What do You Think ? » Steve Jobs

World’s biggest tech show searching for “wow”

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:23:36 +0000

The world’s biggest technology trade show will feature razor-thin laptops, powerful new smartphones and fancy flat-screen TVs, but talk in the cavernous halls of the Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off on Monday night, may focus on whether the show itself has a long-term future.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O), which has set the agenda in consumer electronics for the past decade, does not even attend the show. Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), desperately trying to catch up, is making this show its last. It has been a few years since Las Vegas-based CES had the “wow” factor.

“There’s a lot of hype. The promise exceeds the deliverable a lot,” said Todd Lowenstein, portfolio manager at HighMark Capital Management, which owns several technology stocks. “I take an interest in it only to the extent that there’s market-moving information that comes out of there, which I find is rare.”

Steve Jobs’ stylish and dramatic product launches came to dominate the popular tech world, and rivals are looking to copy that outside of the hubbub and razzmatazz of CES in Las Vegas.

“A lot of companies are trying to imitate Apple’s success in a lot of areas, and one area where Apple has been extremely successful is in controlling its message by controlling the event and the timetable of its announcements,” said Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis, a business intelligence firm.

Microsoft, which is trying to win back its technology crown from Apple and newcomer Google Inc (GOOG.O), has long said that CES in early January does not fit its product release timetable, meaning it has little new to share in the opening keynote, which has for years been given by Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, and before him by co-founder Bill Gates.

“Microsoft can do this on their own, they don’t need CES,” said Hanson Hosein, a specialist in technology and media at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It’s a lot of money. These shows are generally declining in popularity anyway.”

“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:12:06 +0000

Mona Simpson, a novelist, gave the eulogy at the Memorial Church of Stanford University on October 16. She said Jobs looked at her, then his children, then his wife and then beyond them all, saying: “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

“Steve’s final words were monosyllables, repeated three times,” Simpson said according to the eulogy printed in the New York Times.

“Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them, before saying his final words.”

Jobs, the founder of Apple and the man who transformed consumer technology, died on Oct 5 at the age of 56.

He had fought cancer in recent years and received a liver transplant in 2009. He stepped down as Apple’s chief executive in August, but his death still came as a shock to many in Silicon Valley and across the world.

Source: The Telegraph

Highlights: Jobs’ biographer on ’60 Minutes’

admin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:45:04 +0000

60 Minutes’s interview with Walter Isaacson, the authorized biographer of Apple founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, aired on CBS News around the U.S. at 7 p.m. local time Sunday evening.

The segment appeared two-and-a-half weeks after Jobs’s passing, and less than 24 hours before Isaacson’s biography hits bookshelves. Excerpts of the biography, which contains information derived from interviews with more than 100 individuals among his acquaintance, as well as some 40 interviews with Jobs himself, have already appeared at many media outlets.

Below, we’ve identified some highlights from the transcript of Sunday evening’s segment. You can watch the segment in full here.

Highlights

- Jobs invited Isaacson to write his biography seven years ago. Isaacson thought the request “presumptuous and premature, since Jobs was still a young man.” What Isaacson didn’t know at the time was that Jobs was about to undergo surgery for pancreatic cancer.

- Isaacson describes Jobs as “petulant” and “brittle.” “He could be very, very mean to people at times. Whether it was to a waitress in a restaurant, or to a guy who had stayed up all night coding. … And you’d say, ‘Why did you do that? Why weren’t you nicer?’ And he’d say, ‘I really want to be with people who demand perfection. And this is who I am,” recalls Isaacson.

- Isaacson attributes much of Jobs’s personality and drive to a few key moments in his childhood. Isaacson tells one anecdote involving the construction of a fence with his adoptive father Paul. “And [Paul] said, ‘You got to make the back of the fence that nobody will see just as good looking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that you’re dedicated to making something perfect.’”

- Jobs was also influenced by the Bay Area, and not just the Hewlett-Packard offices located nearby, but also its counter-culture spirit. “He was sort of a hippie-ish rebel kid, loved listening to Dylan music, dropped acid, but also he loved electronics,” Isaacson describes. He says that when Jobs worked at game-maker Atari they had to put him on the night shift because he walked around barefoot and never bathed, and so employees didn’t want to work with him.

- Jobs took a seven-month leave from Atari to travel through India. His encounters there and with Zen Buddhism “really informed his design sense,” says Isaacson. “That notion that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication [came from that trip].”

When Jobs returned, he began making a primitive computer for hobbyists in the garage of his parents with Steve Wozniak, Apple’s other founder. They started with $1,300. By the time Jobs was 25 Apple was worth “maybe 50 million dollars,” Jobs said in a taped recording with Isaacson. “I knew I never had to worry about money again.”

