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RIP Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
danny_galaga:
--- Quote from: Ed_McCarron on October 07, 2011, 06:10:50 am ---
--- Quote from: Pixelhugger on October 06, 2011, 09:24:30 pm ---at the very least because Apple was able to successfully market and evangelize a GUI.
--- End quote ---
That they (claimedly) stole from Xerox... :laugh2:
It's like BASF. They don't make the items, they make them better.
--- End quote ---
Well, it's not just a claim. It was so. Xerox didn't go ahead with the windows format (not actually being in the business of computers might not have helped. Why did they design it in the first place?) but like a lot of things, Apple saw potential in someone elses design. That makes them great in the same way that Ford saw the potential in motor cars and assembly lines. He didn't invent either of those things...
dfmaverick:
My understanding is that Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) had many items that would have made Xerox the greatest company ever, but the Xerox administration didn't understand what they had (GUI, ethernet, laser printers, mouse, et al). Xerox admin had PARC demo their items to Jobs, and there it went.
Jobs saw the potential and capitalized.
Vigo:
The whole history of GUI is very interesting stuff...and if you read up on Steve's hand in it, it really proves that he was a brilliant salesman who took from other people's ideas and made them successful, and not necessarily the visionary by himself. Xerox had designed it's first GUI, with keyboard and mouse, back in the 60's, about 10 years before the Apple II. When the Xerox released it's first commercial version in 1981 with the Xerox Star, every computer company and their Grandma scrambled to develop a GUI OS computer, all very closely based off of the Xerox system. The Xerox system used icons, files, and folders. It also utilized keyboard, mouse and ethernet connection.
Since there was a antitrust ruling against Xerox, from fear that Xerox was dominating the printer ink market, Xerox was unable to patent their GUI designs. Steve Jobs had gotten himself a demonstration at the Xerox PARC of the methods behind the GUI. Xerox reportedly did not know Jobs was a competitor, but who knows if that is true or not. After receiving a demonstration and meeting the team behind the project, he turned around and hired out a good chunk of the team to work for Apple. This gave Apple the edge to produce a GUI before it's competition with the Lisa computer and further crippled Xerox from really getting in the computer game. Apple, being able to patient their version of a GUI OS, had then turned around and sued or threatened lawsuit against a number of other computer companies who had developed a Xerox based GUI as well. The personal computer industry was very cut-throat at the time, and Apple had won that round.
Another interesting tidbit is that Since Jobs was not fully in charge of Apple at the time of the Lisa project, he was actually kicked off of the Lisa team. He had bungled up the Apple III big time, and he was starting to bungle up the Lisa project as well. Apparently he decided that the Apple III should have no vents or fans, and the components should all come clustered together. When the computers pretty much overheated right out of the box, it was obvious he was better suited as a businessman than an engineer. He was a George Lucas of the computer industry, great at putting together successful ideas, but should not be in direct charge of the product. The difference is that Jobs was smart enough to admit to his own limitations and step aside as needed.
Mikezilla:
Exactly. Its easy to improve on something when someone else already did the work, he just took the risk of making his face synonomous with the brand. I dunno, I dont get why people are going to apple stores and lighting candles and that he "changed the world". Cmon. ::) I was reading an article that he was compared to Thomas Edison. Really?! Cmon people. Is there anything that Apple has made that really "changed the world" in comparison to what Edison accomplished? Not to mention, can you really live without a specific Apple product?
Also, delete your Facebook if you have one. Its so ---goshdarn--- annoying with all the people that act like they personally knew Steve Jobs. I heard from a friend that worked at Apple that he was kind of a ---tallywhacker---.
Pixelhugger:
--- Quote from: Mikezilla on October 07, 2011, 12:05:33 pm ---I dont get why people are going to apple stores and lighting candles and that he "changed the world". Cmon. ::) I was reading an article that he was compared to Thomas Edison. Really?!
--- End quote ---
Agreed. The cult like reverence is ridiculous. I do think that people associate Apple's products with Jobs, as though liking the iPhone equates to liking Steve Jobs. I'm pretty sure most people would not have liked him much personally. Apparently he only agreed to a biography so his kids would know him. Combine that with his paternity denial after getting his girlfriend pregnant in his 20's and turning his back on that responsibility going so far as to lie in court documents that he was sterile.... not exactly the behavior you should hold a candle light vigil for.
I've always been an Apple fan and have had a great deal of respect for Jobs' role in directing product development but to confuse that with the individual is wrong. I thing the Onion put it best with their article on an Apple user acting as thoug his dad just died.
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