that focus. He
Speaker 1: he was had a specific experience in mind, not just
Speaker 1: a product, but the experience that the consumer would have
Speaker 1: with that product. And that was where all the energy
Speaker 1: and focus was directed was to achieve that experience. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't good enough to just design something that was pretty,
Speaker 1: or that had an interesting user interface, or that would
Speaker 1: support and certain percentage of software. It was important to
Speaker 1: have a product that delivered the this this experience that
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs had come up with, and anything less was
Speaker 1: unacceptable and UM and sometimes, you know, sometimes they failed,
Speaker 1: they didn't always succeed with that, but that was kind
Speaker 1: of the goal. And when you look at it that way,
Speaker 1: it it kind of is a it's a very unique
Speaker 1: approach to developing technology. You know, a lot of other
Speaker 1: UH companies are focused on specifications, like, you know, we
Speaker 1: need to have the fastest processor and the best graphics
Speaker 1: processing unit and the best battery and all this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and UH and they're looking at it piecemeal
Speaker 1: like that instead of looking at necessarily the end result,
Speaker 1: like what is the what is it that you're trying
Speaker 1: to achieve with this product? And uh, Steve Jobs took
Speaker 1: a totally different approach to that, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: even if you don't like the products that you have
Speaker 1: to at least admire the the the methodology that he followed,
Speaker 1: and uh, the level of secrecy that he had even
Speaker 1: within the own company, within Apple itself, UM, on these
Speaker 1: these approaches, because you know, if that was part of
Speaker 1: the thing was that during the process of development, you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have some missteps along the way, and the
Speaker 1: product that you come up with may not deliver in
Speaker 1: the prototype form, may not deliver the experience you want.
Speaker 1: So you don't want that information to get out into
Speaker 1: the public because that's not what you're making YEA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to point out that, uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: enjoy my Android phone and I like the idea of
Speaker 1: being open. So you know, I wasn't being uh unequivocal,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think there are good reasons
Speaker 1: for both. Um. But yeah, that that was one of
Speaker 1: the other things, you know, Steve Jobs being a showman
Speaker 1: and being able to deliver an entertaining keynote. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I I read accounts from Apple store uh people about
Speaker 1: uh and that on on the special episode of Buzz
Speaker 1: Out Loud the other night too, after which is seen
Speaker 1: that show that that's very popular. Definitely you should check
Speaker 1: it out, um over the Yeah. Absolutely, And they did
Speaker 1: a special show on the night that that Steve jobs
Speaker 1: passing was announced, and they were talking about how people
Speaker 1: would customers would come into the store to watch the
Speaker 1: Apple keynote on the big screen, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he there was a flare. He had a marketing flare
Speaker 1: about him too. He wasn't just a shrewd business person, um.
Speaker 1: And and releasing details about the product. You know, the
Speaker 1: fact that there was so much secrecy surrounding these products
Speaker 1: beforehand enabled him to make the big reveal. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, the title of this episode is all
Speaker 1: about one more thing. I mean that was that Steve
Speaker 1: made that famous. And I don't know that it was intentional.
