Reading Reflection 3.0

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

    Thoughts On Steve Jobs
  1. Given how much I love technology, and how big of an Apple fan I am, it only seemed fitting that I read about Steve Jobs himself. And just like with Ray Kroc in the first reading, I had watched the Steve Jobs movie before reading the book.
    What surprised me the most was actually learning where Apple got their obsession for absolute control, closed systems, and little compatibility (granted, today it's compatible with almost anything, almost). It comes from one of its founders. Jobs was obsessed with end-to-end control, something he and Wozniak disagreed on. From the very first Macintosh, he made sure users couldn't tinker with the inside.
    What I have to say I admire the most is his ability to envision a product and make it happen. There's more to this: he and Jony Ive pushed for Apple to file patents for "a rectangular electronic tablet with rounded edges" in March of 2004. This description might sound familiar, and that's because it's an iPad, Apple's tablet that came out 6 years after the patent was issued, in a time when they hadn't even started thinking about the iPhone yet.
    What I least admire is the way he expressed his dissatisfaction with a product, design, or any aspect of business. He was constantly aggressive toward his employees, and even refused to acknowledge the Apple II development team (which included Wozniak) during the launch of the iMac in '98. The Apple II was arguably the reason that Apple had grown as much as it had, but it was becoming outdated, and Jobs opted to get away from it
    Jobs was actually laid off from Apple after he tried to take out the current CEO over disagreements. This prompted Jobs to start his own company, NeXT. It was also a failure, but Apple eventually brought him back, and have been in the limelight ever since (at least financially). Jobs stayed true to his ideals: closed systems, end-to-end control, simple, beautiful, intuitive design. The NeXT computer was designed as an almost-perfect black cube.


  2. Jobs was never happy with a product, even after they had a pretty good one. With the iPhone, they had the entire design laid out, but Jobs decided to change it last minute. Turns out, the glass was to originally to be held by a metal case, which deterred attention from the display. "Other companies may have shipped, but we pressed the reset button and started over" (Tony Fadell). This could be annoying sometimes, but it was also a source of admiration and respect. When he announced the news to the iPhone dev. team, they agreed with him.
    Jobs was also a genius, but we all knew that. What not everyone understands (and as a programmer, I finally get why it could be argued otherwise) is why he is considered one. Jobs didn't write code, didn't program anything, didn't physically build anything. Yet, when you mention Apple, or the iPhone, and the revolution they made back then, most people immediately think Steve Jobs. Very few stop and say "wait, Wozniak was also a founder of Apple". Steve Wozniak was the programmer, he was part of the development of the Apple II. But Jobs is usually regarded as the genius. The reason behind this is simple: just like an orchestra director is considered a genius for taking a group of individual great minds and making them work as one in a beautiful harmony, Jobs could bring the best out of his engineers and developers, and make a product that revolutionized entire industries, that felt premium, and that just worked right.


  3. One confusing part from the book was when Jobs fathered Lisa, his first daughter, and one that he abandoned. I get that he knew he was adopted from a fairly young age, but to abandon a child you know is yours, that's wrong. I know it's a very personal think I didn't understand, but the thing is a feel sort of related to this. My dad left me and my mom at an early age, came back briefly, then divorced my mom. So to know that Steve Jobs did something similar, to the extent of even refusing to acknowledge Lisa as his daughter, no words. At least he did later recognize her as his daughter, and admitted he always had, just not publicly, and he would do things differently if he could.


  4. One question I would definitely ask Jobs is how did he know what the customer wanted? That's been a thing that Apple seems to nail, at least it used to. It's what prompted them to kill the iPod with the iPhone, remove the headphone jack in favor of wireless technologies, and remove legacy ports in Macs in favor of USB-C.
    The second question I would ask him is why he cared so much about closed systems and full control. But I don't mean "why" as in a reason for his thinking, but rather what benefit did he see way back when Apple was just starting, and when technology was far from where it is today. It's easy to see the benefits today: AirDrop, AirPlay, Handoff, Continuity, iCloud, multi-platform integration, iMessage... I could go on for a while, but back when technology wasn't as advanced, what benefit did he see in having this approach when designing Apple products.


  5. I think Jobs thought hard work was really about getting something done, and getting it right. He left that mark at Apple, who now pay extreme attention to detail and try to make all of their products as aesthetically appealing as possible (yes, even the new cheese-grater Mac Pro, or the old trash-can Mac Pro). That's why he was always pushing his employees to redo their work, because he thought it wasn't the best it could be. He didn't care that he had to work longer, or more often, as long as he made it count at the end.
    And he did

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