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Tim Cook emails Apple employees about anniversary of Jobs' death
Tomorrow, October 5, will be the second anniversary of Steve Jobs' passing. To mark the event, Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a heartfelt email to the company's employees. It reads, in part: "I think of him often and find enormous strength in memories of his friendship, vision and leadership. He left behind a company that only he could have built and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple." The company held a private ceremony to remember the late co-founder two weeks after his passing. In reading Cook's email, it's clear that Steve's memory is still very much alive in Cupertino. 9to5 has published Tim Cook's entire message if you'd like to read it.
Childhood home of Steve Jobs may become historical landmark
CNN reported earlier today that Steve Jobs' childhood home in Palo Alto, Calif., may soon become a historical site. Jobs' childhood home, if you recall, houses the garage where he and Woz worked to put together the first Apple I computers. The family home where a young Steve Jobs built the first Apple computer may soon become a protected historical site. The seven-member Los Altos Historical Commission has scheduled a "historic property evaluation" for the single-story, ranch-style house on Monday. If the designation is ultimately approved, then the house on 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, will have to be preserved. Driving the push for the evaluation, commission member Sapna Marfatia explained the historical significance of the house. Steve Jobs is considered a genius who blended technology and creativity to invent and market a product which dramatically changed six industries -- personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing. His influence is expected to be felt by multiple generations forthcoming. It's hard to argue with that, and we'll certainly keep you posted as to how the attempt to mark the house as a historical landmark proceeds. On a related note, SFBay.ca reports that Jobs' stepmom -- Marilyn Jobs -- still lives in the three-bedroom home. She told the online publication that hundreds of Apple fans stop by the house every week to take their picture by the historic house.
Apple designers discuss their iconic work in web series and e-book
Much has been said about Apple's attention to design. Now FastCoDesign.com has packaged an exhaustive oral history of Apple design in a series of six articles, four of which have been published as of today. The full oral history is also available in a book by Max Chafkin titled Design Crazy, available in the iTunes Store or on Amazon for US$1.99 It's a great look at some of the designers who have worked or still work at the company, and also offers more amusing / infuriating anecdotes about former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Here are some highlights so far: Cordell Ratzlaff (manager, Mac OS human interface group; now a user experience director at Google): "We'd meet with Steve on Tuesday afternoons. He would come up with the craziest ideas. At one point, Steve wanted to do all of our error messages as haikus. He would leave, and we would all think, What is he smoking?" Don Lindsay (design director, Mac OS user experience group; now VP of user experience at BlackBerry): "Shortly before the unveiling of the iMac, Steve turned his attention to the user experience on the Mac OS X. He hauled the entire software design team into a room, and in typical Steve style, he just declared everybody in the room to be an idiot." Tim Kobe (cofounder, Eight Inc., an architecture firm that worked on display designs at Macworld conferences; now works on the design of the Apple Stores): "For the first two or three years, people didn't talk about the stores; they talked about the experience in the stores. Because the people who worked there were so different, and the way you engaged with technology was so different." Dan Walker (chief talent officer; now an HR consultant): "I'd like to tell you the iPod was because of some deep skunk works R&D operation, but it didn't happen that way. It started because Jon Rubinstein was at the Toshiba factory in Japan. They had these tiny hard drives, and Ruby saw the potential." Matt Rogers (firmware engineer, iPod division; now cofounder at Nest): "Before we launched at Macworld in January 2007, I was sitting in the bathroom using one of the devices, and I was like, this is revolution. I'm checking email in the bathroom. That was the moment when I realized this is a totally different kind of device."
Video: Full presentation of John Lasseter accepting the Disney Legends Award on Steve Jobs' behalf
While Apple will always be remembered by the general public as Steve Jobs' greatest accomplishment, his contribution to film history by helping build Pixar may end up being his unsung legacy. Pixar's cutting edge technology and commitment to exceptional storytelling changed children's films from something parents could enjoy to something adults should seek out. At this year's D23 Expo, a Comic Con of sorts held by Disney for Disney fans, Jobs was posthumously awarded the Disney Legends award for his work in building Pixar into the inspirational source of storytelling magic we know and love today. Jobs' longtime friend and Pixar co-founder John Lasseter (at right above) accepted the award, giving an emotional speech that tells the history of Pixar while providing a thoughtful look at his friend's legendary work ethic. Lasseter is often moved to tears throughout the speech, recalling a thoughtful conversation the two had during a difficult portion of the development of Toy Story. "We were having dinner one day, in the middle of the hardest part of making 'Toy Story', and he started looking off again in the distance and he said: You know John, when we make the computers at Apple. He said the lifespan of that computer is what, three years? He said in five years it's a door stop. Ya know, that's how technology goes. But he said 'if you do your job right what you create and what Pixar creates can last forever." Clips from the speech were published online following the event but now the full presentation has been uploaded, including Lasseter's introduction which highlights Pixar's accomplishments over the years. You can view the full presentation below.