Speaker 1: It was just supposed to be that last the bomb
Speaker 1: dropping at the end. Oh hey, by the way, I
Speaker 1: just happened to have this announcement, right, And and it
Speaker 1: wasn't in every what eventually became known as the Steve Note.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It wasn't in every presentation, but when it
Speaker 1: when he would include that where you know, you think
Speaker 1: it's all wound up and you're thinking, wow, that was
Speaker 1: a really compelling product that they unveiled. Oh and one
Speaker 1: more thing, and the one more thing would just be
Speaker 1: the thing that makes your jaw drop where you said, wow,
Speaker 1: I was ready to buy one, when when the before
Speaker 1: he said that, now I want to buy two home,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it was just it was one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's just it's such a great
Speaker 1: grasp on marketing and salesmanship. Very I mean you you
Speaker 1: could look at it the other way. You could say
Speaker 1: he was very manipulative. You would not be wrong. But
Speaker 1: the point is that he was just so good at
Speaker 1: at conceiving of this this product all the way to
Speaker 1: the point where he's unveiling it to you and showing
Speaker 1: you why you should want it. And people would also
Speaker 1: complain about Steve Jobs approach was to tell you what
Speaker 1: you wanted, even you know, you know, like he knew
Speaker 1: you better than you did, over and over again. That's
Speaker 1: the point of marketing. Yeah, he was the fact that
Speaker 1: he did it successfully multiple times. I mean I bring
Speaker 1: it up over and over. I predicted that the iPad
Speaker 1: would crash and burn because I could not imagine a
Speaker 1: world where a tablet computer would work, where it would
Speaker 1: be successful in consider a marketplace. And I was as
Speaker 1: wrong as wrong can be. And I just completely underestimated
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs and what his team did and his marketing ability.
Speaker 1: You know, all of that together is what helped make
Speaker 1: the iPad a success. It wasn't just that it was
Speaker 1: a very compelling product on its own. It was if
Speaker 1: you pick up an iPad and no one has ever
Speaker 1: taught to you about it, and you start playing with it,
Speaker 1: it's intuitive, it's got a low learning curve, it's fun
Speaker 1: to use. Um. But if you listen to that presentation
Speaker 1: that Steve Jobs gave, uh, you know, then you're you
Speaker 1: Suddenly you hunger for it. And I just underestimated it entirely, um,
Speaker 1: which you know, not the first time. But and I
Speaker 1: do have another story of personal story that I'd share.
Speaker 1: So I already touched on the fact that the Apple
Speaker 1: to e kind of inspired my love of technology. Uh,
Speaker 1: if we if we again extrapolate from that my love
Speaker 1: of technology born from the apple to E. When I
Speaker 1: went to high school, I actually took a keyboarding class.
Speaker 1: It was like type typing, except it was for computers.
Speaker 1: That was essentially learning to type, so same thing like. Okay,
Speaker 1: so kids, those of you who are young. Back in
Speaker 1: the day, there used to be a class in high
Speaker 1: school where you would learn how to type on a typewriter.
Speaker 1: And you would sit in a classroom and every desk
Speaker 1: would have a typewriter on it, and it would be
Speaker 1: the loudest room in the in the school, with the
Speaker 1: possible exception of the shop where people are using you know,
Speaker 1: band saws and stuff. People people didn't have typewriters in
Speaker 1: their homes in a lot of cases, and so people
Speaker 1: would pay others to type up papers for them for college.
Speaker 1: For example, um my mom, who could type around a
Speaker 1: hundred thirty words a minute. Uh my brother would often
Speaker 1: ask her to type up his papers for him because
Speaker 1: it would take him a lot longer and he would
Speaker 1: make a lot more mistakes than than she would. So
Speaker 1: the average person typing that just you know, you had
Speaker 1: business people give stuff to their administrative assistance to type
Speaker 1: of the business people didn't do it like they do
Speaker 1: now with computers. Yeah, so different, different world. But but
Speaker 1: but by the time I was going to high school,
Speaker 1: there was this slow transition from typing class to keyboarding class.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing since you're using a computer and
Speaker 1: STAMA type different well, and also you had the benefit
Speaker 1: of being able to hit the backspace button and delete
Speaker 1: something without necessarily anyone hearing it because it didn't make
Speaker 1: that weird noise as as corrective liquid is being applied
Speaker 1: to the paper or the correction slips where you're sitting
Speaker 1: there trying to hold it in there, right right, So anyway, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's in my typing class. The machines we
Speaker 1: used were Max. We had MAX for for our type
Speaker 1: of or keyboarding class. So again in high school, I
Speaker 1: started to do UM keyboarding, and I eventually went into
Speaker 1: data processing classes, which was the next level up. And
Speaker 1: then by the end of data processing I was teaching
Speaker 1: half the class because I was so familiar with the
Speaker 1: the the Apple UM platform. And then uh so again
Speaker 1: my love of technology continues to grow through high school.