- Jobs also had a natural disregard for authority, and felt that normal rules didn’t apply to him, Isaacson explains. One manifestation of that principle was visible in a Mercedes sports coupe he owned, which he refused to put a license plate on.

Isaacson says Jobs’s house in Palo Alto is completely unremarkable. “[It's] a house on a normal street with a normal sidewalk. No big winding driveway. No big security fences,” Isaacson says. He recalls that Jobs said he “did not want to live that nutso lavish lifestyle that so many people do when they get rich.”

- Jobs did meet his biological father, who once ran a restaurant in Silicon Valley. But Jobs never revealed to his father who he was. “I was in that restaurant once or twice and I remember meeting the owner who was from Syria,” Jobs said on tape. “And it was most certainly [my father]. And I shook his hand and he shook my hand. And that’s all.”

- Jobs’s cancer was discovered accidentally while he was being checked for kidney stones in 2004. A cat scan revealed a malignant tumor in his pancreas. Jobs delayed the operation for its removal for nine months while he tried a number of natural remedies first. By the time it was operated on, the cancer had spread to tissues around the pancreas. Isaacson says he believes Jobs regretted the delay.

- Through 2008, Jobs continued to receive secret cancer treatment even though he was telling everyone he had been cured. The cancer had spread to his liver by this time.

- In the last two-and-a-half years of his life, Jobs no longer wanted to go out or travel, but wanted to focus on the products he was building at Apple: namely, the iPhone and iPad. “I think he would’ve loved to have conquered television [as well],” says Isaacson. “He would love to make an easy-to-use television set. … But he started focusing on his family again as well. And it was a painful brutal struggle. And he would talk, often to me about the pain.”

- Jobs occasionally brought up the subject of death in their last meetings. “I saw my life as an arc and that it would end and compared to that nothing mattered,” Jobs said in a taped interview. “You’re born alone, you’re going to die alone. And does anything else really matter? I mean what is it exactly is it that you have to lose Steve? You know? There’s nothing.”

- Jobs also said he began believing in the existence of God “a bit more.” “Maybe it’s ’cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated. Somehow it lives on,” Jobs said on tape. He paused before he continued, “Yeah, but sometimes I think it’s just like an on-off switch. Click and you’re gone. And that’s why I don’t like putting on-off switches on Apple devices.”

Source : USATODAY

The story of a 10 years Old little Machine – iPod

admin — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:29:39 +0000

The iPod was not the first MP3 player but Steve Jobs and Apple were the first to get the technology so right it became a mass-market product.

When the late Steve Jobs was handed the iPod prototype, he told his engineers it was too big. They said it was as small as it could be, that there was all kinds of technology to fit in that couldn’t be shrunk.

Apple’s chief executive paused and then, so the story goes, dropped the iPod in a fishtank. He pointed to the bubbles coming from the gadget and told the engineers that if there was air in it there was space in it. “Make it smaller,” he ordered.

The story is apocryphal but believable, given Jobs’s perfectionism. When Apple finally launched the iPod, 10 years ago this week, it changed how we listen to music, revolutionising the music industry and transforming Apple.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player but it was the first to get the technology so right it became a mass-market product. Rival machines were bigger and heavier or stored less music, took longer to transfer songs or had poor battery life. The iPod could store 1,000 songs, had a 10-hour battery life and enabled you to transfer lots of songs from your computer quickly. All of this in a device the size of a pack of cards.

Apple decided to build a music player in early 2001, and Steve Jobs asked Jon Rubinstein, head of hardware engineering, to look into it. In January that year Apple introduced iTunes, its music program for Macs. A month later, Rubinstein was shown a 1.8-inch hard drive during a visit to Toshiba in Japan.

“They said they didn’t know what to do with it. Maybe put it in a small notebook,” Rubinstein said later. “I went back to Steve and I said, ‘I know how to do this.’ He said, ‘Go for it.’”

The only drawback was time: Jobs wanted the iPod to be available that Christmas. A team of 30 began working long hours on Project P-68. Jonathan Ive, the British-born designer who has worked at Apple since 1992, said: “Like everyone else, I knocked myself out, not so much because it was a challenge – which it was – but because I wanted to have one.”

Rubinstein brought in Tony Fadell, an engineer who had been shopping an idea for a digital music player around Silicon Valley for some time. The user interface for the iPod was built on top of software bought in from a company called Pixo and the basic blueprint for the hardware came from a start-up called PortalPlayer.