Early Apple employees comment on 'Jobs' movie
Jobs, this year's non-comedy Steve Jobs biopic, opened in theaters today. The film stars Ashton Kutcher and follows Jobs from his humble college days through his rise, fall and eventual return to power at the company he helped found. Reviews have been mixed on the film itself, but how do the people who were there at the beginning of Apple react to the film? Early Apple employees Daniel Kottke and Bill Fernandez spoke with Slashdot's Vijith Assar about what Jobs got right, and wrong, about their time with the company. Kottke worked with Apple on hardware, while Fernandez was a part of developing user interfaces for the company. Of the two, only Kottke has actually seen the movie, which he worked on as a script consultant. For his part Fernandez says he sees the film as a work of fiction and has no desire to see history reworked. So what did the filmmakers get wrong? The portrayal of Steve Wozniak. According to Kottke, this scene involving Jobs convincing Wozniak that home computers are the wave of the future while walking through a Hewlett-Packard garage "rings false." The complaint that people would rightly have about the film is that it portrays Woz as not having the same vision as Steve Jobs, which is really unfair. Woz's reply this morning was, "If I see it at all, I'm going to have to see it alone." The film also heavily dramatizes Wozniak's exit from Apple, a scene that Kottke sees as one of the film's best even though it has no basis in reality. Kottke says "that was a complete fabrication."
'Jobs' movie review roundup
Jobs hits theaters today, and the reviews are piling up faster than unsold Surface tablets (I'm sorry, that was mean). The early verdicts are not particularly flattering, and the flick currently has a 25 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes and more-favorable-but-still-low 43 out of 100 on Metacritic. For a more detailed summary of the movie's flaws and bright spots, take a glance at some review quotes below. Mary Pols, Time.com: "He gives so many inspirational speeches about innovation in Jobs that I was tempted to pull out my laptop and check my email. In between, he's either haranguing some oaf about lack of productivity or firing someone. Do we get a sense of the man's greatness? A bit, but mostly we get a sense of the man's douchebaggery." Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "But the main flaw of Jobs is that it limits itself to the ancient history of Jobs' rise and fall and rise at Apple. The movie might begin in 2001, but it never returns to the 21st century. Thus, all the dramatic events of Jobs' last dozen or so years aren't dealt with at all." Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "Like the man it's about, Jobs is thin and unassuming, but keeps surprising you with ideas and innovation. An almost ironically styled old-fashioned biopic, this sharp look at the late Steve Jobs and the technological and cultural changes he brought about is entertaining and smart, with a great, career 2.0 performance from Ashton Kutcher." Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: "Fuzzed up and hunched over, Mr. Kutcher looks somewhat like the young Jobs, and there are moments -- as when he gives another character a small, devious look as if sliding in a knife -- that the casting seems more than a matter of bottom-line calculation. But Mr. Kutcher doesn't have the tools that some actors use to transcend weak material and either he didn't receive any help or didn't allow any real direction from Mr. Stern." Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post: "Although I think I could watch a whole movie called Woz and not grow tired, Jobs eventually begins to suffer from an ailment common to many biopics: milestone fatigue. The film is so thick with Jobs' career highlights and lowlights that there's little room for insights. What made this famously private man tick?"
