5 things Steve Jobs said Apple would never do - and Apple is doing

Money/CNN ^ | 1/19/15 | David Goldman

[Dr. Sivana]

#4 was probably decided under Jobs.

Some of Intel’s top designers went to Apple back in early 2000’s to help them with OS tweaks so dual boot MacOS would be an easy task.

uh-uh-uh. Not so fast! I am not talking about Boot Camp, nor any of the soft DOS emulators. I am talking WAY before Jobs' return.

In 1994, Apple released the Power Mac 6100 DOS Compatible. It had a Cyrix 486 emulator in it, and could boot to DOS for running native DOS apps.

[Fresh Wind]

I guess you've forgotten this article "Greenpeace Loves to Pick On Apple" that you posted here in 2007, about 4 years after Al "the magic talisman" Gore joined the Apple board.

And there have been a number of attacks since then, and as is always the case with Greenpeas, attacks that are essentially without merit.

Maybe Jobs' intention was to use Gore as protection against the greens, but I suspect it was more of a consolation prize (along with some juicy stock options) that Jobs bestowed on Former President Elect Gore out of a sense of shame that he was unfairly deprived of his just rewards by someone as unworthy as G. W. Bush.

[DiogenesLamp]

Okay, you convinced me. His talent wasn't in technical capability, it was in motivation and a nose for what people wanted.

I think where I made my mistake in judging him is by thinking he was a technical genius of some sort. ( a Position which I have held since the late 1970s when I heard that the Apple II was developed by the both of them.)

You see, my heroes are engineers, not businessmen, and so I don't normally assign any high value to the contributions of people who are good at sales and marketing. Advancement of the Art is everything to me, while making money off it is just incidental to the part I've always regarded as important.

My thinking is that "of course advancement of the art is going to make money." Especially during that period in history when the whole world was trying to get their hands on anything micro-computer related.

But Steve Jobs could do it better and could better figure out what the public wanted. Still doesn't put him on my list of greats, but I think I can now grasp why others look at it that way.

[Fresh Wind]

I might add this...

I’m of the belief that the greenies have realized that iGore has sold them out for a heaping pile of money, and they don’t consider his presence on the Apple board as any real commitment to green causes. They realize it’s all just smoke and mirrors.

All they need to do is look at his lifestyle to know that he’s a fraud.

[Kit cat]

I have ALWAYS believed that this company will NEVER be the same without Steve Jobs his creative vision can NEVER be replaced!!!!! It is quite amazing what he achieved for the WORLD in such a short life!!! I will be forever grateful for his creative vision and although he was a LIB his life was far to short although the mark he made in his life made ALL of our lives better!!!!!!

[Regulator]

although he was a LIB

Believe me, in his case, the Lib thing was all fashion and no substance.

No one liked keeping his own cash and not paying taxes more then Steven Jobs.

He didn't even have charities he donated to. That was the wifey.

[Regulator]

Everything you said was Dead On.

Engineers do not understand that marketing is a front end, comprehensive view of what a product will do for a customer, where it fits in their universe, how you can take what they currently have and extrapolate that into a new product you know will compel them to want it and buy it.

Jobs knew all that in his bones, and had no tolerance for people trying to take him off the path he saw.

Was he a prick? Yeah. Everyone knows the story about him and the security guard in Bandley 2.

But results is results...going from Dead In the Water in 1997 to the world’s richest company in 2010 is beyond unbelievable, it’s epic.

The ordinary suits keep thinking they can do that with corporate reorgs. But since they understand neither their product nor their buyers or the culture they live in, ain’t gonna happen.

Jobs got all that.

[Swordmaker]

In 1994, Apple released the Power Mac 6100 DOS Compatible. It had a Cyrix 486 emulator in it, and could boot to DOS for running native DOS apps.

Doc, I wouldn't call that an "emulator." That was a full Intel processor computer card installed in the Mac 6100. . . It added the processor and had its own addressable memory, but relied on the interfacing tech for accessing the hard drives and internal floppies. . . but it had a separate floppy drive output cable for DOS disks. There was also a specialized cable that came with it for the monitor, IIRC, that switched automatically between the Mac output and the PC output. It was literally TWO computers in one. . . and only the Mac really worked well. It worked. . . but compatibility suffered some.