Ive, who had created the candy-coloured iMacs in 1998, oversaw every detail, from the now-familiar iPod case to the way the box opened when the gadget was unpacked. But input came from across the team: the idea for the scroll-wheel control system came from Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing; the name came from Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter, who said the player reminded him of the escape pods on the spaceship in the film 2001.

Underpinning it all were Jobs’s demands for simplicity and elegance. He stressed how important it was that any song could be reached in three clicks or fewer. “If ever there was a product that catalysed Apple’s reason for being, it’s this,” Jobs said after the iPod was released.

While the competition struggled to shift music players in large numbers, only Apple seemed to understand that the key was to create a complete experience. “It’s the whole thing,” says Jana Scholze, curator of modern furniture and product design at the Victoria and Albert Museum. “It’s the delivery, it’s the packaging and how it comes to you.”

She notes that Apple’s designs come with subtle quirks that provide an emotional connection, whether it’s the iMac’s superfluous but oddly charming handle or the iPod’s vague visual echo of a speaker. Scholze says: “With the help of design, they give people an experience that is far more important than music.”

But the reaction was not wholly positive. Many hardcore Apple fans were bemused. “Hey – here’s an idea Apple – rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys,” snorted one, “why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up?”

At $399, it was too expensive, said critics; others thought the iPod lacked substance. At first, it worked only with Apple’s Mac computers, though in 2002, a Windows-compatible iPod was released. A year later came the iTunes Music Store and a Windows version of iTunes.

“That’s when it all started coming together. Sales of the iPod went through the roof,” says Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones singer, who has been buying Apple products since the first Macintosh. Apple sold its millionth iPod in June 2003 and the two millionth six months later. By the end of 2004, it had sold 10 million.

Now chief executive of UK Music, the body that represents the British music industry, Sharkey says the iTunes Store took the record labels totally by surprise. Fearful of online piracy, the labels had been slow to experiment with selling their music digitally. Apple quickly took control of the market. “It was a marriage of phenomenal technology and great content,” says Sharkey.

By the middle of the decade, the white iPod earbuds were everywhere (ironically, they were the weakest feature). Apple’s adverts were everywhere, too – dancing silhouettes against bright backgrounds, clasping their iPods – and the message was clear: your music with you, all the time.

Celebrities raved about them too. Moby, the musician, said: “The kind of insidious revolutionary quality of the iPod is that it’s so elegant and logical, it becomes part of your life so quickly that you can’t remember what it was like beforehand.”

As sales grew, so did the iPod range: an iPod Mini, a screen-free Shuffle and the iPod Touch. To date, more than 300 million iPods have been bought.

“It’s a real tree of progression,” says Graham Barlow, editor in chief of MacFormat magazine. “You can see a clear evolutionary line starting with the iPod.

“It was the start of Apple becoming cool. The iMac redefined Apple but it was the iPod that connected it to something larger, to a world of rock stars and so on.”

Jay Elliot, who managed operations for Apple under Steve Jobs in the 1980s and has followed the company closely since, agrees. He says: “The iPod was the vital turning point because it became a market-changer. After that, every product that came out changed the market it was in.”

But the iPod would not be the cultural landmark that it is had it only changed markets. It changed the way we listen to music, too. We listen to music more often because we always have it with us. And we listen to playlists, rather than albums.

The album, which is after all just a collection of music largely determined by the capacity of the format on which it’s recorded, has been around for just a little over 60 years. It’s nowhere near as long-lived an artform as the novel, the symphony or even the feature film. Perhaps it has had its time. Or perhaps not. Sharkey points out that sales of digital albums are growing.

That was one more thing that Jobs foresaw. In 2003, he said: “Nobody thinks of albums anymore, anyway. People think of playlists and mixes. We’ll still sell albums as artists put them out, but for most consumers of popular music, we think they’ll more likely buy single tracks that they like. And then they’ll organise them into cusomized playlists in their computers and on their iPods.”

Sales have started to fall, though, as more people carry their music on smartphones, which is why the iPod Touch is not just a music player but a games machine, web browser and communications device. Meanwhile, Apple, Google and Amazon have launched services that let you store music on internet “cloud” servers to be downloaded to whatever device you have. The iPod’s significance has waned but we haven’t lost that desire to carry our music with us.

“Ten years on, the most important thing is that it still has all my favourite tunes on it,” says Sharkey.

Source: The Telegraph

Do you Imagine 16 iPhone per second ?

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:38:16 +0000

In selling 4 million units of the iPhone 4S in three days, Apple has hit the mark of roughly 16 iPhones sold per second, points out Shawn Blanc. The number is staggering when you consider that it is over double the number of iPhone 4′s sold on release day last year.