How Steve Jobs was able to negotiate a revenue-sharing agreement with AT&T
Forbes has an extremely interesting article detailing how the negotiating prowess of Steve Jobs helped Apple secure, for a short time, a revenue-sharing agreement with AT&T along with a host of other perks that carriers had previously been staunchly opposed to. The following Steve Jobs anecdotes come courtesy of Raj Aggarwal, a telecommunications consultant who, in the months preceding the iPhone announcement, met with Steve Jobs twice a week. Aggarwal relays that Jobs was able to secure terms that other handset manufacturers couldn't because he was obsessively involved with every detail surrounding the iPhone launch. In conjunction with that, Jobs, in classic fashion, made grandiose demands and never wavered from his commitment to deliver his vision of an ideal user experience. Aggarwal was impressed by the way Jobs was willing to take a risk to realize his vision. "In one meeting in the conference room with Jobs, he was annoyed that AT&T was spending too much time worrying about the risks of the deal. So he said, 'You know what we should do to stop them from complaining? We should write AT&T a check for $1 billion and if the deal doesn't work out, they can keep the money. Let's give them the $1 billion [Apple had $5 billion in cash at the time] and shut them the hell up,'" Aggarwal recounted. Although Jobs did not actually offer AT&T the cash, his willingness to do so made an impression on Aggarwal. Aggarwal also found Jobs unique in his outrageous demands. As he explained, "Jobs said, '$50 a month unlimited voice, data, and SMS plan - that's our mission. We should ask for and go after something unreasonable that no one has been willing to accept.' He would come up with these outrageous demands and fight for them - getting much more than he otherwise would have." All in all, this is vintage Jobs. You might recall a post from a few days ago where we detailed some of the colorful examples highlighting Steve Jobs' famous, and again, obsessive attention to detail. There's no question that Jobs was not one to be deterred, and as a result, he certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The end result, however, was always beneficial for the consumer. Say what you will about the iPhone and Android, but there's no denying that the lengths Apple went to deliver the type of iPhone experience it did fundamentally changed the smartphone landscape while wrestling back a bit of control from the carriers in the process. Thanks to Jobs and his seemingly outrageous demands, iPhone users have thankfully never had to contend with pre-installed crapware and AT&T logos emblazoned everywhere -- or Intel logos for that matter.
Director Joshua Michael Stern talks about Steve Jobs
A new video report from Jason Snell, editorial director of Macworld, explores Joshua Michael Stern's vision in how he approached and directed the movie Jobs. The screenplay by Matt Whiteley covers Jobs and Apple Computer from 1971 to 2001. Michael Stern says of his movie: "It was about how Jobs really identified himself to his product." Snell asked some interesting questions. The interview focused on the drama and Shakespearean aspect of the movie, which highlights the conflict between the corporate entity and the person. It also covers how Jobs "orchestrates removal of the Board" to do what he wants when he comes back to Apple after he was fired. Snell brought up how hard it is to focus on technology without boring the audience, and asked how Stern was able to bring Jobs' obsession to the screen in an interesting way. Stern's answer: "You dramatize it through [Jobs'] passion." Snell notes that "this is a period piece," covering the 1970s and 1980s, which Stern chose carefully. He said, it's about Apple prehistory, before the iMac was introduced, which Stern perceives that most people see as the "beginning of Mac." Jobs is about what happened prior to the current Apple that enabled Jobs to create the company we know today. Stern and Snell also talked how challenging it was to create a period piece on a tight budget. The production showcases the end of an era and the beginning of a new technological revolution. They even shot part of the movie in the house in which Jobs grew up to preserve the authenticity of the movie. Stern spoke about how hard Ashton Kutcher worked to portray Jobs well. Kutcher needed to portray the provocative, charismatic and obsessiveness of Jobs in a believable way. Stern notes that Kutcher combined his own charisma, understanding of technology and interest in Jobs the man to bring his vision and sense of him to life. Jobs opens August 16 nationwide. The impressive cast includes Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak, Dermot Mulroney as Mike Markkula, Lukas Haas as Daniel Kottke, Matthew Modine as John Sculley and J.K. Simmons as Arthur Rock. [Photo courtesy of TechHive] [via TechHive]
Larry Ellison seems to think Apple has a bleak future without Steve Jobs
In an interview that is set to air today, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison tells Charlie Rose that he believes Apple does not have a bright future without Steve Jobs. In a brief clip that has been released early, Rose asks Ellison about Apple's future. Ellison replies: "Well, we already know. We saw -- we conducted the experiment. I mean, it's been done. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs. We saw Apple without Steve Jobs. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs. Now, we're gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs." To be sure, Ellison is a very smart man who runs a very successful technology company and also happened to be one of Steve Jobs' best friends. However, to suggest that Apple is going to run into the ground again like it did after Steve Jobs' ousting in the mid-1980s is a bit shortsighted. In the late 1980s, Apple absolutely suffered without Steve Jobs' leadership. But part of that suffering was also born from the horrible leadership of John Scully. Tim Cook and Jony Ive are no John Scully. Apple -- as a company and as a culture -- changed drastically after Jobs' return. Be certain that everyone remembers extremely well what happened to Apple when Jobs was forced out of the company, and is bound to make sure those mistakes do not repeat themselves. The Charlie Rose interview with Larry Ellison airs today on CBS This Morning.