[Swordmaker]

I guess you've forgotten this article "Greenpeace Loves to Pick On Apple" that you posted here in 2007, about 4 years after Al "the magic talisman" Gore joined the Apple board.

No, I haven't forgotten. It was FAR worse before Gore joined the board. This is mild compared to BG. It was almost incessant before Gore was brought aboard.

Your other thought may also have some merit, though. However, the "juicy stock options" still require the board member to buy the stock with their own money.

[Swordmaker]

I think where I made my mistake in judging him is by thinking he was a technical genius of some sort. ( a Position which I have held since the late 1970s when I heard that the Apple II was developed by the both of them.)

You see, Diogenes, that's why so many of Apple's competition just don't get why their products filled with delightful specs don't make it. Steve Jobs once said that a perfect product consists of knowing when you have taken OUT just enough, not adding MORE. Adding more and more bells and whistles that will not be used, just to add them to the specs, is not necessarily a GOOD thing.

For example, the latest incarnation of the Samsung flagship phone has the capability to monitor SpO₂ levels in blood!! I have discussed this with multiple medical professionals. . . and not one of them could think of a situation in which monitoring blood Oxygen saturation levels that would be trusted, accurate, or even diagnostically useful in a mobile phone. Yet Samsung included it in their phone. . . because it sounded cool to have. Samsung's engineers involved thought "Hey, we can include this!" and tossed it in the pile of specs!. . . but Steve Jobs would have said "No! It's useless," and taken it out.

Similarly, he would say "No" to the 4K resolutions on 5" screens. . . because it is hype that actually degrades usability even though it sounds really COOL. . . and even the engineers would agree with him on that. That idiotic idea probably came from the sales and advertising people. . . because they think "We can sell 'Super HD' to the ignorant rubes!"

[Dr. Sivana]

Doc, I wouldn't call that an "emulator." That was a full Intel processor computer card installed in the Mac 6100

I didn't mean emulator the way SoftPC was an emulator. Maybe DOS/Win16 compatible would have been a better term. I know the Cyrix chip in the case had a full-fledged Intel x86 instruction set. But it was NOT an Intel chip. The Cyrix chips were the cheapest and the slowest of the major Intel clones (AMD being more competitive at that time). Anyway, my original point that Apple was making Macs that could boot into non-Apple OSes long before the return of Steve Jobs is affirmed by Swordmaker himself. My company had one of those 6100s, by the way. You were better off with a a PC on the side with a (floppy) Super Drive and a copy of DataViz' products. Of course there was A/UX, but I consider that an Apple OS, even if Apple licensed the Unix kernel from somebody.

[Swordmaker]

Maybe DOS/Win16 compatible would have been a better term.

I run into people who stumble over the confusion of "emulator" versus "compatible" for that era Mac computers. They think it is software emulation and cannot conceive of a hardware solution. . . and are hidebound in their ignorance that Apple could never have ever had anything that was compatible with ANYTHING non-Apple manufactured. After all, they know for a fact that everything Apple was proprietary. . . despite the fact that SCSI was NOT proprietary to Apple.

[Fresh Wind]

However, the "juicy stock options" still require the board member to buy the stock with their own money.

Yeah, in this case, for pennies on the dollar. I'd buy every share I could get if I could get them for the $7.47/share that iGore paid. He paid about $441K for 59,000 shares that were immediately worth about $30 million.

That's juicy, no matter how you squeeze it.

[Swordmaker]

Yeah, in this case, for pennies on the dollar. I'd buy every share I could get if I could get them for the $7.47/share that iGore paid. He paid about $441K for 59,000 shares that were immediately worth about $30 million.

Stock options cannot be different from what are to other employees when they are granted. Apple grants stock options to new management employees when they are hired. Stock options also are taxed as capitol gains on the difference between peak price on the day granted and when the options are exercised. In fact, Steve Jobs almost got in trouble over stock options granted by the board back in the early 2000s. . . the potential trouble had to do with dates they were authorized and when they were actually granted, and when they were actually issued. . . because the board authorization had been made in the previous fiscal year than the dates of grant and issue. . . a matter of a couple of months. Gore had to pay big taxes on those options. . .