The availability of the iPhone on many more carriers this time around, including Verizon and Sprint in the US, likely contributed to its success. The initial reception by “experts” seemed to be fairly lukewarm as many appeared to be disappointed by the lack of a redesigned casing. This led a lot of people to claim that the iPhone 4S was doomed to be a middling release at best for Apple.

Shawn also makes an interesting observation that because the iPhone is selling so quickly, it is surely on track to bypass Microsoft’sKinect peripheral for the Xbox 360 as the fastest selling consumer device of all time.

These numbers should all get a massive boost when the iPhone 4S becomes available in 22 more countries including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland on October 28th.

Source: The Next Web

What do you think about waiting in a Queue to get your iPhone?

admin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:24:01 +0000

Apple Inc’s new iPhone went on sale in stores across the globe on Friday, prompting thousands to queue around city blocks to snap up the final gadget unveiled during Steve Jobs’ life.

Shares of Apple rose 2 percent in early trading after queues wound down the streets of Sydney, Tokyo, London, Paris and Munich to get their hands on the iPhone 4S, despite criticism about the lack of a design revolution and reports of software glitches.

“I am a fan, a big fan. I want something to remember Steve Jobs by,” said Haruko Shiraishi, waiting patiently with her Yorkshire terrier Miu Miu at the end of an eight-block queue in Tokyo’s smart Ginza shopping district.

In New York, some consumers got up early to buy the phone. While the line outside Apple’s flagship Manhattan store no longer extended around the block after a half-hour of sales, more people joined it as the morning progressed.

The new model looks similar to the previous iPhone 4, but has an upgraded camera, faster processor, enhanced security and voice-activated software, which lets users ask the phone questions. The voice software drew glowing reviews.

“I had been thinking of this phone for a long time,” said Chad Bullar, 23, a New York University student who is buying the phone for its new messaging service and the voice software. “I was going to wait for the iPhone 5, but that seems like a year away, so I got this one.”

Source: Reuters

i Think:

I would never stand in any queue to get any product, i think that waiting few days and then getting my iPhone in a very simple way is much better

Steve Jobs Left Behind Plans For Four Years

admin — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:58:33 +0000

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs has died, but his fingerprints will likely be seen in products for years to come. The Daily Mail reports that Jobs left behind plans for at least four generations worth of iPads, iPhones, iPods, and MacBooks.

In order to protect the future of the company he co-founded in 1976, Jobs spent a year preparing plans for four more cycles of these gadgets, the Daily Mail said.

Despite his declining health, Jobs also fought for the approval of the plans for Apple’s new massive spaceship-like headquarters in Cupertino. In June, Jobs appeared before the Cupertino City Council to outline plans for the 3.1 million square foot circular structure that will house 12,000 Apple employees.

Additionally, Jobs was overseeing work on iCloud, the Daily Mail said.

Jobs’ successor Tim Cook on Tuesday announced Apple’s fifth generation smartphone, the iPhone 4S.

Steve Jobs died Wednesday at the age of 56. His family said in a statement that he died peacefully.

As the news broke, world leaders, tech figures, and celebrities spoke out to pay tribute to the late tech icon. Newspapers re-organized their plans for Thursday’s papers to honor Jobs on their front pages. In fact, Time Magazine stopped its presses for the first time in more than 30 years to change its cover to pay homage to Jobs. His image was plastered across the Web, displayed prominently on various sites like the Google homepage, Wired, BoingBoing, and countless others.

Source: PC Magazine

I think :

A CEO Caring to build strategies for more than 4 future generations, and here in our country we see entrepreneurs and CEO who don’t know what they are doing at the current moment …

This is why we live in a shitty economical situation where production is NIL!

Who Invented the iPod at Apple?

admin — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:59:50 +0000

Because i’m curious, and i don’t like to use a device without knowing more information about it and about it’s creation process, and since i’m exposed to the internet and i can have access to any needed information while performing a small google search, i found out who and how the Famous iPod i use was created!

About.com is my reference and i would like to share the below information with you

Who Invented the iPod at Apple?

Apple didn’t invent the concept; The iPod was far from the first portable MP3 player. A number of companies–including Diamond, Creative Labs, and Sony–had been selling other MP3 players for a few years before the iPod debuted in October 2001. But none of the MP3 players prior to the iPod had been big hits. This was partly due to price and features–the 1999 Creative Labs Nomad had 32MB (Not GB! That’s enough for about 1 or 2 CDs) of memory and cost US$429–and the digital music market still being pretty young. Remember, there was no iTunes yet, and Napster will still pretty new. The iPod succeeded in part because it was the first product to really make the music loading and listening process elegant and enjoyable.

