Apple's Life After Steve Jobs

animusCollards writes "Slate ponders a post-Steve Jobs Apple, including possible successors, and the future is... boring. '..it's certainly true that Jobs' style is central to the company's brand and the fierce connection it forges with its customers. His product announcements prompt hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free press coverage and whip up greater and more loyal fans, generating ever-greater interest in the company. ... At some point, all that will end. Jobs will eventually leave the company. There are no obvious plans for succession; in addition to Schiller, observers finger Tim Cook, Apple's COO, and Scott Forstall, who helped develop Mac OS X and the iPhone's software, as contenders for the job. But Tuesday's keynote illustrated how difficult it will be for any of those guys to replace Jobs.'"

Comments

I for one was pretty let down with this keynote

[utahraptor]

I don't know if it was just a lack of Jobs or a lack of innovation, but this was the first one of these that really lacked something new and fresh. Quite frankly none of it excited me this round.

Re:I for one was pretty let down with this keynote

[Shag]

The rumor sites were expecting practically everything including the kitchen sink, so by failing to introduce new iMacs, new Mac minis, the iPhone nano and... did I miss anything?, Apple didn't live up to their (completely delusional) expectations.

What really gets me is tech news sites - even MacWorld - calling the 17" MacBook Pro "disappointing" or "unattractive" because it's just a larger-form-factor MBP. Uh... hasn't it always been? Haven't the 15" and 17" always been pretty similar internally? And it's got this spiffy new battery made with Romulan technology, and anti-glare screens are back, and oh, yeah, there's a third USB port, woohoo.

It's funny, though - Apple is such a style cult, and has such a following, that the 17" MBP is being judged against... what, exactly? People's delusional expectations, apparently. Because it's not "disappointing" or "unattractive" when you compare it with every other 17" notebook in existence, is it? 1920x1280, check. 2.93GHz processor option, check. 256GB SSD option, check. Up to 8GB of RAM, check. 1066MHz FSB, check. 802.11n, check. ExpressWhatever, check. FW800, check. Dual video chipsets, check.

Yeah, I can probably get all those features somewhere else (though a fair bit of googling wasn't exactly productive)... but in a package under 25mm thick and under 3kg, with at least the potential for 8 hours of battery life? Fuhgeddaboudit. Doesn't sound so "disappointing" or "unattractive" to me.

And really, the MBPs won't be fully exploited until Snow Leopard and OpenCL drop, right?

I'd like to Apply for CEO of Apple

[scorp1us]

Here are my qualifications:

• 15 years in the software industry
• I have no problem saying 'no'
• I believe that removing stuff can add value
• I do not try to include all features possible
• I only include features to make a useful device
• I will not accept "it can't be done"
• I will create technologies needed to achieve my concept
• I will look to see what other companies aren't doing, and do it

Creating Fans By Attrition

[DynaSoar]

The admirers of Apple's cult of personality forget how it was created: Jobs drove away those who didn't fit his whims. He had the first Mac designed around his choices for the Apple II that Woz over ruled. The very act of creating it was purposely divisive, with a skull and crossbones flag flying over the Mac building, and non-Mac people barred from entry except by invitation. Rather than complimentary lines, the Mac was intended to supplant the very successful and projected to be long-lived Apple II (16 bit version in production, 32 bit processor, machine and OS in design phase). After Woz got fed up and left*, Jobs shut down the Apple II line. At every step people who'd been loyal employees, customers, third party manufacturers or fans fell away -- literally by the millions. More than once, to a lesser but significant extent, severe and abrupt changes to the Mac line instigated repeat performances of the II exodus. "Love it or leave it" seemed to be the corporate motto.

Jobs' cantankerous ways with the remaining employees, manufacturers and fans drove away so many, including major players and stock holders, that he was taken out of the spotlight and replaced by John Scully. It took a decade for him to grow up enough to be given back the reins.

Those remaining fans view Jobs as charismatic. Ex-fans remember him as anti-charismatic, and view him that way still if they even bother to think about him at all.

I've recounted these and similar details before, and gotten modded down as flamebait and troll. I expect the same to happen now, despite the fact that while it may be in somewhat negative phrasing, it's accurate and verifiable in media archives and others' writings. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was an Apple II fan in the extreme, was senior/technical editor of an Apple II fan-zine (The Road Apple; the first computer media source published simultaneously in the US and USSR), and said much these same things back then. But I'm not the only one who said them. I'm just one of the very few who still bothers to recount the history that most have ceased to care about.

* Woz left Apple primarily due to a re-examination of his life following a private plane accident. However, his displeasure at the direction of things was no secret, nor was Jobs' efforts to marginalize him. Between those, had he not had the accident, he'd almost certainly have left anyway.