Speaker 1: When I get into college, because of my love of technology,
Speaker 1: I adopted the whole online uh approach. Early. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot in common with a lot of
Speaker 1: the kids who were going to the college I started
Speaker 1: going to when I was a freshman. So. But the
Speaker 1: nice thing about the online world, which was just starting
Speaker 1: to kind of take off in the early nineties, early
Speaker 1: to mid nineties, which is when I was starting going
Speaker 1: to college, um, since the online world was starting to
Speaker 1: take off, that gave me access to people from around
Speaker 1: the world, many of whom had similar interests in as
Speaker 1: I did. And uh, of course the fact that they're
Speaker 1: on a computer already means we share something in common
Speaker 1: that we are at least not afraid of computers, and
Speaker 1: probably we love computers. So on one of these um,
Speaker 1: I went to U. I used to be a regular
Speaker 1: on various telnet chat rooms. Kids ask your parents, UM, yeah,
Speaker 1: they won't know. They won't know either unless they're geeks.
Speaker 1: But anyway, there were there were chat rooms that you
Speaker 1: go in. It's all text based and you you know,
Speaker 1: created a handle and you could go in and chat
Speaker 1: with people. I met a certain young lady on a
Speaker 1: chat room who then we had conversations and we found
Speaker 1: out we had a lot in common, and we talked
Speaker 1: for a long time. We started talking on the phone,
Speaker 1: she came down to visit me. We started dating, we
Speaker 1: got engaged, and later on I got married to this woman.
Speaker 1: Fourteen years later, I'm still married to her. Um. So
Speaker 1: I met my wife through technology. My love of technology
Speaker 1: is what led me to adopting this whole online approach.
Speaker 1: If I had not had the Apple to E and
Speaker 1: I had not developed that love of tech, I may
Speaker 1: very well not have ever bothered with the whole online thing.
Speaker 1: I might have thought that's not for me, that's that's
Speaker 1: just we. I wouldn't have met the woman who I
Speaker 1: fell in love with and got married to, and my
Speaker 1: life would be very different. So you know, you have
Speaker 1: to extrapolate, and there's no way to know for sure,
Speaker 1: obviously because we haven't discovered the parallel worlds yet. But
Speaker 1: in a way, you could say that because of what
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs and Apple did, because that I developed my
Speaker 1: love of tech back when I was a kid, because
Speaker 1: I was using those machines, That's how I met my
Speaker 1: wife many years later. I'm gonna do a sitcom about this,
Speaker 1: is going to be called How I Met My Wife. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to get Alison Hannaghan on board. I think
Speaker 1: she's occupied. You know, I gotta start watching TV. Yeah anyway, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I think it could be argued that, you know,
Speaker 1: of course it's it's not all Steve Jobs world, but
Speaker 1: because of people like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, uh
Speaker 1: J Minor, Um, Bill Gates, um, Paul Allen. You know,
Speaker 1: these people made technology accessible to the average person and
Speaker 1: uh you know all the people that worked on their
Speaker 1: teams too. But there, you know, these are the faces
Speaker 1: that we can identify as having made a difference, uh
Speaker 1: and and doing that and uh you know there if
Speaker 1: you don't like one company's product, it's been inspired by
Speaker 1: the others and has inspired the others to do better. Um.
Speaker 1: You could say the same thing for for Pixar too.
Speaker 1: Once picks are uh you know, was was a George
Speaker 1: Lucas company and uh, Steve Jobs. I think he bought it,
Speaker 1: didn't he he took it? Yes, he bought it. Steve.