The iPod team at Apple took about a year to design and launch the first iPod in October 2001. That team consisted of:

Jon Rubinstein, then the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering; now at Hewlett-Packard
Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of design at Apple
Tony Fadell, an engineer and former senior vice president of the iPod division
Michael Dhuey, an engineer; now at Cisco Systems
Tim Wasko, an interface designer
Steve Jobs, the company’s CEO, who oversaw the project

It was that team who created the original iPod.

The Name

Did you know that the person who gave the iPod its name wasn’t even an Apple employee? Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter, suggested the name iPod because he was inspired by the line in the movie 2001 “Open the pod bay door, HAL.”

Source: About.com

‘Syrian pride’ kept Steve Jobs’ estranged father from reaching out

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:36:19 +0000

BEIRUT: Steve Jobs’ biological father wanted to make contact with his son before his untimely death but said his “Syrian pride” prevented him from doing so. On Wednesday, upon hearing the news of his son’s passing, he told the media he had “no comment.”

Abdel-Fattah Jandali, the biological father of the legendary Apple founder, an 80-year-old Syrian-American Muslim and former political science professor, now living in Nevada, had expressed regret at giving up his son for adoption and had hoped the two could meet before it was too late.

In an August interview with the U.K.’s The Sun, Jandali said: “If I could live my life again I would do things entirely differently. And even more so in recent years when I have heard that my son is gravely ill. It makes me feel like time is running out and that I am totally helpless.”

He added: “This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbed, to pick up the phone to call him.

“Steve will have to do that as the Syrian pride in me does not want him ever to think I am after his fortune. I am not. I have my own money. What I don’t have is my son … and that saddens me.

“When he became ill I thought maybe he might contact me to find out about my medical history but the call never came.”

Jandali was a political science student from Homs at the American University of Beirut when he met Carole Schieble, an American graduate student. In 1955, when Jobs was born, the young couple was unmarried. According to Jandali, Schieble’s conservative father forbade her from marrying him, leading her to give their son up for adoption. The baby was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, and was named Steve.

In an interview with The Sun in August, Jandali had expressed his desire to meet his son. He later said he regretted the interview.

Source: The Daily Star

Think Different …

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:16:30 +0000

A selection of Steve Jobs pictures i gathered it from many sources and would like to share them with all you!

Some of the picture goes far beyond a simple picture , Steve Jobs was simply different !

Reactions on Steve Jobs Death

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:35:07 +0000

The Email From Tim Cook, Apple CEO, To Apple Staff

Team,

I have some very sad news to share with all of you. Steve passed away earlier today.

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

We are planning a celebration of Steve’s extraordinary life for Apple employees that will take place soon. If you would like to share your thoughts, memories and condolences in the interim, you can simply email rememberingsteve@apple.com.

No words can adequately express our sadness at Steve’s death or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with him. We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.

Tim

Source: Techcrunch

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors On The Death Of Steve Jobs

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

Source: Techcrunch

Bill Gates Statement

I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.

Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.

The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.

For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

Source: GatesNotes

Steve Ballmer Statement

“I want to express my deepest condolences at the passing of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of our industry and a true visionary. My heart goes out to his family, everyone at Apple and everyone who has been touched by his work.”

Source: MS News

Steve Jobs “may never be equaled”

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:07:26 +0000

Passionate, prickly, and deemed irreplaceable by many Apple fans and investors, Steve Jobs made a life defying conventions and expectations.

And despite years of poor health, his death on Wednesday at the age of 56 prompted a global gasp as many people remembered how much he had done to transform the worlds of computing, music and mobile phones, changing the way people communicate and access information and entertainment.

“The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come,” said Microsoft co-founder and long-time rival Bill Gates.

“For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor.”

The founder of Apple Inc died on Wednesday in Palo Alto, surrounded by his family. The circumstances of his passing were unclear, but Jobs has had a long battle with cancer and other health issues.

Jobs’ family thanked many for their prayers during the last year of Steves illness.

A college dropout, Jobs floated through India in search of spiritual guidance prior to founding Apple – a name he suggested to his friend and co-founder Steve Wozniak after a visit to a commune in Oregon he referred to as an “apple orchard.”

With his passion for minimalist design and marketing genius, Jobs changed the course of personal computing during two stints at Apple and then brought a revolution to the mobile market.

The iconic iPod, the iPhone – dubbed the “Jesus phone” for its quasi-religious following – and the iPad are the creation of a man who was known for his near-obsessive control of the product development process.