Steve Jobs once considered abandoning the Pro market
When Apple released Final Cut Pro X, a debate raged concerning whether or not Apple was devoting enough resources towards its pro users. While Final Cut Pro X has improved in many ways since it first launched, many video professionals felt that the original offering was a step backwards in functionality. The notion that Apple developed Final Cut Pro X for the mainstream market at the expense of professional video editors underscores a larger question regarding Apple's commitment to the pro market altogether. To that end, long-time Chiat/Day advertising director Ken Segall recently penned a blogpost tackling that very question and addressing Apple's "evolving" view of the pro market. Interestingly, Segall relays that Steve Jobs once considered abandoning the pro market. Would Apple ever even think about saying goodbye to the pro market? I hope you're sitting down for this, but Steve Jobs did in fact once consider that very option. This was back in the days when iMac had established itself as a global bestseller. During one of the agency's regular meetings with Steve, he shared that he was considering killing the pro products. His rationale was as you might expect: consumer products have an unlimited upside, while pro products are aimed at a niche market that eats up major resources. Obviously, the pro market has value for Apple, even if its numbers are relatively small. Pros are opinion leaders, influencers and evangelists. Their love of Apple shows up in the purchase decisions of friends, family and colleagues. So Steve ultimately renewed his commitment to the pros -- but he never said that this commitment wouldn't evolve. Clearly Apple has changed its thinking about the pro market, and how it can best serve its pro users. Speaking of Apple losing interest in the pro market, former Apple employee Ron Brinkman, who joined the company when it acquired Shake, wrote the following in the wake of FCP X. So after Apple acquired us there was a lot of concern that Cupertino wouldn't be willing to continue to cater to that [pro] market and, although it took a few years, that concern did indeed come to pass. The development team was gradually transitioned to working on other tools and Shake as a product was eventually end-of-life'd. And back then the same questions were being asked as now -- "Doesn't Apple care about the high-end professional market?" In a word, no. Not really. Not enough to focus on it as a primary business. Let's talk economics first. There's what, maybe 10,000 'high-end' editors in the world? That's probably being generous. But the number of people who would buy a powerful editing package that's more cost-effective and easier to learn/use than anything else that's out there? More. Lots more. So, a $1,000 high-end product vs. a $300 product for a market that's at least an order of magnitude larger. Clearly makes sense, even though I'd claim that the dollars involved are really just a drop in the bucket either way for Apple. Brinkman continues: And really, from a company perspective high-end customers are a pain in the ass. Before Apple bought Shake, customer feedback drove about 90 percent of the features we'd put into the product. But that's not how Apple rolls -- for them ... high-end customers are high-bandwidth in terms of the attention they require relative to the revenue they return. After the acquisition I remember sitting in a roomful of Hollywood VFX pros where Steve told everybody point-blank that we/Apple were going to focus on giving them powerful tools that were far more cost-effective than what they were accustomed to... but that the relationship between them and Apple wasn't going to be something where they'd be driving product direction anymore. Didn't go over particularly well, incidentally, but I don't think that concerned Steve overmuch... :-) All in all, an interesting discussion. Looking ahead, Apple has a completely revamped Mac Pro slated for release later this year.
Steve Jobs posthumously awarded Disney Legends Award
Last weekend at the D23 Expo -- a convention held by Disney for fans -- Steve Jobs was posthumously awarded the Disney Legends award, as noted by MacRumors. The Disney Legends award is given to individuals who make significant contributions to the Walt Disney Company. Jobs was awarded the honor for his role in building Pixar into an animation powerhouse, which he later sold to Disney, and for his work as a member of the Disney board of directors. Jobs' award was accepted by Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, who gave an emotional speech about the man who saw value in the then-fledgling animation company. In his remarks, Lasseter recounted a talk he and Jobs had during a particularly troubled time when they were making the first Toy Story: "We were having dinner one day, in the middle of the hardest part of making 'Toy Story', and he started looking off again in the distance and he said: You know John, when we make the computers at Apple. He said the lifespan of that computer is what, three years? He said in five years it's a door stop. Ya know, that's how technology goes. But he said 'if you do your job right what you create and what Pixar creates can last forever." You can check out the entire speech in the video below.
