Friday, October 7, 2011

Steve Jobs: Rest in Peace, Crazy One.


Not many of us get the opportunity to witness our own funerals. Steve did. When he announced that he was stepping down as Apple CEO in August, 2011, every news portal was eulogizing the man as if he had already bought the great data-farm in the sky. Journos across the globe suddenly forgot how much they hated iTunes and hammered out misty-eyed pre-death obituaries. They detailed how Steve had single-handedly carved the PC from a single block of hype, convinced millions to stop pirating music and start paying for it, delivered a smarter-than-smart smartphone to the masses… and probably gave us world peace – or, at the very least a mirage of peace if you wander through his utopian Apple Stores. Not surprisingly, most of the glowing tributes were written by the “money media”…

Forbes:
Apple became a huge Ferrari responsive to his touch alone.  Like a great conductor, he assembled a vast orchestra of skilled players who obeyed him with complete fealty.  When he tapped the podium, all noises ceased.  Like Solomon, he commanded his minions to undertake great projects and summoned them to show him the results. [1]

 Money.CNN:
Apple's fans flocked to Twitter and other social-media sites to mark and mourn the CEO torch-passing. "The end of an era!" one Twitter user wrote, while another voiced the fears many share: "I pray it's not bc [because] of his health.” [2]

 Wall Street Journal:
The news of Mr. Jobs's resignation quickly became the talk of the Internet. Overwhelmed with traffic, the blog Cult of Mac temporary went offline. "This thing is melting down," said editor Leander Kahney, about an hour after the news broke on Wednesday. [3]

 Fortune:
The tech community tonight experienced its version of an earthquake. [4]

On the BBC News, Steve-Stalker and comedian, Stephen Fry, became deadly serious for a moment to talk about the resignation of his man-crush. He intoned with the gravitas that only the British are capable of expressing: 

I don’t think there’s a human being on the planet who has been as influential in the last thirty-years on the way culture developed. I don’t think there is anyone who has proved quite so conclusively that passion and taste and belief are more important than a hard bitten business head. [5]

(For God’s sake, Stephen)

Someone out there in cyberspace felt it necessary to publish stevejobsresigns.org.

While the Western media sombrely waxed lyrical about the passing of the Apple torch, the Chinese reaction was to go crazy with grief as if someone had shot their puppy.

The China Daily reported:
Jobs' resignation ranked the top hot topic of the day on Sina Weibo, the country's most popular microblogging site, with 1.5 million posts on the topic by midday Thursday … On the question of "how do you think Jobs' resignation will affect Apple," …half of the survey respondents said the company would lose its soul… 20 percent said they would no longer buy Apple products. Li Yi, deputy director of China Mobile Internet Industry Alliance, said he believed that Apple could only reach its prime with Jobs in control.

From CNN’s surprisingly brilliant article, ‘China's Apple fans lament cult figure Jobs' resignation’:

Liu Jinhua says she almost choked when she heard the news that Steve Jobs has resigned. "I couldn't believe what I heard," says the private entrepreneur. "Then I chose to not to believe it." Liu is a confirmed Apple fan. At home and in her office, she and her husband own four iPhones, two iPads, three Mac laptops, two Mac desktop computers and two iPods. "For a long time I was absolutely speechless," Liu recalls…
Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer noted that "four stores in China were, on average, our highest traffic and our highest stores in the world."

China's wealthy consumers have embraced Apple products, analysts say, largely because of Jobs' charisma and business acumen.

Business analysts say Jobs is a cult figure among the iPad generation in China. Jeremy Goldkorn, an expert on Chinese digital media and founder of media and advertising website Danwei.org, said: "Bill Gates used to be the business leader that you'd most often hear young Chinese people talk about but that was mostly because he is very rich. Steve Jobs is not only very rich, but he's also responsible for the iPhone and iPad, which in a few short years have become highly desirable gadgets that project status."

