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A decade after Jobs' death, has Apple traded magic for profit?

24 Comments
By Julie JAMMOT

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24 Comments
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Really? Do any mid to large sized corporations continue to innovate? Did Jobs really continue to innovate, or just use all his capital to hire innovators with no money or to buy out start-ups with good ideas? Always the media want to front some hero capitalist, such as Jobs or Musk, but its usually the people we don't hear about who are the team of innovators.

12 ( +18 / -6 )

Apple devices are a bit like the Mercedes-Benz of old. The sticker price might be eye-watering, but for that you get years of intuitive, trouble-free, safe use.

It did seem for a while (nine years ago?) that Tim Apple viewed power leads as consumables rather than consumer durables, and thankfully that is well in the past.

But I can't put a price on having data instantly sync from my laptop to my tablet and phone. Plus, not having to constantly jump through Microsoft's maze of miscellaneous hoops brings me unbridled joy.

7 ( +13 / -6 )

GAFA don't do a lot of innovation and haven't for a while. They are no longer run by creative tech folk. They are now lawyer-centric and are being fenced in on all sides by politicians and regulators. Most of the things they could do - distributed topologies for example - would be banned. Search engines used to allow us to navigate a global web. Now they restrict us to a handful of censored links. There is more money and political push for ways to restrict innovation, censor content and build borders now. Outlook: bleak.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Apple has always wanted to be viewed as a lifestyle product that just happens to sell electronics. That was the “magic” people bought into and continue to buy into. Now that lifestyle products are so integrated in to people’s identities at such a high scale, being profitable is almost an afterthought.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Wish he’d never invented the magic phone. It has killed millions. Destroyed lives.

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

Apple. The company always thirsted after profit, especially under Jobs. Many of the actual innovators moved from Apple to Microsoft. Cashed in and went elsewhere with their payout. Jobs was a salesman.

Innovation disappeared with Wozniak, not Jobs.

3 ( +9 / -6 )

Of course it died with him! I'm grateful that Apple made smartphones mainstream, that said, currently iPhones are just overpriced pieces of junk designed to break within 2 years; Android phones have surpassed them in almost every aspect.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Apple devices are a bit like the Mercedes-Benz of old. The sticker price might be eye-watering, but for that you get years of intuitive, trouble-free, safe use.

I wonder what you are smoking to make such a claim… didn’t you hear of “ Applegate “… even Apple Inc has publicly acknowledged that after a year of use they make the phones slower and slower with each update. This will make users frustrated and buy new iPhones. They paid millions in law suit already for this. Well I guess Apple sheep will never realize this!

I myself use an iPhone 12 ( previously used iPhone 8 and 6 prior to that ) waited for years to buy a new one. The quality of iPhones keeps deteriorating as each new model boast about enhancements in camera and processor as well as battery! People are fools because they don’t realize that enhanced processors will require more battery and therefore battery life of newer models doesn’t get any better ( becomes worst in many cases - yes, I’m looking at you iPhone Se2 trying to run processor of the same level as iPhone 11 on that small battery… lol ) !

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

Steve Jobs was in Apple twice, he failed the first time and succeeded the second. What was the difference ? Tim Cook was present the second time. Apple is Tim Cook, Steve Jobs was the glorified marketing dude.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

iPod launched in 2011 and the 2007 release of the iPhone that put the internet in people's pockets.

This is a pretty big typo since they've around since around 2001. Makes this article look like it was haphazardly written.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Good for quick power-up start and usual web browsing or simple tasks, but in general the products like iPhone or iPad lack of intuitive control, important features and compatibility, so in quite some cases or situations a real productive or professional work is not really possible. Just now, with an iPad writing this, even copy and paste is a mess and I also couldn’t navigate with cursor buttons of the virtual onscreen keyboard in a text, because there just are none. In short words, I use their products too, but I don’t really like them so much.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

They became a financially-focused company very effective at milking its faithful users..

That's Apple in a nutshell..the faithfuls wiil buy anything at any price with the Apple logo.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

That's Apple in a nutshell..the faithfuls wiil buy anything at any price with the Apple logo.

Only because it's better than any of the Android crap.