When Al Gore was brought on to the board, the price of Apple stock was $7.47 a share and by law, that was the exercise price at which he could buy the stock. . . and his agreement was that at a future date, exercisable on that date, he could buy x number of shares for the spot price of Apple common shares on the date he joined the board. This was not some "sweetheart deal" created only for Al Gore. Every new hire added to Apple management on that date could ALSO buy Apple stock at the same future date for that price . . . as a reward for sticking around and their work. If the stock went down Gore's, and their, options would be worthless. . . but, the intent is, that if the stock went up, it would be due in part to his work as a member of the board or as am employee of Apple and would be part of his and their compensation. It went up. . . and he and they earned their reward.

Gore has another 60,000 shares he can exercise at a still future date for that same $7.47 a share. This is a normal and expected compensation technique for officers and management of corporations.

[Swordmaker]

Believe me, in his case, the Lib thing was all fashion and no substance.

No one liked keeping his own cash and not paying taxes more then Steven Jobs.

He didn't even have charities he donated to. That was the wifey.

He actually did, Regulator. . . but he did not publicize them. He did not crow about them. He made contributions without attribution or strings. He did not do it through Apple because he did not believe it was a corporation's business to do such things. . . unless it furthered the business of the corporation. To that end, Apple gave computers and software to education, research, and non-profits. . . but not cash grants under Jobs.

[Swordmaker]

Incidentally, Fresh, Gore had to exercise his options by March 2014 or LOSE them, ten years from the date they were granted.

[Regulator]

That’s probably true, and I am just going on comments I heard over the years.

But it’s not a criticism. Building the company the way he did, enriching his shareholders, his employees, the armies of VARs and accessories sellers, and enabling people who bought Apple products (like the iPad I’m typing this on) is far more important.

Don’t blame him at all for staying focused.

[Dr. Sivana]

despite the fact that SCSI was NOT proprietary to Apple.

The original 25 pin SCSI connector, however, was definitely non-standard (and lacked for adequate grounding compared to its 50 connector counterparts). Plus special terminators needed for timing reasons in the IIfx, for instance.

During late Sculley, Apple had problems being compatible with itself. Besides the standard Nubus slots (which was NOT Apple proprietary, but a TI design), there was the SE slot, the processor direct IIsi slot which didn't quite fit in the MAC SE/30 processor slot. For one period they even went crazy with model specific install diskettes ... TRULY unApple. The onboard NIC dongle made the back of the well-equipped Mac a bit unwieldy.

On the other hand, the serial ports on the original Macs (128K through Plus) were vanilla 9 pin affairs, already starting to be done on the PC side. When Apple went over to the round RS-922 (or whatever it was), it was a feature, not an attempt to lock folks out. Same goes for the original plug and play connector, the Apple Desktop Bus, which 3rd party vendors adapted mice and keyboards, but also scanners and modems for.

Steve was a jerk on the software side in the early years, though, and we have him to blame for Jazz and dBase:Mac.

[DiogenesLamp]

For example, the latest incarnation of the Samsung flagship phone has the capability to monitor SpO2 levels in blood!! I have discussed this with multiple medical professionals. . . and not one of them could think of a situation in which monitoring blood Oxygen saturation levels that would be trusted, accurate, or even diagnostically useful in a mobile phone. Yet Samsung included it in their phone. . . because it sounded cool to have. Samsung's engineers involved thought "Hey, we can include this!" and tossed it in the pile of specs!. . . but Steve Jobs would have said "No! It's useless," and taken it out.

I think much of this sort of thing is the result of people having no better ideas for improving the product. They have hit a brick wall, and so they go sideways. If they could think of something better they would do that instead. They are like the movie industry who is so destitute of new ideas that they keep trying to revive old franchises (Iron Man, Spiderman, Superman, Beetlejuice, Lone Ranger, etc.) just to be able to produce something that might make money.

Maybe Steve Jobs could see where these products need to go from here, but it is also possible that eventually a product is "finished" and future improvements can be nothing more than "cheese." (Trivial and inconsequential additions.)

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 1/19/2015. Thanks martin_fierro.

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