Steve Jobs, a stickler for every detail
Steve Jobs was a stickler for details. From Jobs' point of view, every detail, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, mattered. While this shouldn't strike anyone as being a monumental revelation, Jobs' focus on the little details that other CEOs might gloss over, or perhaps delegate to a marketing department, was brought to the forefront during Apple's recent e-book price-fixing trial. During the trial, Apple executive Eddy Cue took the stand whereupon he explained how Jobs, at first, needed some convincing before deciding Apple should get into the e-book business. But once on board, Jobs was on board 100 percent. Some of Cue's testimony, summarized by All Things D, highlights the degree to which Jobs did indeed sweat the small stuff. More than just giving the iBooks project the green light, Jobs was intimately involved in all aspects of the initiative. The "page curls" in the iBook app, which show up when you flip an iBook's page? That's Steve Jobs' idea. It was Jobs' idea to pick ""Winnie-the-Pooh" as the freebie book that came with every iBook app. Not just because Jobs liked the book, Cue said, but because it showed off iBook's capabilities: "It had beautiful color drawings, that had never been seen before in a digital book." Jobs was also specific about the book he used to show off the iBook during his initial iPad demo in January 2010. He picked Ted Kennedy's "True Compass" memoir, because the Kennedy family "meant a lot to him," Cue said. Cue's testimony underscored the fact that Jobs was a rare breed of CEO that was able to take a broad view of the technological landscape while simultaneously having an up close and personal role in the most minute aspects of Apple's products and services. From having strong opinions regarding which songs should be used in iPod commercials to deciding which book should be included for free with each iBook app, Jobs instinctively understood that every detail mattered. Recently, we covered a talk from legendary ad man Lee Clow who had a close working relationship with Jobs for over 25 years. Clow relayed how Jobs believed that everything a brand does is a form of advertising, and to that end, no detail is ever insignificant. Steve figured out that every way a brand touches you is a message, and it's either a positive message or it's a message that kind of contradicts what you thought about the brand. This is why Apple, especially with Jobs at the helm, has always devoted a lot of resources towards ensuring the best user experience possible, whether it be the type of materials used in a product or the product packaging itself. In a must-read piece that was published in the wake of Jobs' passing, Google's Vic Gundotra recalled how Jobs once called him up on a Sunday because the shade of yellow Jobs noticed on the Google logo (while on his iPhone) just didn't look right. "I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?" Of course this was okay with me. A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject "Icon Ambulance." The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon. ... But in the end, when I think about leadership, passion and attention to detail, I think back to the call I received from Steve Jobs on a Sunday morning in January. It was a lesson I'll never forget. CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday. It's also worth highlighting a blog post from Glenn Reid, a former director of Engineering at Apple who helped develop the first iterations of iPhoto and iMovie. In a post titled, "What it's really like working with Steve Jobs", Reid writes about his time working up close and personal with Jobs on a project the Apple co-founder really cared about -- iMovie. I can still remember some of those early meetings, with 3 or 4 of us in a locked room somewhere on Apple campus, with a lot of whiteboards, talking about what iMovie should be (and should not be). It was as pure as pure gets, in terms of building software. Steve would draw a quick vision on the whiteboard, we'd go work on it for a while, bring it back, find out the ways in which it sucked, and we'd iterate, again and again and again. That's how it always went. Iteration. It's the key to design, really. Just keep improving it until you have to ship it. ... Toward the end of my time at Apple, we had standing meetings, once a week, for about 3 or 4 hours, in the Board Room at Apple, to go through what were known internally as the "iApps" - iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, and later iDVD. Over the course of some years, that's a lot of CEO hours devoted to the details of some software apps -- and that was just the part that we saw... Not only did he know and love product engineering, it's all he really wanted to do. He told me once that part of the reason he wanted to be CEO was so that nobody could tell him that he wasn't allowed to participate in the nitty-gritty of product design. He was right there in the middle of it. All of it. As a team member, not as CEO. He quietly left his CEO hat by the door, and collaborated with us. He was basically the Product Manager for all of the products I worked on, even though there eventually were other people with that title, who usually weren't allowed in the room :) Now I'm sure other CEOs care about details too, but Jobs' ability to steer Apple's product roadmap while simultaneously playing a direct role in most everything Apple put out -- from hardware to software -- is truly remarkable.
Nice featurette shows Kutcher as Steve Jobs
The Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher, aptly titled Jobs, is scheduled to hit theaters nationwide on August 16th. With the release date steadily approaching, a publicity push for the film is in full force. Just last week we reported on how Jobs star Ashton Kutcher appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno where he discussed, among other things, what motivated him to take on the role of Jobs. Keeping the publicity train moving, yesterday saw the release of a three-minute featurette showcasing some new clips from the movie along with commentary from Kutcher and others involved in the production. While I admittedly wasn't terribly excited or interested in the Jobs film, Kutcher really seems to have done a great job nailing down Jobs' mannerisms.