Someone needs to step up and make a quality product.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

The iPad Mini was $199, $250 back then. Now it starts at $450 etc. Great tablet though and the Apple connector was much better than the micro-USB trash that always fails.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I love my Apple pen for my iPad Air. Great for filling in and signing documents and no Hanko/Inken needed…unless it is a Japanese document because then I have to print it out, stamp it and fax it to theee to five locations, and often sent back by snail mail for a real red stamping!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Someone needs to step up and make a quality product..

Now that's the faithfulls this financially-focused company successfully targets..packaging is the quality and that's what is marketed to the faithfulls.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"Magic?" Please. Jobs was a terrible, terrible person, way before he was ever "magic." What kind of "magic" person would do what Jobs did?: Atari, in his first real task, assigned Jobs to make a circuit board for their new game "Breakout". Jobs, who never coded and knew nothing about computers, duped his buddy Steve Wozniak, THE REAL creator of Apple Computer, to design the circuit boards since Jobs could not. Jobs made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips.

Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, "Wozniak reduced the TTL count to 46, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. However, according to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the $5,000 paid out), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350. (Jobs kept 4,300$ profit!)" What a cool "buddy" huh?

Jobs named his new computer "Lisa" after his bastard, abandoned daughter, but refused to acknowledge her, let alone provide any support to, the actual Lisa in real life. Once Jobs put on his three piece suit, he became a dirtbag only interested in the bottom line. Period.

Apple at one point had to be saved financially by Jobs' arch enemy, Bill Gates. Talk about "going it alone?" lol.

Jobs was not a Creator, since he himself never created anything: at best, he was a Demander. Without Woz, this non creator would be reduced to doing...what exactly did he do again?? Oh, right. "Demand a music player that held 2000 songs...to be created, designed and made by his engineers?" Poof: borrow a LOT from Japanese MD player technology, and Apple "invents" the iPod? What "genius"!

Anyone who got on Jobs' "wrong side" was assigned to be "assassinated" by Apple's hit men. Their term, not mine.

Such a "visionary"!

At the end of his life, he famously refused for nine months to seek medical surgery for his pancreatic tumor by...going for a "frutarian" diet among other "alternative" medical treatments! Yeah....no. That didn't work, now, did it, Steve? According to Berry R. Castleleith, head of Memorial Sloan Kettering's Cancer Department, "Jobs's faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his life.... He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer that is treatable and curable.... He essentially committed suicide."

Not much "magic" to Jobs, if you really want to look at his awful history, warts and all. As for the "genius makers" well, they continue to dodge a LOT of unfortunate FACTS in order to continue to whitewash Jobs' in their "official" hagiographies, now, don't they?! Yes,....yes, they do!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Jim

I wonder what you are smoking to make such a claim… didn’t you hear of “ Applegate “… even Apple Inc has publicly acknowledged that after a year of use they make the phones slower and slower with each update.

Actually, they did no such thing. They created a feature that stopped your phone suddenly turning off as a result of aging batteries. This is a problem that all mobile devices have and Apple innovated a way around it. And no, they did not admit wrongdoing, verified by the fact that this feature is still in every iPhone sold today.

This will make users frustrated and buy new iPhones. They paid millions in law suit already for this. Well I guess Apple sheep will never realize this!

Mainly because it's not true.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sven Asai

Just now, with an iPad writing this, even copy and paste is a mess and I also couldn’t navigate with cursor buttons of the virtual onscreen keyboard in a text, because there just are none. In short words, I use their products too, but I don’t really like them so much.

Here's a free tip: When you want to navigate the cursor, press and hold the spacebar, you will then get total control of the cursor, to put it anywhere you want.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

kibousha

Steve Jobs was in Apple twice, he failed the first time and succeeded the second.

Did he fail the first time? During his first time at Apple he introduced the Apple II and the Macintosh. Both wildly successful and influential products.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There's a changing culture in Apple now - where once it was very top-down, now the workers have more power

"Tim Cook faces employee unrest over Apple's 'toxic culture of secrecy' - Hundreds complain about environment, submitting accounts of verbal abuse, sexual harassment, retaliation and discrimination"

https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/employee-engagement/tim-cook-faces-employee-unrest-over-apples-toxic-culture-of-secrecy/310932

"Apple’s fortress of secrecy is crumbling from the inside - The last five months marked a turning point in Apple’s company culture — will it last?"

https://www.theverge.com/22700898/apple-company-culture-change-secrecy-employee-unrest

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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