“Most mere mortals cannot understand a person like Steve Jobs,” said bestselling author and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple employee, in a recent interview. He considers Jobs “the greatest CEO in the history of man”, adding that he just had “a different operating system.”

Charismatic, visionary, ruthless, perfectionist, dictator – these are some of the words that people have used to describe Jobs, who may have been the biggest dreamer the technology world has ever known, but also was a hard-edged businessman and negotiator through and through.

“Steve was the best of the best. Like Mozart and Picasso, he may never be equaled,” said Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and co-founder of Netscape Communications.

Microsoft’s Gates had called Jobs the most inspiring person in the tech industry and President Barack Obama held him up as the embodiment of the American Dream.

It’s hard to imagine a bigger success story than Steve Jobs, but rejection, failure and bad fate were part and parcel of who he was. Jobs was given away at birth, driven out of Apple in the mid-80s and struck with cancer when he finally had regained the top of the mountain.

He resigned as CEO of Apple Inc on August 24 – saying he could no longer fulfill the duties – and briefly served as chairman before his death.

Jobs grew up with an adopted family in Silicon Valley, which was turning from orchards to homes for workers at Lockheed and other defense and technology companies.

Electronics friend Bill Fernandez introduced him to boy engineer Wozniak, and the two Steves began a friendship that eventually bred Apple Computer.

“Woz is a brilliant engineer, but he is not really an entrepreneur, and that’s where Jobs came in,” recently remembered Fernandez, who was the first employee at Apple.

Wozniak earlier this year said that his goal was only to design hardware and he had no interest in running Apple.

“Steve Jobs’ role was defined — you’ve got to learn to be an executive in every division of the company so you can be the world’s most important person some day. That was his goal,” joked Wozniak, who is still listed as an employee, even though he has not worked at Apple for years.

Apple itself marked the death of Jobs by placing a simple black-and-white picture of the founder on the front page of its Web site, with his name and the dates 1955-2011.

Source: Reuters

Rest in Peace …

Bigger Touchscreen, Faster Processor, iPhone 5?

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:26:12 +0000

Tim Cook finally gets his chance to stride out from under Steve Jobs’ shadow, and he could not have picked a better time or device to mark his unofficial debut as Apple Inc’s CEO.

The latest generation of the iPhone — still the smartphone industry’s gold standard after four years — is expected to see the light of day this Tuesday, just in time for the holidays.

Even in a dismal economy, consumers should again line up in droves for a souped-up device that also marks Cook’s first major product launch since taking over from Jobs in August.

The so-called iPhone 5 is widely expected to have a bigger touchscreen and faster processor than the current iPhone 4, which helped the company stay a step ahead of rivals in an increasingly competitive smartphone market.

Its challenge will be to “wow” consumers with yet more game-changing innovations and top itself. The aging iPhone 4 is still an unqualified blockbuster: with more than 20 million sold in the third quarter that ended June 25 alone, it is likely to become the world’s top-selling smartphone.

“Consumers view Apple products as a must-have,” said Channing Smith, co-manager of the Capital Advisors Growth Fund, which owns Apple shares. “Apple phones and products have become almost a necessity. We don’t expect them to falter.”

But the latest version of the gadget that helped define the smartphone category is coming at a time when the world economy is slowing and competition is at its peak. More than 550,000 Google Inc Android-based devices — including tablets — are activated each day globally.

Apple’s ability to generate enthusiasm among consumers and its command of the higher-end market, however, may make it less susceptible to a broader slowdown, investors and analysts say.

Cook is likely to take the stage at Apple central at Cupertino’s 1 Infinite Loop, where Wall Street will get a chance to see first-hand how the acknowledged operations maven fares at a major product launch. Although a highly regarded executive, he is not known for pitching products.

Source: Reuters

iPhone 5 … Do you think you will see it Tomorrow ?

iPhone 5 will be Launched ? What do you think ?

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:38:01 +0000

Apple Inc looks set next week to unveil its much-awaited new iPhone, which analysts say will have a bigger screen and work better with remote computing services.

Apple on Tuesday invited media to a “special event” called “Let’s talk iPhone” on October 4 at its Cupertino, California headquarters, an unusual location for a company that typically introduces major products at larger venues in San Francisco.

The invitation did not have any other details, and an Apple spokesman would not provide further information.

“This is the iPhone 5,” ThinkEquity analyst Mark McKechnie said of the event.

The new iPhone would be the first major product launch under Tim Cook, who took over full-time as chief executive after co-founder Steve Jobs resigned last month.