Jobs was interested in the phone industry as early as the 80's
Former Apple CEO John Sculley spoke recently during Young Turks Conclave 2013 and shared his thoughts on Steve Jobs, Apple's future and India's entrepreneurs. His conversation was reprinted by YourStory.in, a website dedicated to India's startup scene. Speaking about Steve Jobs, Sculley shared that He and Jobs were working on Mac phones as early as 1984. "I remember we were working on Mac phones back in late 1984. Steve was thinking about those kinds of products back then. He used to say, the most important things are not the things you build but also the things you don't build. He was rigorous in the discipline of simplifying." As noted by The Mac Observer, these phones likely were not mobile phones like the iPhone, but a Mac-based landline phones. It probably was an idea hatched by engineers at Apple and eventually killed by Jobs Many of Jobs' visions for Apple continue today under the leadership of Tim Cook. Cook, Sculley believes, will lead Apple into the next game-changing product, which will likely involve televisions or wearable technology. "Apple is like BMW, and BMW doesn't compete with the lowest price brands. I think Apple will do just fine. Tim Cook has done a terrific job of setting up the stage for some exciting products next year. I don't think there would be a creative leap in the smartphone industry, and the industry is maturing and is stabilizing right now. But I am sure we will see a creative leap from Apple maybe a TV or a wearable." Sculley also shares some anecdotal stories about the friendly, yet competitive relationship between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Sculley's comments on YourStory.in are worth a read for those interested in Apple history. [Via The Mac Observer]
Ashton Kutcher discusses playing Steve Jobs with Jay Leno
Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to promote his upcoming film JOBS, Ashton Kutcher talked about what prompted him to take on the role of Steve Jobs while also expressing regret for not meeting the Apple co-founder when he had a chance. A transcript of the video is below. Incidentally, the few clips I've seen of Kutcher as Jobs are rather impressive. I had an opportunity to meet him about 6 months before he passed away. I was working that day and couldn't go. In hindsight, I had the opportunity to meet the Leonardo da Vinci of our generation and I missed it. That really affected my decision to take on the role. It was actually the day that he died... for me, I hear people talk about they knew where they were the day Kennedy died. And for me, I'll never forget the moment I heard that he died. And I pulled my car to the side of the road, and kind of took a moment. I got home and I realized, I sat down on my computer and started doing some work and I realized all the relationships I have in my life are held together by glue that he laid down. And all the work that I do, in whatever capacity that I do it, and all the entertainment I consume.. here I have my Apple computer and my iPhone... all these things, and I realized that I had taken him for granted, and taken for granted the contributions he actually gave to society. And I actually had a real emotional moment that day. I actually reached out to a couple of my friends. I do a lot of work in the tech venture space, and they had the same response. So when I got offered the role, I wanted to ensure that his legacy was told from someone who admired him. JOBS will hit nationwide theaters on August 16th.
Eric Schmidt: Relationship with Apple has improved
It's funny how quickly things can change in the world of tech. One second, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on stage with Steve Jobs during the iPhone introduction, and the next, Jobs is threatening to destroy Android and go "thermonuclear" against Google for "slavishly copying" the look and feel of Apple's crown jewel -- iOS. You might also recall that Jobs, during an Apple town hall meeting in 2010, didn't mince words when asked a question about Google. We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them [...] This don't be evil mantra? It's bullshit. All that said, it hardly comes as a surprise that Apple over the past few years has removed every Google property from the iOS home screen. You may have also noticed that Bing is now the search engine that powers Siri's web search results in iOS 7. Suffice it to say, Google and Apple are full-on competitors and have been for quite some time. Indeed, it almost seems like eons ago when Schmidt actually held a seat on Apple's board of directors. But the vitriol between the two companies, as evidenced by Jobs' statements above, appears to have died down a bit -- at least if you're inclined to believe Schmidt. Speaking to reporters on Thursday at the Allen and Co media conference, Schmidt said that relations between Apple and Google have improved and that the two companies are having "lots and lots of meetings." Reuters reports: He noted that Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora, who joined him at the press briefing, was leading many of the discussions. The two companies are in "constant business discussions on a long list of issues," Schmidt said. That's all well and good if it's in fact true, but it's easy to be skeptical when Google and Schmidt have always played it coy when it comes to publicly characterizing their relationship with Apple.
