Has Steve Jobs Lost His Magic?

TimAbdulla writes to mention a Wired article wondering if Steve Jobs has lost his magic? The keynote yesterday, author Leander Kahney says, was the most uninspiring he's yet seen out of the usually charismatic man. Accompanied by other folks from within the company, Kahney wonders what lackluster showings like this will mean for the company after Jobs steps down. From the article: "Looking very thin, almost gaunt, Jobs used the 90-minute presentation to introduce a new desktop Mac and preview the next version of Apple's operating system, code-named Leopard. The sneak preview of Leopard was underwhelming. For what seemed an interminable time, Jobs and Co. showed off one yawn after another. There's no way I can get excited about virtual desktops or a new service that turns highlighted text into a 'to do' item. Oooo."

Comments

I know Leander K. and you, sir, are no Leander K.

[tgeller]

This "dumbarse" with a blog has been writing professionally, full-time, about the Mac for over ten years. I sat a few cubicles away from him at MacWEEK when he was a news reporter and I was a reviews editor, waaay back in 1996. He went on to his current job at Wired (where he's maintained the Apple beat) and has written two excellent books about Apple.

So, umm, no.

Re:illness

[bommai]

He had a rare form of curable Pancreatic Cancer. He was operated on two years ago. One thing about cancer (no matter what type it is) - you cannot predict 100% that it won't come back. May be he is ill and may be they are preparing for other people to take over keynotes and other duties. I watched the keynote and he did not have the usual energy. He looked emaciated. His walk was terrible. He has not looked well in a while. He looked even worse back when he introduced the intel Mac Mini and the iPod HiFi.

Re:It's all about the developers.

[metamatic]

If somebody wants to use a tablet PC for taking notes at an office meeting, I'd seriously wonder why they were taking The Paperless Office that far.

Efficiency. When I used to use a Newton to take notes, I could just upload the notes to my searchable index of project files when I was done.

Now, every time I take notes I have to spend the same amount of time again typing them up and redrawing the diagrams. That's wasted time.