It was unclear if Jobs, who is now chairman, will take the stage at the event.

Source: Reuters
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Steve Jobs resigns: Tim Cook tells staff Apple won’t change

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:00:15 +0000

In an email to Apple staff, the day after Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO, Cook told his team that he is “confident our best year’s lie ahead of us”.

Steve Jobs resigned as Apple chief executive last night, telling the board that his health problems meant that he “could no longer meet my duties and expectations as CEO”. Jobs had been on medical leave since the beginning of this year. He was treated for pancreatic cancer in 2004 and in 2009 underwent a liver transplant.

Each time Steve Jobs has taken medical leave, Tim Cook, then Apple’s chief operating officer, has acted as CEO. Last night he took over the role permanently. Steve Jobs becomes Apple’s chairman.

In his email, Cook said: “I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.”

He also paid tribute to Jobs: “Steve has been an incredible leader and mentor to me, as well as to the entire executive team and our amazing employees. We are really looking forward to Steve’s ongoing guidance and inspiration as our Chairman.”

According to journalist Walt Mossberg, sources within Apple say that Jobs “intends to remain involved in developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active chairman of the board, even while new CEO Tim Cook runs the company day to day.”

Perhaps boosted by the signs of stability within the company, Apple’s shares fell only slightly when Wall Street opened earlier today. Shares were down 1.76 per cent in the first 30 minutes of trading.

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 but was ousted from the company in 1985 following a dispute with John Sculley, who was then chief executive. When he returned in 1996, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. Jobs reorganised the company and, since then, has managed it through one hit product release after another, from the iMac and the iPod to the iPhone and iPad.

Source: The Telegraph

Comment and tell us Choura2yak

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:00:23 +0000

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who transformed the company he started at age 21 from a personal-computer also-ran into the world’s largest technology company, resigned.

Jobs, who will become chairman, was on medical leave since Jan. 17 after combating a rare form of cancer since 2003 and surviving a liver transplant in 2009. He is succeeded by Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, 50, who has been running day-to-day operations.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs, 56, said in a statement yesterday. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

Under Jobs, Apple became the second-most valuable company in the world, after Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), by introducing devices that revolutionized the computer, music and mobile phone industries. His attention to detail and emphasis on sleek, easy- to-use products helped Apple repel competition from rivals as varied as Google Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)

“He’s always going to be remembered, maybe for the next 100 years, as the greatest technology business leader of our time,” Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs, said in an interview on “Bloomberg West.” “Company culture doesn’t change overnight. He’s got tens of thousands of employees. The quality of the products reflects how good they are, too.”

Jobs’s Health

The day of the announcement, Jobs was in Apple’s Cupertino, California office for the entire work day, and he attended a regularly scheduled board meeting, according to a person close to Jobs, who was not authorized to speak about the executive’s health. While Jobs has been housebound for the last few weeks and his condition is weak, the resignation was not indicative of a sudden worsening, this person said.

Jobs told the board he intends to be an active chairman, and he held an emotional meeting with his executive team afterward, according to another person familiar with the matter.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” Art Levinson, an Apple director, said in a statement on behalf of Apple’s board. “Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team.”

Apple Shares

Jobs was ousted by the board in 1985 amid differences over strategy. In his time away, Jobs ran movie animation studio Pixar, which he later sold to Walt Disney Co., as well as NeXT Software Inc., a company Apple acquired to return him to the company. Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder, with a 7.4 percent stake. He will remain on the entertainment company’s board, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

When Jobs returned 12 years later, Apple had run up $1.86 billion in losses over two years. It was 90 days away from bankruptcy, Jobs would later say.

Apple stock surged 9,020 percent since July 29, 1997, the day before the San Francisco Chronicle broke news that Jobs would be interim CEO. Over that period, the market value rose to $348.7 billion from $2.06 billion.

Apple fell as much as 7 percent in extended trading yesterday after the announcement, and the Nasdaq-100 index, which gets 66 percent of its value from computer-related companies such as Apple, fell 6.6 percent to the equivalent of $351.04 at 8:13 a.m. in pre-market trading in Germany. The slump may be short lived, said Daniel Genter, who oversees about $3.7 billion as president of Los Angeles-based RNC Genter Capital Management.

Source: Bloomberg

Comment and tell us Choura2yak

Apple Passes Exxon to Become Most Valuable Company

admin — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 06:01:20 +0000

Apple Inc. (AAPL), a company that was on the brink of bankruptcy before Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs returned as chief executive officer in 1997, passed Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) to become the most valuable business in the world.

