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Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

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Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#101

Post by ecopoesis »

Intermernet wrote: post #96
simonh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did, but profit has always been a higher priority for them than market share and the 'platform dominance' that goes with it. If they happen to get a large market share, or if their platform becomes dominant anyway that's a nice benefit, but it's not a strategic goal. A good example of when Apple became a market share elader is the iPod. If you look at Apple's product strategy though, they never did anything to g…

Apple dropped DRM in iTunes because of bad PR. Everything Apple have done with regards to content distribution has been a balancing act between industry demands and PR. Except for Sony, every other media player disregarded DRM. You may not have noticed this if you only had an iPod. The fact that they joined the ranks of their competitors in this regard should not be seen as a positive, it should only be seen as PR.

That's untrue. Every audio ecosystem, be it iTunes, Zune, Rhapsody, whatever had DRM. It was a requirement from the record labels.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#102

Post by Jare »

ddebernardy wrote: post #93
tdicola wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation. In fact what would become America Online was just starting out as a BBS. The internet was available at most colleges, and tools like email and usenet were in full use. I think his statement is like someone right now saying electric cars will be a huge thing in the future.

His statement is in no way similar to some random guy making a prediction that electric cars will be huge in the future. Unless that random guy happens to be named Elon Musk: working hard on actually making it happen. As I recollect the times, computers were rare enough at the time that we passed as a truly geeky family. And in spite of being fairly early adopters of IT as consumers, I can't recollect internet in our…

The movie War Games came out in 1983, and Neuromancer the book in 1984.

I can't imagine a single tech-minded person in 1985 not dreaming of a connected world, and the myriad dangers it could bring. It's the speed with which it has spread and become mainstream that is astonishing.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#103

Post by Intermernet »

ecopoesis wrote: post #101
Intermernet wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple dropped DRM in iTunes because of bad PR. Everything Apple have done with regards to content distribution has been a balancing act between industry demands and PR. Except for Sony, every other media player disregarded DRM. You may not have noticed this if you only had an iPod. The fact that they joined the ranks of their competitors in this regard should not be seen as a positive, it should only be seen as PR.

That's untrue. Every audio ecosystem, be it iTunes, Zune, Rhapsody, whatever had DRM. It was a requirement from the record labels.

Not true at all if you bought a device that wasn't made by the big players (the majority of early media players). They had no DRM, and provided uniform, simple USB removable media access to the media on the device.

The record labels only stepped in when your quoted companies/brands entered the fray.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#104

Post by porter »

ekianjo wrote: post #39

> Jobs: my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening. I'm very glad that IBM and its compatible equivalents won the market, we would certainly be in much Darker Ages should Apple have won the desktop war, with their close-minded view on the world a…

But Peter says competition is for losers!

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#105

Post by virmundi »

melling wrote: post #86
ekianjo wrote: post #39

> Jobs: my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening. I'm very glad that IBM and its compatible equivalents won the market, we would certainly be in much Darker Ages should Apple have won the desktop war, with their close-minded view on the world a…

Yeah, imagine if the car market had been won by General Motors and 9 out of 10 cars was a GM. That's what happened in desktop computers. All other variants died. Apple was down to 4% at one point, and Microsoft extinguished all competition by requiring hardware makers to pay for DOS no matter what OS they actually shipped. Anyway, don't you think we'd all be better off with 3 or 4 desktop and mobile choices?

Actually, no. Having multiple targets requires more shots. Ammo cost. Every company has to figure out how they will handle the mobile market. They have to pour resources into android and iPhone or else into a bridge tool like appcellerator. Bridge tools have costs because the require customization time.

Compare this to modern Web Development. There is only one family of targeted platforms: html and Javascript. That's it. Don't like Javascript? Tough. But at least you don't have to learn and pay for multiple, vendor-centric tech. I actually long for a standard platform for native mobile development.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#106

Post by snowwrestler »

gumby wrote: post #25
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. So is this only a good response because apple succeeded so well or should they have done market research and done even better? I ask because the logic for every startup is do market research (now called validation) in some fashion - even if it is the landing page approach. I guess I am asking, prior to the succes…

Well, it's half bull. Apple _did_ have market data as they had already launched the Lisa and had seen what worked (and what didn't). People did like the bitmap display and mouse interface, but couldn't stand the cost or lack of applications (note that mac development was well under way when the Lisa launched). In addition, they made a lot of changes post launch due to market acceptance, e.g. size of storage, cost etc…

There's an important difference between market data--which comes from actual sales--and market research, which is done prior to the launch (and sometimes even prior to the development) of a product.

Apple pays very close attention to market data, and it obviously informs their product development (see the big iPhones now, for example). What they tend not to do is market research: surveys, polls, focus groups, etc.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#107

Post by _lr12 »

Oddly prophetic note on Radio Shack, which is recently sending signals about its impending bankruptcy.

Jobs: "Radio Shack is totally out of the picture. They have missed the boat." - "...their model of retailing, which in my opinion often meant selling second-rate products or low-end products in a surplus-store environment."

And the nail in the coffin: "I don’t anticipate that they’re going to recover and again become a major player."

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#108

Post by tim333 »

_lr12 wrote: post #107

Oddly prophetic note on Radio Shack, which is recently sending signals about its impending bankruptcy. Jobs: "Radio Shack is totally out of the picture. They have missed the boat." - "...their model of retailing, which in my opinion often meant selling second-rate products or low-end products in a surplus-store environment." And the nail in the coffin: "I don’t anticipate that they’re going to recover and again becom…

It's quite impressive that Radio Shack have kept going as long as they have. Here's the Onion's take

http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-ho...

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#109

Post by benihana »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18
ulyssesgrant wrote: post #3

Great read. Haven't finished it yet, but this answer was really perfect: "Jobs: Let me compare it with IBM. How come the Mac group produced Mac and the people at IBM produced the PCjr? We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market researc…

We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. So is this only a good response because apple succeeded so well or should they have done market research and done even better? I ask because the logic for every startup is do market research (now called validation) in some fashion - even if it is the landing page approach. I guess I am asking, prior to the succes…

I think it's less a quote meant to be taken literally about doing market research and more a quote demonstrating about the values Apple was working with when building this. I think approaching designing a computer for mass production the way a craftsman or artist would approach their work is the really insightful thing to be pulled from this quote.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#110

Post by Rapzid »

ekianjo wrote: post #79
pedalpete wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "Dark Ages" of the desktop was inconsequential due to adoption of the internet.

All platforms were not necessarily equal when the Internet/WWW came around. The browsers eventually came to be multi-platform and support standards but it took a very long time to move away from platform specific software. Look at the legacy created by IE, for example.

Standards brought us out of the dark ages. Perhaps the dark ages were necessary for us to arrive at where we are today. The importance of standards and interoperability over the past decade has made possible what we have today.
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