Steve Jobs builds something beautiful for your hand

About the time when Hurricane Katrina had lain waste to New Orleans, Business Week reported that the search titan Google has bought a little company called Android who was quietly cooking up a mobile operating system.[1]  Like Steve, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, is another billionaire whose salary is a modest dollar-a-year. He also wears round spectacles, but they never look as cool as they do on Steve. Eric likes to be photographed with the younger founders of Google, Larry and Sergei. Unfortunately, the boys only sharpen the image of what Eric really is: a pitbull in a suit and tie, brought in to make Google more money. Eric joined the Apple board a year after buying Android. Something was in the wind in Silicon Valley. Steve pricked up his ears.

There's a certain amount of homework involved, true; but mostly it's just picking up on things you can see on the periphery. Sometimes at night when you're almost asleep, you realize something you wouldn't otherwise have noted. I subscribe to a half-dozen Internet news services, and I get 300 E-mails a day, many from people I don't know, hawking crazy ideas. And I've always paid close attention to the whispers around me.[2]

Two years after the Android purchase, Steve took the stage at Macworld armed with the answer to the question on everyone’s lips. On that day, The New York Times reported footage of a dead Saddam Hussein at the cost of almost 3000 dead US military.[3] None of this mattered to the Macheads who filled the Moscone Center seven thousand miles away from Iraq. Some waited for hours in the freezing cold to get the best seats. Steve strolls across the stage, wearing his signature black turtleneck. He takes a sip of water, and fills the air with a hushed anticipation.

“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Reverend Steve begins his sermon. “Today, Apple will reinvent the phone”.  He holds aloft his top-secret iPhone. The large space fills with a deafening ovation. They have come to pay homage to their saviour

“… and boy, have we patented it”.

There is a knowing laughter from all those who remember Bill Gates hijacking Steve's mouse.

Two days before its release on the market, NY Times hotshot-tech-critic, David Pogue described the Chinese –built grail:

“Flawed… There’s no memory-card slot, no chat program, no voice dialing. You can’t install new programs from anyone but Apple… The browser can’t handle Java or Flash, which deprives you of millions of Web videos., [but] one heck of a status symbol.”[4]

On the day of the iPhone’s debut, David noticed one of its most important features: "Only the Apple logo is mirror finish; it doubles as the self-portrait mirror".[5] People could now literally see themselves reflected in Apple – rather than just figuratively.  The following year, Fortune Magazine named Apple the number one most admired company in America.[6] It remains number one to this day.

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[1] Elgin, B. (2005, August 17) Google Buys Android for its Mobile Arsenal. Bloomberg Businessweek.

[2] Schlender, B. (1998, November 9) The Three Faces Of Steve. Fortune Magazine.

[3] Santora, M. (2007, January 9) A New Video Posted on Web Shows Hussein After His Death. New York Times.

[4] Pogue, D. (2007, July 27) The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype. New York Times.

[5] Pogue, D. (2007, January 9) The iPhone Rumors Are Right…Finally. New York Times

[6] Fortune Magazine. (2008, March 8) America’s Most Admired Companies.