Steve Jobs had grand plans for Apple’s new headquarters, but now there are questions over whether the company should be going through with them: “Apple hasn’t announced any major changes to Jobs’s vision, so some of the sought-after $1 billion savings will likely come by rolling back his sky-high requirements for fit and finish. Rather […]
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Tim Cook’s Freshman Year: The Apple CEO Speaks
Cook reflects on his early days with Apple, how the company has changed in the past year, and what Steve Jobs told him before he died: “So we started talking about what it meant. Again, this is when I am thinking, and I’m certain he’s thinking, that this is going to go on for a […]
Ink-Stained Assassins
A brief history of the political cartoonist, whose job is endangered in the digital age: “Martin Rowson in particular seems to revel in mixing allusions to obscure literary texts with lashings of excrement. A cartoon he drew last month for the Morning Star features a ‘fivearsed pig’, shitting turds emblazoned with the logos of London […]
The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale?
Entrepreneurs continue to reflect on the lessons of Steve Jobs—is his story ultimately a cautionary tale about a person obsessed with the wrong things in life? “Soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, he decided that a shipping company wasn’t delivering spare parts fast enough. The shipper said it couldn’t do […]
How Tim Cook is Changing Apple
Nearly one year after taking over for Steve Jobs, a report card for the new CEO. The company has never been more efficient, or fun, but some are wondering about the future of the products: “The ultimate ‘tell’ of tectonic changes at Apple will be the quality of its products. Those looking for deficiencies have […]
Apple’s War on Android
Steve Jobs pledged to go “thermonuclear” in Apple’s battle against Google’s Android and device manufacturers like Samsung who he claimed ripped off the iPhone and iPad designs. But bringing a patent fight to court comes with significant risks: “Several Asian manufacturers were noodling around with similar-looking rectangular smartphones before the iPhone came to market. Tipping […]
The Tweaker
Was Steve Jobs a Samuel Crompton or was he a Richard Roberts? In the eulogies that followed Jobs’s death, last month, he was repeatedly referred to as a large-scale visionary and inventor. But Isaacson’s biography suggests that he was much more of a tweaker. He borrowed the characteristic features of the Macintosh—the mouse and the […]
A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs
I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. […]
What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really?
It’s intriguing, if depressing, to imagine what the digital world would have been like if Kobun had given Jobs the opposite advice, along the lines of Jobs’ own now-infamous challenge to Pepsi CEO John Sculley: “Do you want to sell stylish electronic gadgets for the rest of your life, or come with me and vow […]
Scott Forstall, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice at Apple
In many ways, Forstall is a mini-Steve. He’s a hard-driving manager who obsesses over every detail. He has Jobs’s knack for translating technical, feature-set jargon into plain English. He’s known to have a taste for the Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG, in silver, the same car Jobs drove, and even has a signature on-stage costume: black shoes, […]
