The end of an era

Steve Jobs passed away today, and the world lost a true visionary.  Steve lived life at full speed and accomplished amazing things.  I can’t think of another company that was so influenced by the thinking of one person.  His quest, always, was to search for the “insanely great” ideas.  Some who think I’m too critical of some of Apple’s offerings need to know that my expressions are driven by sadness when some people at Apple forget to leap way beyond expectations.

I’ve known Steve since before the Apple II.  In those days, I was involved with PCC (People’s Computer Company) in Menlo Park, CA, and Steve would come by once in awhile before he and Woz built their company (as I recall he was at HP then).  The Homebrew computer club met at the Stanford Linear Accelerator and Woz was giving away the designs for what became the Apple 1.  with Jobs’ influence, one of the most impressive ventures in the history of computing grew from those meetings.

Much has been written about the fateful visit to Xerox PARC when Jef Raskin and Steve came to see what we were doing (without permission, by the way).  That visit sparked a dream of how computers could be made to be used smoothly by non-experts with the aid of a graphical user interface, mouse, etc.  Shortly thereafter Apple went on a hiring spree and got Larry Tesler, Gary Starkweather, and a host of other PARC brainiacs to jump ship and move to this company in Cupertino.  While it is fair to say that we at PARC were busily inventing the future, Jobs knew how to stimulate the design of a product that could be marketed to the audience of ordinary people for whom computers had previously been too mysterious.  With the launch of the Macintosh at the 1984 Superbowl, the “computer for the rest of us” was announced.  This box didn’t even look like a “computer.”  It represented a breakthrough in design that, aided by ideas that migrated from Xerox, created a brand new platform for the industry to adopt.

When asked about the small market share Apple had against the IBM clones, Steve said that General Motors sold more cars than BMW, and he is happy being in the BMW business.

Not that there weren’t missteps along the way.  The Apple 3, Lisa, Newton, and eMate are a few of the more notable devices that never caught on, although the 1987 launch of the Newton (of which I still have several) set the stage for the mobile revolution of today, decades before we were ready for it.

I had the pleasure of consulting for Steve on several projects over the years, and visited the Apple campus nearly every week.  I learned to appreciate his mercurial mind that pushed and pushed and pushed until he got what he wanted.

I will miss him a lot, and I promise to continue looking at Apple’s offerings very closely.  Anything that isn’t “insanely great” will be challenged by me.  Steve would do it himself, but his spirit is engaged in other tasks.

So long, Steve…

iPhone 4S? Grumble

Amazingly, Apple belted a foul ball today and called it a home run.  The “new” iPhone 4S may be a nice phone, and it has some nice features, but it is basically just the same device that has already been selling for a long time.  Yes, the camera is better, and that’s nice, but at the end of the day this is not the device that triggered the breathless anticipation of the next cool thing.

After decades of Apple watching, it was sad to see Apple blow the opportunity to show something really new.  If they didn’t have a truly new product ready, then they should not have shown anything – or, given the hype they helped foster, should have started out the event by saying that the 4S was an interim device, while the truly new product was being readied for release.

Instead, it seems that Apple has tipped over the hubris barrier at a scale that is grand, even for them.  They seem to assume that, by simply being Apple, the adoring crowds will clamor for ANYTHING new with their name on it, just to be first on the block to have one.  The 4S is as disappointing as the iPad 2 – which was basically an attempt to bring the iPad to the level it should have been when it was first launched.

In fact, with two lackluster products being hyped by Apple in a row, it makes one wonder if Apple has lost it’s edge.  Whatever happened to the Jobsian mandate of making things that were “insanely great.”  I was fully prepared to pick up a new iPhone tomorrow.  That’s not going to happen.

I bet the folks at Google are having a huge party today.  But we shouldn’t celebrate Apple’s misstep – it should sadden us.  Apple has long been viewed as an industry leader in technology and design.  It is losing this edge and sooner or later someone needs to tell the king that it is walking around in its bloomers.

Please wake me when Apple releases a truly new product.

iPhone 5

In a few hours, Apple plans to introduce the iPhone 5 (according to several sources).  And I am wondering why this announcement is so eagerly awaited!  The press has been buzzing for ages about this new device, and making predictions of when in September/October the new phone would be released.  My guess is that lines are starting to form in front of stores (I’m at a conference and no where near an Apple store to check it out myself.)  For some reason this impending announcement is being treated like the release of a new Harry Potter story.

Hey, folks, its a phone, OK?  The fact is that I’m still using my 3GS.  I never moved to the iPhone 4 because my contract was still in the no-upgrade period.  Yes, I will get an iPhone 5 because I want a front-facing camera for video chats, etc.  I’m sure the new device will have some cool features, but this is a characteristic of many new technologies.

Apple’s genius is in getting people foaming at the mouth over every new device they bring to market, whether it is groundbreaking or not.  Take the iPad 2.  This (long overdue) upgrade of the original iPad still falls short of what Apple should have done, yet lines stretched around the block as people clamored to get their hands on the latest Apple gizmo.  And yet, a few weeks ago when Sony began shipping their new “S” tablet, there were no lines in front of Best Buy, even though the Sony tablet beats the iPad 2 by any measure imaginable.  It is beautiful, the screen is gorgeous, the operation is great, and the tablet can easily be connected to other devices, memory cards, etc.

It turns out that the Apple mystique is so powerful that if Steve Jobs had written the phone book, he would get the Nobel Prize in literature.

Will I get the iPhone 5?  Yes, of course.  I need to understand all the popular devices, and this one is on the list.  Will I stand in line to get one?  Not on your life.