The Steve Jobs video that sealed Apple's fate in the DOJ case
Apple yesterday came up on the losing end of a decision from US District Judge Denise Cote who ruled that Apple did, in fact, collude to artificially raise the price of e-books. In looking over the decision, I found it interesting that statements made by Steve Jobs were construed as compelling evidence in the eyes of Cote. Compelling evidence of Apple's participation in the conspiracy came from the words uttered by Steve Jobs, Apple's founder, CEO, and visionary. Apple has struggled mightily to reinterpret Jobs's statements in a way that will eliminate their bite. Its efforts have proven fruitless. Jobs's statements to James Murdoch that he understood the Publishers' concerns that "Amazon's $9.99 price for new releases is eroding the value perception of their products . . . and they do not want this practice to continue," and that Apple was thus "willing to try at the [$12.99 and $14.99] prices we've proposed," underscored Apple's commitment to a scheme with the Publisher Defendants to raise e-book prices. Jobs's purchase of an e-book for $14.99 at the Launch, and his explanation to a reporter that day that Amazon's $9.99 price for the same book would be irrelevant because soon all prices will "be the same" is further evidence that Apple understood and intended that Amazon's ability to set retail prices would soon be eliminated. When Jobs told his biographer the next day that, in light of the MFN, the Publisher Defendants "went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books,'" Jobs was referring to the fact that Sargent was in Seattle that very day to deliver Macmillan's ultimatum to Amazon. Cote again stresses that Apple was unable to persuasively explain away Jobs' comments as being benign. In reaching the conclusion that Jobs was aggressively trying to get publishers to raise the price of e-books across the board, Cote not only relied on emails from Jobs, but also the aforementioned video where Jobs smugly told Walt Mossberg that the price of e-books on Amazon will be the same as the price of e-books on Apple's iBookstore. The damning video, which was shot by Kara Swisher on her Flipcam, is below. The pertinent part of the video begins at 1:54 when Mossberg curiously asks Jobs why someone would buy an e-book for $14.99 from Apple when they can get it for $9.99 from Amazon. "The prices will be the same," Jobs explained, before adding that "publishers are actually withholding" books from Amazon because they aren't happy with the terms of their contract. So just how damning was this video? Well, Cote cited it as "compelling evidence" in her decision, and we should also point out that Simone & Schuster executives, upon being made aware of the video, were none too pleased with Jobs' remarks, going so far as to label them "incredibly stupid." The following is a slide from the DOJ's initial presentation during the trial.
Disney to honor Steve Jobs with Disney Legends Award at D23 Expo
Every year Disney holds its D23 Expo for Disney fans, who flock to Anaheim to experience the magic that is Disney. Besides exhibits and live performances, the Expo also hosts an annual Disney Legends Ceremony that honors people who have made integral contributions to The Walt Disney Company. Steve Jobs, along with Dick Clark, are being remembered posthumously as part of this memorial event. Jobs is being recognized for his role in the early success of Pixar, which was acquired by Disney in 2006. This acquisition made Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney. He also joined Disney's Board of Directors at the time and remained an integral adviser to the company until he passed away in 2011.
Dressing Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs has always been an icon of stylish fashion design. Who can forget when he took the stage to introduce the iPod wearing a sensible black turtleneck, a pair of snazzy Levi's blue jeans and, of course, some grey New Balance sneakers for extra mobility? And who can forget how Jobs shocked the fashion world when he wore the exact same outfit while introducing the iPhone and the iPad? Indeed, Jobs' penchant for boldly wearing the same outfit time and time again not only reinvigorated what was then a slumping market for turtlenecks, but also conveyed to the fashion elite that sometimes thinking fashion-forward means being fashion-repetitive. All kidding aside, the last thing Jobs could have ever cared about was being fashionable. But there was a time, well before the black turtleneck became part of his de-facto uniform, when Jobs wore all sorts of different attire. In an interesting interview with Lisa Jensen -- a costume designer who worked on the upcoming Steve Jobs movie starring Ashton Kutcher -- FancyDressCostumes found out what type of research went into making sure that the outfits used in the movie were as period-appropriate as possible. What sort of research did you do for the costumes on Jobs? The first piece of the puzzle in doing a historical-based story, of course, is the research, capital R. Step one is to get the essence of each year of the script's story in front of me, in bulk, mostly in 'real people's fashion', being aware of fashion trends, but not owned by them. Then also to look backward from our time line in clothing styling so that our characters have a sense of history to the lives we meet them living. Regional reality to our story is absolutely key. Most all of our action happens in Los Altos/Palo Alto/San Francisco, CA. A short stint at Reed College in Oregon in '74 and a trip to India in '75, and a convention for Apple in Hawaii in '83 were the only other locations outside CA, and these were specifically researched. Thanks to my 23" apple computer, my 17" apple laptop computer, my iPad, my iPod, and my iPhone (thank you Steve Jobs) and the amazing internet I pulled tons of photos, testimonials, perhaps secrets and dreams, many precisely dated to my world. Our film hired an archivist for a time as well who found extraordinary information from far corners of reality. Once the type of clothing needed was pinned down, Jensen explained that she sourced wardrobe items from thrift stores in the Los Angeles area and from costume rental companies. Interestingly enough, New Balance was an active partner in the production and even went so far as to create, "from the old molds, the exact sneakers Jobs wore." Now that's the type of close attention to detail that Jobs would have truly appreciated. Lastly, as some final points of interest, Jensen notes that the film covers the years 1971 through 2000 and that Kutcher lost upwards of 25 pounds to more closely mimic Jobs' frame. The film will arrive in theaters this August after originally premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this past January. You can check out the trailer for the film below.