The stock rose as much as 4.7 percent to $369.89 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, giving the company a market capitalization of $342.9 billion. The shares have climbed more than 12 percent this year, fueled by sales of the iPad and iPhone, and a burgeoning business in China. Exxon, the largest energy company, fell 3.9 percent to $67.43 on the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the Irving, Texas-based company at $327.9 billion.

Apple’s ascension caps a 14-year transformation from a personal-computer also-ran into a seller of everything from smartphones to digital music. Apple has already eclipsed Microsoft Corp. (MSFT),International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Intel Corp. (INTC), whose dominance of the technology industry in the 1990s helped nudge Apple to the fringes of the PC market.

“The Apple of today is different from the Apple of even a few years ago,” Shaw Wu, an analyst at Stern Agee & Leach, said in an interview. “People who buy Apple tend to buy big and get your friends and family to do it as well. There’s nothing else like that.”

Apple may as much as double computer sales over the next few years, while the iPhone business may triple, Wu said. If successful, Apple’s new iCloud music and information-storage service may help the company add millions of new users.

Jobs, who co-founded Apple at the age of 21, was ousted by the board in 1985. When he returned to the company 12 years later, it had run up $1.86 billion in losses over two years. Apple was 90 days away from bankruptcy, Jobs would later say.

Passing Exxon

He engineered the company’s comeback by honing Apple’s industrial design, tightly integrating software with hardware, and pushing into new markets, such as phones, music and tablets.

Apple’s shares are up from an adjusted $5.48 on Sept. 16, 1997, the day Jobs returned to the company.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, has become Apple’s best- selling product and turned the company into the world’s biggest smartphone maker. After winning customers away fromResearch In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) and Nokia Oyj, Apple is now sparring with Google Inc. for leadership in the market for mobile-phone software.

Apple’s profit more than doubled last quarter to $7.31 billion on revenue of $28.6 billion. The company had record sales of iPhones and iPads — products that didn’t exist five years ago and now account for about two-thirds of sales. Apple has accumulated $76.2 billion in cash and other holdings.

iPhones, Oil

IPhone sales rose to 20.3 million units last quarter, buoyed by overseas demand, particularly in China, Apple said.

The company stoked recent growth with a new version of its Mac computer operating system called OS X Lion, along with updated computers. Its new iCloud service, meanwhile, will let users store, synchronize and access files from different Apple devices.

Exxon has tumbled since trading in July at more than $85 a share, as oil futures in New Yorkhave dropped. Crude fell as low as $75.71 a barrel today, the lowest price since Sept. 29 on an intraday basis. Exxon last year bought XTO Energy Inc. to tap natural-gas shale deposits inNorth America and is seeking to buy more gas reserves, even as futures remain about $4 per million British thermal units.

“Two things that I would definitely say have hurt Exxon are lower oil prices and its increasing reliance on natural gas,” said Philip Weiss, an analyst at Argus Research in New York who has a “buy” rating on the company and whose family owns some Exxon shares.

Source: Bloomberg

Comment and tell us Choura2yak

What do You Think ? » Steve Jobs

World’s biggest tech show searching for “wow”

The world’s biggest technology trade show will feature razor-thin laptops, powerful new smartphones and fancy flat-screen TVs, but talk in the cavernous halls of the Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off on Monday night, may focus on whether the show itself has a long-term future.

Other Posts:

“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Other Posts:

Highlights: Jobs’ biographer on ’60 Minutes’

Other Posts:

The story of a 10 years Old little Machine – iPod

Other Posts:

Do you Imagine 16 iPhone per second ?

Other Posts:

What do you think about waiting in a Queue to get your iPhone?

Other Posts:

Steve Jobs Left Behind Plans For Four Years

Other Posts:

Who Invented the iPod at Apple?

Who Invented the iPod at Apple?

The Name

Other Posts:

‘Syrian pride’ kept Steve Jobs’ estranged father from reaching out

Other Posts:

Think Different …

Other Posts:

Reactions on Steve Jobs Death

The Email From Tim Cook, Apple CEO, To Apple Staff

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors On The Death Of Steve Jobs

Bill Gates Statement

Steve Ballmer Statement

Other Posts:

Steve Jobs “may never be equaled”

Other Posts:

Bigger Touchscreen, Faster Processor, iPhone 5?

Other Posts:

iPhone 5 will be Launched ? What do you think ?

Other Posts:

Steve Jobs resigns: Tim Cook tells staff Apple won’t change

Other Posts:

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO

Jobs’s Health

Apple Shares

Other Posts:

Apple Passes Exxon to Become Most Valuable Company

Passing Exxon

iPhones, Oil

Other Posts: