Aug
Steve Jobs has resigned as SEO of Apple. Where did he leave Apple and what will be his legacy? These are some of Jobs’ achievements.
The lure of Apple was once confined to a select few amongst the geek subculture. But in the last decade Apple has become trendsetter and style icon, not to mention risen to become America’s most valuable company.
In the 35 years since Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak introduced their first simple computer, Apple has changed the world. The music, retailing, marketing and cellular phone industries have all been transformed beyond recognition. In the space of a year the iPad has heralded yet another Jobs-inspired revolution – in Marxist terms the trickle-down effect has now brought powerful touchscreen portable computing to the proletariat. Apple’s eagerly-awaited product releases have been likened to Beatles concerts, while its famous brand logo has become a reassuring motif for superior quality.
The great strength of Apple’s products, aside from the brilliance of manufacturing both hardware and software to complement each other, is the user-friendliness of their products. The elegance of Apple’s solutions – the responsiveness and ease of use – ensures eager take-up of almost everything they produce, so much so that, to borrow another phrase from the communist lexicon, Apple is creating a need. And it’s a need that the world just loves to have satisfied.
The beginning of the twenty-first century has seen technological changes which politicians, journalists and sociologists cannot keep pace with – no sooner do they try to categorize the trends than Jobs is jumping around on stage at one of his messianic press conferences, explaining the next leap forward for humanity. The iPod, iPhone and iPad are transforming society – never before have people been able to carry hundreds of books or photos, thousands of songs, wherever they go. Anyone can read any newspaper at any time of day or night, anywhere n the world. Steve Jobs has made the Internet portable.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so runs the proverb, and across the globe manufacturers have flocked to emulate Apple’s success, producing their own cut-price versions of products which only a few years ago really were beyond the average person’s wildest dreams. How to quantify Jobs’ contribution to winning the hearts and minds of countless millions across the world to the American dream?
In the mid-1980s Jobs was pushed out of the company he had co-founded by a CEO he had lured away from Pepsico with a promise of a chance to change the world. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, and his technological genius has transformed it into America’s most valuable company.
IBM was once a similarly invincible company, likened by Jobs himself to “Big Brother” in a 1984 TV ad. General Motors was bailed out in the crash by the US taxpayer. Prophets of Doom are forecasting that Apple is due a fall. Yet the next wave of Apple devices has already been designed. Doubtless the generation after that has already been planned out in Jobs’ feverish imagination. And Mr. Jobs plans to take a back seat, not an early exit. Any decline and fall might be a while away yet.
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