Carrying the iPhones, iPods and iPads have become a conveniently portable way of projecting status. Apple products are a symbol of status for its Chinese fans. For many Apple owners, a Chinese analyst says, "Apple products indicate posh, wealthy, creative and well-educated."

Goldkorn thinks Apple's success in part lies in its products' expensive prices, which has given Apple the status of a luxury brand. "Just like large Gucci and Louis Vuitton logos on handbags, using an iPhone in public is an easy way to show you have money to burn."…

A typical [microblog] message said, "three apples have changed the world. One seduced Eva, one awakened Newton, the third one is in the hands of Jobs." Another message posted by @ Jinzheng said "no matter what happens to the third Apple, the world became wonderful because of your (Jobs) existence." [6]

Wall Street Journal quoted a Chinese fanboy, ‘”Never has one company’s products been so deeply intertwined with my life,” former celebrity TV anchor-turned-Internet entrepreneur Wang Lifen’[7]  Steve’s most remarkable achievement in China was becoming their Gadget God without ever publicly addressing the Chinese people. In fact, it is difficult to find any record of him ever setting foot upon Chinese soil.

On the other hand, Chinese factory workers who have suffered permanent injuries from building Steve’s fancy gadgets – gadgets they will never afford - couldn’t give a frog’s fat ass about Steve stepping down. [8]

The first big thing the new Apple CEO Tim Cook did was unveil the latest iPhone. It would be safe to assume that Apple should have something pretty darn special to compensate for Steve not taking the stage. You can get away with a great CEO holding aloft a boring product; but you can’t get away with a boring CEO holding a boring product.

With Old Man Steve off the premises, unfortunately it seems that Apple’s engineers decided that they could goof off and hand in half an assignment. The new iPhone 4S relied upon customers appreciating its inner beauty. On the outside, it looked no different than the iPhone that Apple chumps had bought only a year ago. If Tim Cook’s Apple knew anything about the market, they would realise that their customers prefer that their latest gadget look different than the last one precisely so they can advertise that they have the latest one. Applytes need to know that a skyrocketing credit card debt and lining up for hours outside an Apple Store is worth all the grief. Apple should have at least stuck some superfluous gizmo on it, or painted it bright magenta – anything, so long as it looked different from the last iPhone. Apple’s failure was giving its customers credit enough not to be so shallow. Good luck with that, Tim.

Apple “didn’t quite understand how revved up expectations had gotten,” said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc. Some users were looking for a more revolutionary iPhone 5, rather than just a faster iPhone 4, he said . [9]

Months before the new iPhone, a viral video appeared featuring an iPhone 5 armed with a holographic keyboard and display.[10]  It got everyone excited around the water cooler at work. This did not help the ridiculously high expectations. Perhaps the “S” in 4S is a cheeky Apple engineer’s code for “Shortchanged”?

Currently, there are over twenty Google/Android-loaded smartphones already on the market that beat the 4S on spec. They have 8MP+ cameras, over 4inches of screen space, longer battery life, and dual-core CPUs with 1Gig+ processors (Apple A5 chip? – whatever, Dude). Google has recently bought Motorola Mobility– Apple’s arch nemesis in the mobile arena.[11] The deal will make mincemeat of the iPhone 4S which has now proven that it was all sizzle and no steak.

One day later Steve died. Interesting timing, to say the very least. Ex-Apple employee, and constant Apple-Watcher, Robert X. Cringely wrote, “it’s suddenly clear why Apple didn’t introduce the iPhone 5 this week. It would have been lost in the news of Jobs’s death”.[12] The news of Steve’s passing was so shattering that this author’s estranged girlfriend broke a two year silence and texted the news to him. It must have been difficult for many journos to come up with something new to say when he died. After all, they shot their wad by writing all those pseudo-obits when he resigned. The answer for many was to simply ramp up the idolatry.

