I doubt anyone was truly, deeply shocked when they learned of Steve Jobs' resignation as Apple CEO. But a lot of people, myself included, are truly, deeply saddened by the news.
In his role as CEO, Jobs has had more impact on our lives than any government leader could ever hope to have. Jobs and his team at Apple have demonstrated, time and again, that they understand what we want even before we know it ourselves. Apple didn't usually invent a new technology; the original Mac OS was heavily inspired by a graphical user interface Xerox developed. But man oh man, once they put their hands on it, Jobs and Apple certainly knew how to perfect a technology.
For example, step into your wayback machine and turn the knob to 2001. At that time, there were plenty of portable MP3 players available. I bought several from Sony and other companies. I returned them all within days, because they were all way too over-engineered and difficult to use. (This is a specialty of Sony's, I'm afraid.)
And then Apple came out with the iPod. It was beautifully simple in a way that no other company seemed capable of imagining. Jobs and company understood that the consumer didn't want 1,000 features in an MP3 player. They just wanted to listen to music while running, walking, or whatever.
(There's a funny YouTube video, "Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging," which beautifully illustrates the difference between Apple's and Microsoft's visions of what customers want.)
I'm confident Apple will continue to execute Steve Jobs' vision, or at least a vision in the style of Jobs executed by like-minded, smart people. After all, Jobs' vision made Apple the world's most valuable technology company; they'd be crazy to tamper with such success. But more importantly, Jobs' vision is extremely human, if not downright compassionate. He feels our pain when we're confronted with confounding technology, he knows there's a better way, and he knows it before you do.
Posts
