The Unexpected Patents of Steve Jobs

Harry writes "It's no surprise that Steve Jobs' name is among those credited in Apple's patents for MacBooks, iPods, and other iconic gadgets galore. But the man holds patents for packaging, a staircase, iPod cases, and several intriguing products that Apple hasn't built to date. They all add up to an interesting portrait of the world's most famous tech CEO."

Comments

Really? The *infamous*?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Steve Jobs is not the world's most famous tech CEO.

Bill Gates has better name recognition than Jobs, if only because his philanthropy reaches so many more people than Jobs' work does.

Re:Really? The *infamous*?

[apodyopsis]

His philanthropic accomplishments are certainly praiseworthy, but it's worth remembering that his vast wealth was mainly accumulated with some really unpleasent business tactics.

See "A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm"
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

Whilst I congratulate the man for subsidising research and giving to worthy causes I have to wonder if he would do so much if he was not one of the worlds richest man.

Re:Really? The *infamous*?

[TheRealMindChild]

So spending money to save lives is a PR stunt? Maybe. Regardless, he is still saving lives. Give the man some bloody credit.

Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard

[Anonymous Coward]

"You think Jobs contributed in any technical way to any Apple product?"

Actually, yes.

Jobs is nowhere near technically competent as Woz, but can hold his own. Probably better than most coders here. Woz would probably agree if asked.

I know in the project that ended up being OS X, he was one of five engineers developing the product and while his role was more along the lines of project manager, he would get his hands dirty occasionally and contribute code or fix others foul ups.

I know this goes against the heavily manicured image he likes to maintain...he wants to be seen as the inspiration and not the source, but he still has a lot of geek pride. Those that work closely with him know that he is as willing to tear a piece of hardware apart as look at it...or ask to see the source. Occasionally his 'revisions' are more zenlike reductions of the code (which goes along with the infamous ordering of the engineers to align resistors on the back of the iMac circuit board to be more aesthetic). Those not within his inner circle only get to see the superficial side of all of this.

Left anonymous for obvious reasons.

Pardon me, but...

[denzacar]

How do you "almost misread" something?

P..P-a... (OMG! PANTS!)...P-a-t... (OMG! SOMEONE MISSPELLED PANTS!)...P-a-t-e... P-a-t-e-n... (OMG! SOMEONE HAS NO CLUE HOW TO SPELL PANTS!)... P-a-t-e-n-t... (OH! Not really pants... OMG! I ALMOST MISREAD IT AS PANTS!)... P-a-t-e-n-t-S... Patents...

Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard

[Sandbags]

He is that good. Every design, even in it;s most basic form, comes before him (or starts with him). He has very critical input, changes the direction of the deisgn, adds aesthetic charm to it, and has it redesigned at his orders to meet those specifications.

One of his programmers wrote a personal application for streamlining video editing. After seeing it, jobs gave him dozens of ideas how to make the app flow better, designed a more aesthetic interface, and commissioned a team to further the application based on his specs and ideas using the programmers initial work as a starting point. Although the idea was not his, the final product was very much shaped by him, and he was credited in the design of the current iMovie app.

jobs is not a coder, he's not a system engineer, but he's a design genious, and one of the singular most powerful infuencers of overall system design at Apple. Ideas like the lamp iMac, the apple remote design, how the apple store is staffed, software interface look and feel, and more all come from his mind.