On Apple's 'inability to innovate'
During WWDC 2013, Apple's Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller presided over a sneak peek of Apple's upcoming Mac Pro and boldly exclaimed, "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!" Schiller's off-the-cuff remark was in response to the increasing number of tech pundits who seem to think that Apple has lost its inability to innovate, now that Steve Jobs is no longer running the show. Of course, anyone who has followed Apple over the years knows that the "Apple can't innovate anymore!" refrain is nothing new. Indeed, every time Apple releases a new product, critics are quick to proclaim that Apple has peaked. "What can follow the iPod?" they asked. "Okay, the iPhone is amazing, but what's next?" they impatiently wondered. "The iPad is a game changer, but Apple is now out of ideas!" they declared. What's funny is that Apple, more so than most any other company, has a proven track record of innovation that stretches back for over a decade. Yet, curiously, Apple has seemingly garnered no credit amongst tech pundits when it comes to its current ability to innovate. At the same time, tech pundits are all too eager to predict Apple's demise and levy the tech crown upon whatever tech company happens to challenging Apple at the moment. Remember when the Palm Pre was going to steal the iPhone's thunder? Highlighting the shockingly absurd and oftentimes foolish sentiments that frequently swirl over Apple, John Kirk over at Techpinions has assembled a goldmine of blurbs that unabashedly paint Apple as a "has-been" company. One such blurb comes courtesy of David Goldman of CNN Money who wrote the following this past June: Apple will hold its first major product event in nine months on Monday, a stunning gap for a company that relies on regularly impressing customers with new innovations. I always find it funny when folks think the Apple ship is sinking simply because there isn't an annual iPhone-level product introduction. A revolutionary device like the iPhone doesn't come along every single year, which is why such products are so transformative when they are introduced. Gauging Apple's ability to innovate within the timeframe of a lone year is anything but instructive. The gap between the iPod and iPhone introductions, for example, was more than five years. The gap between the iPhone and iPad introductions was three years. And now people are going nuts because nine months go by without a brand-new shiny device? Addressing this very point, Kirk references an old and on-point Jobs quote about catching the waves of technology. Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. Those waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely, it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years. Instant movies. Instant shopping. TV on demand. So much is immediately accessible these days. What's more, many great tech companies are working furiously to give consumers even faster access to the goods and services they crave. Amazon's ongoing efforts to establish same-day shipping comes to mind. This "I want it now" attitude, or perhaps expectation, has clearly seeped into the psyche of tech pundits when it comes to Apple. The reality, though, is that true innovation doesn't happen in an instant. As intimated by Jobs, it takes time for all of the pieces of the innovation puzzle to coalesce. And the funny thing is, even when Apple does come out with a game-changing device like the iPod or the iPhone, the very same critics that are quick to declare that Apple can't innovate are just as quick to predict that said products are nothing special and will flop in the marketplace. Sometimes it seems that Apple is quick to be painted with the "can't innovate anymore" brush simply because they don't come out and say what products they're working on months in advance. I'll close with this. Here's a quick look at some of the products Apple released within the last 12 months. An iPhone 5 An iPad mini A fourth-gen iPad New MacBook Airs with almost double the battery life A revamped iMac Not bad for a company, which if you believe the headlines, is plummeting into mediocrity.
