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Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

playboy.co.uk

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Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#21

Post by allwein »

patrickaljord wrote: post #9
celoyd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His consistency seems really important to me, but it isn’t as remarked upon as, for example, his perfectionism. When you look at Apple’s product timeline, you can see he’s always thinking several years ahead. Plenty of good products were just bridges to great products. Some products didn’t make any sense until later. Probably one reason that people like to speculate about Apple’s plans is that Apple actually uses pla…

> I doubt Microsoft or Google could give more accurate pictures of where they’ll be in 10 years. I doubt that 10 years ago SJ could have guessed Apple would make money mostly on phones and music player.

>I doubt that 10 years ago SJ could have guessed Apple would make money mostly on phones and music player.

Given that the iPod came out 9 years ago, in 2001, I'm sure the market was on his radar. Heck, the iPhone started development in 2004, 6 years ago. And I have to believe Steve has a vision and was simply waiting for the technology to catch up.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#22

Post by sudont »

patio11 wrote: post #18
delackner wrote: post #13

Some really amazing quotes in there including some off the cuff observations that became truly prescient: "If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years." iPhone, OS X growing like wild today. About... 20 years after he said that. And Mac OS 9 (yes, the mac also started to suck), Windows 3.1, Windows 95,…

what better description than a dark age. The largest, fastest, most important rollout of technology in the history of mankind. Seriously.

Yeah, but .NET, IE6 and a lack of any UNIX underpinnings scares a lot of us. It was pretty impressive, though.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#24

Post by segabach »

epo wrote: post #19
brc wrote: post #8

I love the absolute irony of an article, printed in its day to carefully explain to people what Silicon Valley was, what a computer was, and what it was all about. Preserved for eternity on the internet and readable only on computers.

Sorry, that's not irony either, you perhaps mean an amusing coincidence. Not being a gramar nazi but the word "irony" has a very precise meaning, misusing it devalues the language. Explicit in the notion of irony is contradiction, e.g. saying one thing while meaning the opposite (such as saying about the Kin mobile phone "now there was a successful product"). Sorry, personal bugbear, my problem.

Actually it doesn't have to be the opposite. It just has to be something repurposed into a context not intended by the original meaning.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#25

Post by access_denied »

patrickaljord wrote: post #9
celoyd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His consistency seems really important to me, but it isn’t as remarked upon as, for example, his perfectionism. When you look at Apple’s product timeline, you can see he’s always thinking several years ahead. Plenty of good products were just bridges to great products. Some products didn’t make any sense until later. Probably one reason that people like to speculate about Apple’s plans is that Apple actually uses pla…

> I doubt Microsoft or Google could give more accurate pictures of where they’ll be in 10 years. I doubt that 10 years ago SJ could have guessed Apple would make money mostly on phones and music player.

He knew it. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls...

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#26

Post by joezydeco »

comatose_kid wrote: post #12

Talking about Commodore & Atari 8 bit machines: "I consider those a brochure for why you should buy an Apple II or Macintosh. I think people have already determined that the sub-$500 computers don't do very much. They either tease people to want more or frustrate people completely." Seems like he's believed that you can't make a good computer at the $500 price point for a long time now (his take on netbooks is pretty…

$500 in 1985 dollars is roughly $1,000 today.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#28

Post by chunkbot »

kemiller wrote: post #27

This parenthetical caught my eye: "(It is also worth noting that of the 100 Americans named by Forbes, Jobs is one of only seven who made their fortunes on their own.) " My, how things have changed.

Now how many people are on the Forbes' list of 100 richest Americans who made their fortunes "on their own"?

(Not to diminish the work of those who started with "more" in life.)

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#30

Post by Homunculiheaded »

justinph wrote: post #5

Jesus, I never realized how on message the guy has been for 30 years. If you showed that 1985 Steve Jobs an iPhone, I don't know if he would be impressed or be nonplused and see it as some obvious progression that he's had in mind for a long time.

not to be overly nit-picky but I think you're using 'nonplused' to mean the opposite of what it does. The word means to be bewildered or at a loss for words, in this context you seem to be saying that Steve Jobs would be 'unfazed' or 'unimpressed'
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