How Apple Could Survive Without Steve Jobs 331
ThousandStars writes "The Wall Street Journal asks How Apple Could Survive Without Steve Jobs: 'Speculation about the continued reign of Mr. Jobs — which has popped up from time to time since his 2004 treatment for cancer — underscore how closely Apple's fashion-setting products are identified with its co-founder.'"
Re:The same way they survived before? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
The fact that a lot of people buy a MacBook Air despite its ridiculous price/performance ratio and solely for its form factor, is saying a lot about the importance of the package technology comes in. Same for the iPhone: from a pure functional point of view it's not a very good phone, and it has a few issues that we would not accept from any other manufacturer, but still people are literally lining up to get their hands on one. Despite some important areas where the iPhone performs poorly, there are other things like the form factor, design and ease-of-use where it outshines the competition.
And it's precisely design, form factor and ease-of-use where Steve Jobs has a lot of influence. Perhaps not directly as a designer, but as a (purportedly) insanely demanding critic. Someone ascribed Apple's success as a trendsetter in design to this; where other companies design for an identified or assumed market segment, Apple designs for Steve Jobs, a rich gadget freak who happens to have a decent taste.
Re:Absolutely not! (Score:2, Informative)
Just because something is popular, doesn't imply it's popular on its creative merits. Britney Spears is a lot more popular than Sonic Youth, for example.
Re:Absolutely not! (Score:5, Informative)
Er,... Hardy Amies?
Versace? OK, so Donatella's still flogging crap but doncha wish she wasn't?
Yves St Laurent?
Ironically, I am a bit of a poof, but I don't own a stitch of designer clothing.
Re:look at polaroid (Score:1, Informative)
Really? I would attribute Polaroid's downfall entirely to the digital transition. If Ed Lane was immortal, the same thing would have happened.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually very few forms of cancer that can be completely cured, which is why people working in medicine talk about cancer survival rates rather than the percentage cured. You're talking about the percentage of patients who survive the first 5 years after being diagnosed - after that, all bets are off.
It's quite heartbreaking to hear people talking about fighting their cancer and how it has been cured - when you have been treated successfully, your cancer goes into remittance, but chances are that it'll be back; usually the best you can hope for is that you've postponed the inevitable for a few more years. And when it does come back, it's often more aggressive and systemic than before; frequently to the point that all that can be done is treat the symptoms to ease the patient's passing.
Even though Jobs' form of cancer has an extremely good survival rate, he wasted time before getting treatment, increasing the opportunity for it to grow and metastasize. I'm not saying it will definitely come back, and no doubt his prognosis is better than many other forms of cancer - but it has been 4 and a half years since he was diagnosed, so shortly the published survival rates will mean very little.
We the public are not privy to his medical records, so all we can do is talk about odds - and the odds are rarely good when dealing with cancer. Although planning his funeral may be premature, talk of the future of the company is only fair, especially for a company that appears to owe so much of its success to just one man.
Re:About as well as Disney survived with Walt (Score:3, Informative)
Ultimately it might end-up in the same state as Commodore (which also lost its visionary CEO and slowly but surely died-out).
If being directly responsible for the computer industry crash of 1983 is what passes as "visionary" to you, well I have a C64 to sell you for the low low price of $99. Jack Tramiel was a loose cannon, so desperate to beat everyone that he beat his own company, by bargaining it out of existence. At that point, everyone was bleeding money, so he did the unconscionable and bought Atari's dying corpse for a song, and then used it as leverage to dick around with Amiga through his creative interpretations of contract and IP law. He still wasn't making any money, but he made damned sure no one else could either.
If that's the man against whom you want to compare Steve Jobs, well I must say I don't know what the hell you're smoking.
Re:the elephant in the room (Score:4, Informative)
ipod: six generations and 3 variations of this piece of shit and you can't get ogg playback support???? wtf?
OGG is not going anywhere, sorry. If you're lucky it'll be the standard web audio format, but even that's doubtful. I'm not knocking the format itself, this is just the way it is.
mac laptops: sleek form factor but overpriced and WTF why is apple so obsessed with their keyboard layout? It's not 1985 anymore give me a print screen, home, pg up/dn, insert and delete keys already. Stop being snobs and just give me a real keyboard already.
Yes these would be nice but, really, no one cares.
apple TV: apple what?
Yeah you're right. But the problem with ATV isn't style over function, it's control over function.
Mac OSX: ok it's decent. But it still needs a package manager and real window manager. Aqua sucks and it makes my mac a real pain in the ass.
Sounds like you want Linux. Oh look, you ARE running Linux. So what's the problem? Aqua sucks? What, are you afraid of clicking blue, rounded buttons?
Intel Chips: Oh what happened to the "technically superior" PPC chip? Welcome to the rest of the world you stuck up assholes.
Guess this was a no win situation eh? I suppose they should have said "well these chips suck, but wait a couple years and we'll start using Intel ones."
iPhone: OMG I can't stand this piece of shit. Earth to apple - a smart phone without a real keyboard is just retarded. I can't believe that people shelled out 300,600,800 dollars for a phone whose screen is about half an inch tall while typing. This makes using it as an ssh client impossible. plus what's up with those keys being so close together? Steve please think of the men who might like to buy your products next time you say "oh we'll have a soft keyboard it'll be awesome!!!" Idiot. The screen is way too fragile and oh big surprise still no ogg support. and what the hell is the deal with app store? What makes apple think they know better than me what apps should be on my phone? I can't stomach this level of a God complex from a singe corporate entity.
Oh yeah, the masses are clamoring for SSH support. As for apps, look at how it works: you could run any app on WinMo, but apps weren't so popular. You get Apple-approved apps in an easy to use store and sales are through the roof. Which do people want?
Btw, apple, thanks for bringing us the graphic user interface, the adults can take it from here.
Disclaimer: my phone is a G1 and my computer is a macbook pro running gentoo linux.
Good, fine. Obviously you shouldn't have gotten a Mac in the first place and you've saved yourself the agony of having an iPhone. You're falling into the common trap of not realizing that your geeky needs are far different than the average person. Stylish, easy to use devices will continue to be popular and sell well because they're....stylish and easy to use. Even if they are less feature filled.
He needs to plan succession (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Lance should have been dead. if Lance was literally anyone other than Lance he WOULD have been dead. The treatment plan IIRC was "we'll give you enough chemo to kill any two ordinary people and count on the fact that you're Lance Armstrong to keep you alive long enough for it work". Somewhat to everyone's surprise this turned out to be a highly effective plan. Lance's survival was mostly due to the fact that his cardio/vascular system practically qualifies him as an X-Man.
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
> the MacBook Air ONLY has its form factor going for it
That's like saying that the only thing going for drills is that you can make holes with them.
Re:Apple would do a lot better if... (Score:3, Informative)
At my office, I plug in: 1. power, 2. keyboard+mouse (thanks to the USB outlet on the keyboard, I only need one for both), 3. external monitor, 4. network (faster than the wireless), 5. usb-to-VGA adapter, 6. audio out to speakers
I really like the auto-sleep when I close the MacBook, but I don't take it to as many meetings as I would otherwise, because connecting & reconnecting is such a PITA.