The dead are so often canonized in their passing. Mere mortals become gods once they enter the grave. Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, The Smithsonian Blog and Cringely called him a modern day Henry Ford, Even actor Alec Baldwin twittered, “Sad about Steve Jobs. On par with Henry Ford…”. [13] Was Old Man Steve really on par with Old Man Ford?

Steve often spoke of Henry as one of his personal heroes. Both men were cranky tyrants who decided what people should buy without bothering with pesky market research. Both men gave their customers as little choice as possible because they felt they knew what’s best for them. They both had colour fetishes. Steve liked white and Henry liked black – but for very different reasons.

Henry preferred “Japan Black” because it dried quicker and therefore he could push more T-Models out of his factories. Whereas, Steve liked white.. well.. because he had a thing for white. Steve delayed the release of the white iPhone 4 because the shade wasn’t quite perfect.[14] Henry’s black was six shades of ugly because it was choc-full of bitumen, which made it damn tough – good for the customer who just wanted a car that didn’t rust.[15]

Unfortunately for poor Henry, car buyers became spoilt by the gargantuan auto market that he had built. Drivers began demanding more colour choices. General Motors kicked Henry’s butt by offering every colour of the rainbow. On the other hand, Apple customers enjoy a masochistic comfort in Steve’s lack of choice. They are like the Japanese bondage queen, hog-tied to the ceiling by intricate rope-work, waiting for Daddy to tell her what to do. Lack of choice worked for Steve, but not for Henry.

Nevertheless, Henry’s butt-ugly-black car was the first automobile that was affordable enough for the men who built them to purchase for one for themselves. Henry democratised the automobile by passing the savings he made to the American Everyman. He then raised wages and built a happy factory culture enjoyed by generation after generation of American workers.

Steve was the antithesis of the above hero. Rather than lower his price tag, Steve raised his price tag higher than the competition. He then shut down his American factories and contracted the Chinese to build the same pricey products for a bowl of rice and mattress on the floor. His savings were not passed onto his customers.  He was no Henry Ford.


Steve was more like Willy Wonka from Roald Dahl’s children’s book, Charlie and The Chocolate factory. Both Steve and Wonka are suitable for children aged 8-80.


The comparisons began after the first iPhone was released. In Dan Lyons’s Options – a fictional diary of Steve - Bono from U2 gives Fake Steve a piece of his mind:
Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, you’re like Willy fookin Wonka in his fookin chocolate factory, out there baking up your fookin iPods, and meanwhile the fookin planet is fookin meltin, ya fooktard. [16]

After the first iPad launch, Mike Daisey’s show, The Agony and Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs, was promoted as, “The epic story of a real-life Willy Wonka whose personal obsessions profoundly affect our everyday lives"

The founder of Tumblr, David Karp, says both Steve and Wonka are his personal interchangeable heroes:

It’s sort of the same as Steve—the idea that there is this magical factory, and you can’t begin to imagine what went into these things… [though] Apple is way scarier than Willy Wonka’s factory. [17]

It is rumoured that Steve played up to this growing parallel with Wonka. Steve was spotted wearing “a very funny hat — a big top hat kind of thing.” whilst dining with fifty NY Times executives in Manhattan.[18]

The comparison reached a critical mass around the time of iPad 2. The comedy website, CollegeHumor.com, published a viral video entitled Charlie and the Apple Factory. It was soon re-published across the blogosphere. The four-minute cartoon followed Steve as he endeavoured to show Charlie ”what makes Apple so special”, only to find out that “there’s nothing that makes Apple that special. We sell the same junk as everyone else. We just convince everyone that it comes from a magical place… Our junk may be the same, but we pride ourselves on showmanship”. Later the Ooompa Loompas chant, “Do you really need all this crap? You do if we say you do.”[19]

One Macrumours forum commentator asked the question, "Are Chinese like Umpa Lumpas?" [20]

