On the Meaning of Steve Jobs (1955-2011): Citizen-Centric Technologies*
Perhaps the most insightful clue to the meaning of Steve Jobs comes from his well-publicized Stanford Commencement Address of 2005. In it, Jobs relates how he dropped out of Reed College because of its undue burden on his high-school graduate parents; he could not understand how such a large investment was contributing to his future. While Jobs goes on to describe how he took up calligraphy classes, which would later contribute greatly to the first Macintosh in 1984, it is clear that there was another lesson implicit in the story: Steve Jobs greatly appreciated the sacrifice that had meant for his parents to place him in an expensive private college, and--in contrast to Bill Gates--fundamentally knew 'the meaning of money' for the average citizen. Money was a precious resource that was not to be squandered; if you bought something (or inversley sold it), the product had to have genuine worth.
This is important because, while Apple computers initially cost more to purchase, they actually stand at the nexus between existing technology and available consumer income.[1] Steve Jobs, generally speaking, continually tried to provide the most advanced technological experience to the end user, the average middle class consumer. In contrast to the Microsoft operating system, which at its core is a corporate driven operating system, Apple truly presented a comptuer experience that was more intuitive to the average daily user.
The most basic example from the first Macs will do. Instead of always having to use drive "C" as your main drive, Macs had implemented what are known as 'resource forks', which separately identified files and components of the system.[2] Users of Apple computers were therefore not 'locked down' to existing blind technological rules and could personalize their drive with whatever name they chose to provide it. Naming, as we all know, is the first steps in acquiring genuine control over something; of making it your own. Microsoft-driven computers were never quite controlled by their owners; rather they were controlled by Microsoft or the company in which they happened to physically reside in. It is still true today.
This direct emphasis on the individual consumer by Steve Jobs was one of the core themes that guided the different implementations of OSX, its post 1997 operating system. Based on an open-source UNIX BSD,[3] its core structure was, at its heart, "open" to its users. Rather than being dependent on Microsoft for existing literature on the system--a dependency which created a vast range of overly complex and unnecessary IT services--users could readily peer into the system via MAN pages of its core or any other open source pdfs on the internet. While tinkering with the machine could have 'disastrous' consequences, forcing the user who erred to 'start from scratch' by having to reinstall the OS, the fact of the matter was that the user was truly in control of the system. It might not have been easy, but the information was readily and freely available. All that was required was implement some effort and brain-power into the project. Not so for Microsoft and its many coerced dependencies, that are perhaps the most well-known hallmark of its 'evil' system. [4]
This 'consumer-oriented' approach, or perhaps more aptly a 'citizen-oriented' approach, is what also guided Steve Jobs' technological innovations.
Just as the first Macintosh of 1984 was a sophisticated computer for the masses[5], all of its later permutations during the first decade of the millennium were the fruits of technological advancement brought to the 'masses'. Jobs and the teams at Apple would place together old elements to create technologies that were more than the sum of their parts. The iPod, an emulator of other mp3 players during the 1990s as the Rio Player, smoothly integrated functionalities which did not generally require undue technological expertise to make it work. It was not that consumers are 'dumb and unsophisticated', but rather that computers did not need to be unnecessarily complicated to become functional and productive tools for daily use. This presumption was implicit in his continual rebuffs of Microsoft during his popular conference presentations-"get your photocopiers ready, Redmond."
The critical ingredients of all later permutations--the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the iPad--also abided by this principle, and has in fact been their principal selling point. With the flick of a finger, one obtained the required address, calendar, or photograph. One did not need to delve into the internal components of the technologies to get them to work seamlessly; they worked at the touch of a finger. In spite of it being called a 'post-PC world', the computer was in fact made an integral functional element of daily life via this new iteration that did not require a sophisticated IT crew working int he background--if you could afford one. Macintosh computers were controlled by users, rather than being overly-complex machines that 'controlled' their users.
The resurgence of Steve Jobs since 1997 also raises the more important question of how the computer industry would have evolved had he never been 'fired' from the company he founded (Apple) in the first place.
Consider this: the greatest rival to Microsoft has typically Apple. (Linux-Apache has had no rival in the server realm.) It has been argued that Microsoft had a different financial model, which incorporated contributions from producers at their respective spheres of interest. While the Apple was a closed private system, Microsoft computers could be placed together from existing pieces readily available on the market at minimal expense. By tying the operating system to the hardware, Jobs 'doomed' Apple's future--so it is argued. On asking John Sculley to join Apple, Steve Jobs ironically sealed his own fate.
It is curious, however, that Sculley had never dealt with computers prior to his entry into Apple, making us wonder why Jobs would have asked him to join in the first place.[6] Jobs was a still very young man in the mid 1980s. Did corporate espionage have had anything to do with the incident? Who knows, although given Microsoft's practices, I would not doubt it. Be that as it may, the consequence of the erred choice was that Jobs was not allowed to stay on the company to further develop the Mac, as he did after 1997. It is certainly the case that, on a point by point basis, the recent decline of the Windows market share in the last years is directly attributed to Apple's increasing share.[7]
It is unfortunate that corporate denizens are now trying to twist Steve Jobs's image into something he was not, and in the process distorting the fundamental principles he represented. We hope Apple continues to abide by this philosophy, and does not become 'corporate-centric' as so many of it's fellow organizations.
Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.
NOTES
1. The cost of a computer is more appropriately measured by the total computer's life-span cost: repairs, improvements, modifications, etc. In this regard, Apple computers on average are more cost-effective than the typcial Microsoft driven machines.
2. Resource forks divided the data from its digital identifiers. While the main home drive, "Drive C" always had to be named 'Drive C', Macintosh early resource-fork implementation allowed it to receive any name without a direct impact on its recognition by the operting system.
3. University of California's BSD was based on UNIX, which in turn had been initially developed by Steve Thompson at ATT's Bell Labs as an independent project.
4. Google's "Do no evil" motto is in direct reference to Microsoft's illicit practices.
5. It certainly was not the only one. In contras to the Commodore 64. the 1984 Macintosh ended up being much more expensive, costing $2,000 in contrast to the $500 Commodore. However, the Commodore64 did not survive.
6. As Jobs famously noted, Sculley dealt in the distribution of 'sugared water' that had no fundamental impact on the way the world worked--specifically on how individuals in a society worked and interacted.
7. One would hope that it would have been a recreation of the innovation witnessed in the last decade. Certainly, not all corporate CEOs who return 'to the helm' have a second wind of glorious victory, as was the case of the disastrous return of Jerry Wang to Yahoo. Steve Jobs, however, was not the mere beneficiary of good timing; he made things happen.