Speaker 1: By the way, side, note, very first movie I saw
Speaker 1: with the woman who would become my wife toy story
Speaker 1: ha ha. So there you go. There's another one. Well, Pixar, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly didn't invent animation or computer animation, will
Speaker 1: they were one of the one of the pioneers. Pioneers certainly, UM,
Speaker 1: but they weren't the only ones to have the idea,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but they have revolutionized it. And I would
Speaker 1: say people like DreamWorks, Uh, in competition with them, has
Speaker 1: worked harder because they have pisar Um Disney's in house
Speaker 1: people who were there you know, in addition to the
Speaker 1: Pixar unit before, you know, they had a model to
Speaker 1: to emulate. UM. And I think you could you could
Speaker 1: say that Steve Jobs is a catalyst. Uh. He and
Speaker 1: he inspired other people to work harder, both on his
Speaker 1: own team and on the other teams. Uh. And he's
Speaker 1: just the recognizable face that we could say, you know,
Speaker 1: he made a difference. He you know, his companies gave
Speaker 1: us products and and and things that we liked and
Speaker 1: wanted to see and wanted to hold and use. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. And it's uh And I think it probably
Speaker 1: would have been a little different had he not um
Speaker 1: not passed away so early, you know, at fifty years old.
Speaker 1: You know, he he wasn't even you know, in retirement
Speaker 1: age here in the United States is generally recognized to
Speaker 1: be around sixty five, although it's harder to retire at
Speaker 1: that age. You have many CEOs who work on at
Speaker 1: their companies past that time. You know, he would have
Speaker 1: been um, had his health not declined, he probably would
Speaker 1: have been there at least another ten years at Apple
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, served with Pixar and Disney, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's just I think that's probably another reason why
Speaker 1: his death affects us so deeply, is because we go, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I like what Apple is doing right now,
Speaker 1: I like what Pixars doing. What would have happened? And
Speaker 1: you know that in he's a person that we kind
Speaker 1: of identified with and wanted to know more about. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he was mysterious as well. And I mean he definitely
Speaker 1: there's definitely a whole mythology around him. I mean the
Speaker 1: fact we've we've touched on that with the reality distortion field.
Speaker 1: You know that that's one of that's a mythical feature
Speaker 1: to Steve Jobs. And you know, even his competitors have
Speaker 1: come out and said some pretty remarkable things about him. Um,
Speaker 1: the people people who both worked with him and competed
Speaker 1: against him in the world of technology after his passing
Speaker 1: have said some pretty phenomenal things. Bill Gates, I'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and quote Bill Gates, because that's a great example.
Speaker 1: He said. Steve and I first met nearly thirty years
Speaker 1: ago and have been colleagues, competitors, and friends over the
Speaker 1: course of more than half our lives. The world rarely
Speaker 1: sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had,
Speaker 1: the effects of which will be felt for many generations
Speaker 1: to come. For those of us lucky enough to get
Speaker 1: to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor.
Speaker 1: And I mean you know that that speaks volumes too,
Speaker 1: that people who were either actively in a company UM
Speaker 1: that competed against Apple or in their past had that
Speaker 1: they they also recognize his his contribution to the technologology
Speaker 1: industry UM from the earliest days of Google. Whenever Larry
Speaker 1: and I saught inspiration for vision and leadership, we needed
Speaker 1: to look no farther than Coopertino. Steve, your passion for
Speaker 1: excellence is felt by anyone who has ever touched an
Speaker 1: Apple product, including the MacBook. I am writing this on
Speaker 1: right now. That was Saragey Brin and Larry page two.
Speaker 1: I am very, very sad to hear the news about Steve.
Speaker 1: He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance.
Speaker 1: Um Mark Zuckerberg. Steve, thank you for being a mentor
Speaker 1: and friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can
Speaker 1: change the world. I will miss you, Michael Dell, CEO
Speaker 1: of Dell Incorporated. So today the world lost a visionary leader,
Speaker 1: the technology industry lost an iconic legend, and I lost
Speaker 1: a friend and fellow founder. The legacy of Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: will be remembered for generations to come. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: that that from the person who said that Apple should
Speaker 1: have been closed and sold back to the investors. The
Speaker 1: proceeds given back to the investors. Yeah, there there are
Speaker 1: worse that was in the dark days of Apple. Two
Speaker 1: dozen of these tributes coming from not just industry leaders
Speaker 1: in technology, but politicians, artists. You know, there there are
Speaker 1: musicians out there who credit their success in no small
Speaker 1: part to the fact that iTunes gave them a venue
Speaker 1: that otherwise they would not have had. Um And you know,
Speaker 1: you could even argue all iTunes has had a it
Speaker 1: has sort of a monopoly effect. But then but then
Speaker 1: you had other companies like Amazon come in and again
Speaker 1: because of what Steve Jobs had done that made it
Speaker 1: possible for other companies to do a similar approach or
Speaker 1: an approach that was different enough to compete against iTunes Um.
Speaker 1: But without that pioneering work, we can't say for sure
Speaker 1: whether or not that would have happened. Maybe it would
Speaker 1: have happened, but it would have happened later or differently
Speaker 1: or differently. I mean, I we there's no way of
Speaker 1: knowing right now whether or not if Steve Jobs had
Speaker 1: never come back to Apple, if they had never gone
Speaker 1: into portable electronics the way they did, would smartphones be
Speaker 1: a consumer product right now? It's hard to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: before the iPhone, they really weren't. Uh, there were people
Speaker 1: who had them, there were early adopters, and there were
Speaker 1: other folks who had them, but as a widespread thing,
Speaker 1: it just didn't. It didn't exist. So maybe it would
Speaker 1: have happened, but it would have happened on a in
Speaker 1: a different way, and perhaps perhaps we'd be in a
Speaker 1: very slow ramp to people adopting smartphones instead of the
Speaker 1: crazy one we're on now. We are rapidly getting to
Speaker 1: be the longest Tech Stuff episode ever, and we've done
Speaker 1: that three times this year. Now. I can't think of
Speaker 1: I this is certainly a topic that I think it
Speaker 1: befits an extra long episode of tech stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that that many of you will have comments
Speaker 1: and questions for us. Um you know, it's by the
Speaker 1: time this will actually publish that the rawness of these
Speaker 1: passing will we'll have subsided somewhat, will go back to
Speaker 1: saying the other company stinks. Um. But and it's sad that,
Speaker 1: you know, takes an event like this to sort of
Speaker 1: bring people together for a few days ago. You know what,
Speaker 1: we're all we're all competitors, but ultimately we're all friends too,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know, yeah, our goal each other, right,
Speaker 1: Our goal is the same as to create compelling products
Speaker 1: for consumers that are that truly are useful, because you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't do that, then you get a reputation
Speaker 1: for making crap. Yea, you know, I mean that's the
Speaker 1: that's the bottom line. And if you get that reputation,
Speaker 1: you don't stay in business long. So um so everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, there was a lot of competition, and
Speaker 1: not all of it was friendly, but it was definitely
Speaker 1: that there was definitely a level of respect that we
Speaker 1: may not have always may not have always translated to
Speaker 1: the way the words that were used, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely underlying it. Well, we're gonna wrap up this episode
Speaker 1: and uh, if you guys have any specific thoughts about
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs and Apple and how maybe those the projects
Speaker 1: that came for that company have affected you, whether even
Speaker 1: if it's not necessarily like oh, glowing praise, that's not
Speaker 1: what we're asking for really, just kind of giving context
Speaker 1: to what see Jobs did, what Apple did, both the
Speaker 1: good and the bad. It's not all not all positive.
Speaker 1: Let us know, though, Send us an email or address
Speaker 1: as tech stuff at how stuff works dot com or
Speaker 1: better yet, go on to our Twitter or Facebook account
Speaker 1: and let us know through their Facebook is a great
Speaker 1: way for us to have a conversation with a group
Speaker 1: of people, and um, maybe we won't create too many
Speaker 1: flame wars this way, but look for us there are
Speaker 1: handle is text Stuff, hs W and Chris and I
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