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory reads like Steve’s own for management style handbook. Wonka’s sub-human workers were chosen because they are so kowtowed that they won’t sell-out his secrets. The mixing of chocolate via a waterfall seems superfluously complicated but it creates an illusion of specialness around its manufacture. The capricious Wonka provokes the citizens into fighting each other for the opportunity to see inside his top secret factory. Undesirables are eliminated from his inner circle if they prove to be bozos. Accidents occur in his factory, but Wonka is unperturbed, as he seems to enjoy a diplomatic immunity from his indiscretions. If anyone were to complain, they would find that the complaints process so complicated that they wouldn’t bother with it. Wonka prefers to pass his factory on to a child so that he won't have to deal with an adult trying to do things their way. One can’t help but notice that magical glass elevator is reminiscent of Steve’s magical glass Apple Stores. 

Here’s some choice Wonka quotes that could have been uttered by Steve:

"Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple” 

“We are the music makers... and we are the dreamers of dreams.“

“Suspense is terrible, I hope it'll last" 

"You should never doubt what no one is sure about” 

"A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men."

Finally, here’s Wonka-rism that Steve has actually repeated almost word-for-word:

Wonka: “Uh, Little Boy, My chocolate must be untouched by human hands” [21]

Steve: "…and it's built completely untouched by human hands" 

Steve said this to Popular Science Magazine in 1989 when he was showing off his NeXT factory. [22]

Here’s to Steve Wonka!

Here’s to the crazy one!!








[1] Kay, R (2011, August 25) Apple Without Steve Jobs. Forbes Magazine.

[2] Segall, L. & Goldman, D. (2011, August 25) Apple CEO Steve Jobs resigns. money.cnn.com. Retrieved from: http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/24/technology/steve_jobs_resigns/index.htm

[3] Iwatani Kane, Y. (2011, August 25) Jobs Quits as Apple CEO. Wall Street Journal.

[4] Primack, D. (2011, August 24) Fallen Apple: Steve Jobs resigns. Fortune Magazine.

[5] BBC News 25th August, 2011

[6] FlorCruz, J. (2011, August 26) China's Apple fans lament cult figure Jobs' resignation.

[7] Chin, J. (2011, August 25) A Place on the Ark? China Internet Users React to Steve Jobs’s Resignation. Wall Street Journal.

[8] Mclaughlin, K.E. (2011, August 30) China: Apple workers react to Steve Jobs’ resignation. Retrieved from: http://news.salon.com/2011/08/30/china_apple_workers_jobs/singleton/

[9] Satariano, A. & Burrows, P. (2011, October 5) iPhone 4S could be challenge for Apple this holiday season. Washington Post.

[10] Hiner, J. (2011, September 1) Future iPhone concept: Laser keyboard and holographic display. CBSnews.com. Retrieved from:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/01/scitech/main20100366.shtml

[11] O’Grady, J.D. (2011, August 15) Wowza! Google acquires Motorola Mobility in defensive move. Zdnet.com. Retrieved from: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/wowza-google-acquires-motorola-mobility-in-defensive-move/10886

[12] Cringley, R. (2011, October 6) Steve Jobs. Retrieved from: http://www.cringely.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-is-dead/

[13] CNN (2011, October 6) Entertainment world mourns Steve Jobs. Retrieved from: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/showbiz/jobs-reax/index.html

[14] Cox, J. (2010, October 17) White iPhone Seen in The Wild. PC World.

[15] Berthon, D. (2008, September 26) Time for a T party: 100 years of Ford's famous Model T. The Age.

[16] Lyons, D. (2008) Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs. Massachusetts: Da Capo Press.
[17] Schonfeld, E (2011, February 24) Tumblr's David Karp: My Heroes Are Steve Jobs And Willy Wonka [blog]. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/founder-stories-tumblr-karp-jobs-wonka/

[18] Maurer, D. (2010, April 2) Steve Jobs in Secret New York Meeting With Top Times Execs. New York Magazine

[19] CollegeHumor.com (2011,March 2) Charlie and the Apple Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6440954/charlie-and-the-apple-factory

[21] Dahl, R. (2011) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. London:Puffin.
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