Steve Jobs hands in his notice





Not many of us get the opportunity to witness our own funerals. Steve did. When he announced that he was stepping down as Apple CEO in August, 2011, every news portal was eulogizing the man as if he had already bought the great data-farm in the sky. Journos across the globe suddenly forgot how much they hated iTunes and hammered out misty-eyed pre-death obituaries. They detailed how Steve had single-handedly carved the PC from a single block of hype, convinced millions to stop pirating music and start paying for it, delivered a smarter-than-smart smartphone to the masses… and probably gave us world peace – or, at the very least a mirage of peace if you wander through his utopian Apple Stores. Not surprisingly, most of the glowing tributes were written by the “money media”…

Forbes:

Apple became a huge Ferrari responsive to his touch alone.  Like a great conductor, he assembled a vast orchestra of skilled players who obeyed him with complete fealty.  When he tapped the podium, all noises ceased.  Like Solomon, he commanded his minions to undertake great projects and summoned them to show him the results. [1]

 Money.CNN:

Apple's fans flocked to Twitter and other social-media sites to mark and mourn the CEO torch-passing. "The end of an era!" one Twitter user wrote, while another voiced the fears many share: "I pray it's not bc [because] of his health.” [2]

 Wall Street Journal:

The news of Mr. Jobs's resignation quickly became the talk of the Internet. Overwhelmed with traffic, the blog Cult of Mac temporary went offline. "This thing is melting down," said editor Leander Kahney, about an hour after the news broke on Wednesday. [3]

 Fortune:

The tech community tonight experienced its version of an earthquake. [4]
On the BBC News, Steve-Stalker and comedian, Stephen Fry, became deadly serious for a moment to talk about the resignation of his man-crush. He intoned with the gravitas that only the British are capable of expressing: 

I don’t think there’s a human being on the planet who has been as influential in the last thirty-years on the way culture developed. I don’t think there is anyone who has proved quite so conclusively that passion and taste and belief are more important than a hard bitten business head. [5]

(For God’s sake, Stephen)

Someone out there in cyberspace felt it necessary to publish stevejobsresigns.org.
The first big thing the new Apple CEO Tim Cook did was unveil the latest iPhone. It would be safe to assume that Apple should have something pretty darn special to compensate for Steve not taking the stage. You can get away with a great CEO holding aloft a boring product; but you can’t get away with a boring CEO holding a boring product.

With Old Man Steve off the premises, unfortunately it seems that Apple’s engineers decided that they could goof off and hand in half an assignment. The new iPhone 4S relied upon customers appreciating its inner beauty. On the outside, it looked no different than the iPhone that Apple chumps had bought only a year ago. If Tim Cook’s Apple knew anything about the market, they would realise that their customers prefer that their latest gadget look different than the last one precisely so they can advertise that they have the latest one. Applytes need to know that a skyrocketing credit card debt and lining up for hours outside an Apple Store is worth all the grief. Apple should have at least stuck some superfluous gizmo on it, or painted it bright magenta – anything, so long as it looked different from the last iPhone. Apple’s failure was giving its customers credit enough not to be so shallow. Good luck with that, Tim.

Apple “didn’t quite understand how revved up expectations had gotten,” said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc. Some users were looking for a more revolutionary iPhone 5, rather than just a faster iPhone 4, he said . [6]

Months before the new iPhone, a viral video appeared featuring an iPhone 5 armed with a holographic keyboard and display.[7]  It got everyone excited around the water cooler at work. This did not help the ridiculously high expectations.

Currently, there are over twenty Google/Android-loaded smartphones already on the market that beat the 4S on spec. They have 8MP+ cameras, over 4inches of screen space, longer battery life, and dual-core CPUs with 1Gig+ processors (Apple A5 chip? – whatever, Dude)

Google has recently bought Motorola Mobility– Apple’s arch nemesis in the mobile arena.[8] The deal will make mincemeat of the iPhone 4S which has now proven that it was all sizzle and no steak. Perhaps the “S” in 4S is a cheeky Apple engineer’s code for “Shortchanged”?


[1] Kay, R (2011, August 25) Apple Without Steve Jobs. Forbes Magazine.

[2] Segall, L. & Goldman, D. (2011, August 25) Apple CEO Steve Jobs resigns. money.cnn.com. Retrieved from: http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/24/technology/steve_jobs_resigns/index.htm

[3] Iwatani Kane, Y. (2011, August 25) Jobs Quits as Apple CEO. Wall Street Journal.

[4] Primack, D. (2011, August 24) Fallen Apple: Steve Jobs resigns. Fortune Magazine.

[5] BBC News 25th August, 2011

[6] Satariano, A. & Burrows, P. (2011, October 5) iPhone 4S could be challenge for Apple this holiday season. Washington Post.

[7] Hiner, J. (2011, September 1) Future iPhone concept: Laser keyboard and holographic display. CBSnews.com. Retrieved from:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/01/scitech/main20100366.shtml

[8] O’Grady, J.D. (2011, August 15) Wowza! Google acquires Motorola Mobility in defensive move. Zdnet.com. Retrieved from: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/wowza-google-acquires-motorola-mobility-in-defensive-move/10886