I
don’t think Daily Mail columnist A N Wilson fully appreciates the
impact that Steve Jobs had on society. I am not surprised that Jobs’
untimely death has elicited sadness and sorrow from all corners of the
world. Wilson may feel –and I agree—that some statements from public
figures go over the top – but that does not lessen the powerful effect
that the Apple founder had on the world.
Admittedly, as Wilson argued, Steve Jobs probably wasn’t an Einstein.
But then again A N Wilson, great writer and polemicist that he is,
probably isn’t a Tolstoy. Jobs deserves praise as a visionary and one of
the most transformative figures of the information age.
I understand the point that A N Wilson is trying to make in the Mail. In
this post-Diana, emotive age in which we live, the public overdo hero
worship.
A N Wilson is wrong though if he thinks that all Steve Jobs did was to
invent “needless gadgets.” No, what Jobs did transformed the way we
live, the way the computer industry thinks about their products and how
computers interact with the public.
I agree with Wilson, that Jobs was not, to quote Stephen Fry, “the most
important person on the planet.” That was Fry’s delusion not Jobs’s (to
quote Charles De Gaulle, “The graveyards of France are filled with
indispensible men”).
Many would argue, though, that not since Eve took a bite out of that
apple in the Garden of Eden (which the Apple logo alludes to) has so
much knowledge been as accessible to people all over the earth.
As with Eve, that knowledge also brings consequence to the world; Wilson
is right, there is a lot of useless tosh on the web but that's where
man comes in, with the freedom to choose the internet’s wheat from the
misinformation chaff.
Printing press inventor, Johannes Guttenberg, who Wilson cites, did not
write the Bible he simply made it more accessible to others; yes, as
Wilson states, that was transformative to society. Jobs too, through his
many products has done the same; the big bulky text of a Guttenberg
reduced down to the size of a phone or a pad; an “app”, searchable,
annotatable, with instant cross referencing; and not just the Good Book,
but the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, Book of Mormon and a whole library of
books, movies and music, right in the palm of your hand.
Albert Einstein was a visionary and by all accounts the smartest man
ever to grace the planet. To measure up Jobs to Einstein is a bit of an
unfair comparison; but to the revolutionaries cited by Wilson, including
Guttenberg; Spinning Jenny inventor James Hargreaves, Brunel or Henry
Ford of the Industrial Revolution are more apt. You can count Steve Jobs
among them.
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. His genius was to mass produce
it in such a way, on an assembly line, where the cost came down and for
the first time the average middle class family could afford a car, the
Model T, available in any colour as long as it was black.
McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc did the same with the simple American
Hamburger, “there’s not much you can do to improve on it,” but in Kroc’s
case was the ability to mass produce them, inexpensively and with
consistent quality; marketing them in such a way that he was able to
sell billions of burgers around the world every day.
Bill Gates is the Henry Ford of mass computing, he simply tooled the
operating system to make it possible for anyone to use his machines.
Michael Dell, also like Ford, found a way of building personal machines
on a factory line, bringing down costs, so that nowadays not only is
there a car in every garage but several desktop computers and laptops in
every house.
Steve Jobs, in his way though, has been more visionary than the others
in shaping our relationship with the computer. The computer became more
than Charles Babbage envisioned – some sort of ‘computing’ or
calculating machine. To Jobs it was not a mere machine: It is a stylish,
trend setting device; it communicates, entertains, and bring people
together.
Jobs changed our relationship with the computer. He developed the
Graphic Interface –the use of symbols that people would ‘point’ at with a
device –or mouse—copied by Microsoft and others and totally changing
the way we interface with computers. Even today, Apple is doing it
again. It was the iPhone that brought us the “app” and the many buttons
on the desktop that one simply taps on to access. Now Microsoft and
hardware manufacturers are following suit. Touch screen computers (which
have been around for about 10 years in certain industries such as mine
as a broadcaster) are finally reaching the mass market as manufactures
follow where the iPhone, iPod and iPad’s touch screen have led;
Microsoft’s latest operating system it is reported, will replace the
start button with a series of blocks on the home page for the user to
simply point and press with their fingers. Touch screen computers will
become standard equipment in the next few years thanks for Job’s vision.
The best comparison to Steve Jobs would be with America’s most prolific
inventor and businessman, Thomas Alva Edison. Where Edison was the
Benjamin Franklin of his day, Jobs is the Edison of his. These were men
who had a transformative effect over their worlds. They were
larger-than-life truly American figures. They grasped the idea of the
American Dream –Capitalism and the free market-- dreaming both for them
and for the many others with the products they invented, improving the
lives of millions at the time.
The comparison is apt, the light bulb, invented by Edison, shining over
Steve Jobs head illuminating not just the genius of new ideas, but a
passion for innovation and the ability to totally transform not just our
lives, but to transform the way we use and interact with products such
as computers and mobile phones
The comparison is fitting. Edison is famous for the light bulb, but he
is also the inventor of the gramophone record and motion picture camera.
Jobs replaced the record and the CD with iTunes, the first commercially
successful mass marketing of digital music. We now listen to music not
on the gramophones or record players of Edison, but the iPods, Nanos,
and other devices of Jobs. Jobs, a renaissance man worthy of Edison,
also made a major improvement on Edison’s invention of the movie camera.
His company Pixar, was the first to make totally digital, computer
generated films, such as “Toy Story.”
Sure, Apple computer owners –like Radio Four listeners —can be a little
peculiar, snooty and disdainful of PC users (I am one of the latter but
not yet one of the former). They look down on us PC users as plebeian
and common; not able to think on Apple’s own terms, they believe
themselves to be a league apart, no mere geeks, but trendy style
setters, their computers as fashion statements.
I can’t necessarily blame them, for Apple is probably the world’s
premier brand. In marketing terms, Jobs has developed very distinctive
brand values: Stylish, forward thinking, with unique operating software,
providing both the hardware and the software. Customers talk about the
level of service and training they get at Apple stores, unlike the
common cattle-class treatment the rest of us PC users get at the back of
the plane. Nothing against Microsoft, I swear by them; Gates like Jobs
is also a visionary and one of the great industrialists of the PC age. I
have a friend, though, who worked proudly for Microsoft for 17 years.
Leaving them last year to set up his own marketing company the first
thing he bought was a Mac.
With newspaper readership falling by the day, A N Wilson, who makes his
living in the “rag trade” should note the recent comments from Rupert
Murdoch, who sees the iPad as the device that will finally monetise
newspaper readership on the internet. The iPad, not the newsagent is
where you will probably pay for and pick up your Daily Mail in the
future.
I would even go so far as to put Jobs up there with the great religious
and political leaders named by A N Wilson. Like Thatcher and Reagan,
Jobs brought a certain kind of freedom, maybe not political, but a
financial freedom to his many investors and employees. Financial freedom
to the billions of persons who own and are affected by his products
every day; they have enriched our lives, made us more productive and
freer. They have allowed us to communicate faster, seek information
quicker, to be creative and entertained.
Forward thinking, progressive and intuitive, Jobs, unlike Einstein, was
truly a renaissance man. Jobs was a modern day Leonardo da Vinci; an
inventor but also an artist.
Apple’s products are post-modernist design classics; aesthetically
stylish and functional at the same time. Like da Vinci it is reported
that Jobs has left his own “notebooks” with development plans for Apple
for the next four years. Jobs was a man with one eye on the product’s
design and the other on its functional future.
Steve Jobs was a man ahead of his time who died well before his time.
His finger, not just “on the pulse” but pushing it like an “app” (Source
from :
Daily Mail)
