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Steve Jobs Resigns As Apple CEO

Posted by samzenpus on from the au-revoir-mr.-jobs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The title says it all, really; Steve Jobs has resigned as the CEO of Apple, and would like to become Chairman of the Board. Reasons are not specified, but his declining health of recent years is a likely candidate. He's named Tim Cook as his successor."

53 of 1,027 comments (clear)

  1. This is a sad day for the tech world by arcite · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well on one hand, its better to do these things while everyone is still healthy and of sound mind. It's a sad day for sure, but on a positive note, Steve has set a high bar for Apple to maintain. Combine this news with the fact that Steve's official BIO has been pushed up to be released sooner than expected...it doesn't look good. Be well Steve!

    1. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by ge7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He mostly set it in design. But realistically, he took the whole open platforms and devices to really bad direction with the closeness of iOS and maybe upcoming Macs. Would you really want that for computer world?

    2. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by bonch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Let's be blunt. Only nerds on tech sites worry about "closeness." They're a tiny niche that wants to keep their nerd playgrounds around. The vast majority simply wants good products that work.

    3. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Funny

      Millions of people also said "yes we do" to MS-DOS.

      Being the vanguard of those with absolutely no taste is not necessarily something to brag about.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think it's probably seen as sad in this case because it's assumed that if Jobs has felt the need to resign, it is because his health is deteriorating. Probably terminally.

    5. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 4, Funny

      >>...it doesn't look good

      Don't worry. When he dies, Jobs will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

    6. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but I don't see how this is sad at all.

      The most probable reason for this particular change is that Steve's health is failing; and this announcment is a proxy for "Guys, I'm not going to be ok."

    7. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by arcite · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Steve Jobs is the embodiment of the American Dream, there are scant few individuals on this earth than can attest to the scale of success that he has achieved. Others can better write platitudes of the specifics than I; however it is always a sad day when a great leader is forced to step down, especially when they are at the height of their success. Such is the human condition I suppose.

    8. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by MarcoAtWork · · Score: 4, Insightful

      do you really think he'd resign if his health was 100%? The fact that he's stepping down is definitely worrying, it's not likely he's stepping down to go work for another company or doing something else.

      And no, I don't know him in person, but I definitely respect him and his accomplishments, and wish him well, and I'm sure a lot of others are feeling the same way.

      --
      -- the cake is a lie
    9. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Vancorps · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If Apple history is any indication, tough times are ahead for Apple as they've only been successful in the past under Jobs direction. That might be why it's considered sad news by some. Me, I'm more curious about how things will change with a different CEO.

    10. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As much as Bill Gates may have been a royal thieving bastard, and as much as I loathe most of what Redmond has done over the last twenty years, anybody who says that Bill Gates was less important that Steve Jobs to the computer world is out of their minds. Gates' MS-BASIC became THE interpreted language of the late 1970s and right through the 1980s. Whatever the source of MS-DOS, the fact is that he built a mighty software empire at the same time as Apple was treating its product line like a walled garden. Yes, Gates had significant help from IBM, but the mere fact that the overwhelming majority of personal computers out there are running one of Microsoft's operating systems, and have been doing so since the final bell tolled for the 8-bit world in the late 1980s pretty much indicates that what you wrote is pure nonsense. Steve Jobs has his place in history, no doubt, but Bill Gates' role, particularly for that twenty year period from the mid-70s into the mid-90s is a primary one in the development of modern consumer and business computing.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because unfortunately Steve was one of the few CEOs of big American Corps that actually gave 2 shits about the product that his company made. Outside of a few others(Google being chief among them), the modern American CEO couldn't really give a flying fuck about what the company actually makes(see Balmer, Fiorna). They are there to absorb as much money as they can while doing nothing but playing financial games with the company's balance sheets. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny that Steve was genuinely passionate about technology.

      --
      Monstar L
    12. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by medcalf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am pretty optimistic about Apple, though, in the immediate post-Jobs era. The reason is because Jobs didn't just drive the development of great products; he also developed great people. The entire top leadership of Apple, not least Tim Cook who will replace him, follows and contributes to Jobs' philosophy on product design, markets to jump into, how to use the company's resources to secure strategic future technologies, when and why to kill your baby. In other words, it's at least a good 5 or 10 years before Apple's management culture starts to change significantly, meaning that Apple will continue to drive in the direction they've been going since Jobs came back in the late 1990s. As someone who really likes that direction, towards a simplified and thus more broadly useful application of technology, that makes me content.

      --
      -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
    13. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Chris+Tucker · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sucks to be you.

      I can't number the times I moved iTunes from OS 8 to OS 9 to OS X, from a 5500/225 to a G3 B&W, to a G4 MDD, to the current G5 dual processor. Can't number the number of hard drives I migrated all my apps and data between OS reinstalls or updates.

      I can, however, number all the times I lost the content on the iPod:

      0. That's ZERO. The big Goose Egg.

      Sorry about your fuckup. Sucks to be you. Next time, read the instructions and don't click OK on every popup without reading and understanding what you are about to do.

      --
      Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
    14. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by sg3000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Steve Jobs is the embodiment of the American Dream, there are scant few individuals on this earth than can attest to the scale of success that he has achieved.

      Jobs is arguably the best business leader of our era.

      He co-founded the hugely successful Apple out of the proverbial garage, got fired from his own company, went off and started NeXT, bought Pixar from George Lucas and turned it into something big. At the same time, he came back to Apple, made a huge hit with the iMac, then the iPod, then the iPhone, and now the iPad. Now Apple one of the most successful companies around. I'm not sure if any other business leader's accomplishments could beat that story.

      What impresses me is, as others have said, he actually cared about the products his company made. He wanted to make a "dent in the universe" and he actually did. He didn't do it by managing to costs or other things that business schools tell people to do, but by putting products and the user experience first.

      --
      Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
    15. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And all computers *won't* be like the iPad. This is a scenario that is invented whole cloth out of an irrational fear you and many other people here hold. You will always, for the rest of your life, be able to buy a Linux PC, Linux tablet, Linux phone, Linux whatever. Or possibly replace "Linux" with whatever open system replaces it if that happens during your lifetime.

      Do you know why that statement is true? That statement is true because people do care about openness and would not be happy if all computers were like the iPad.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    16. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Informative

      The iPod is just a cache of your music. It's not a backup.

      By any reasonable definition, it's a backup, since the files are physically there. It does, however, deliberately pretend for them to be inaccessible, unlike every other similar device on the planet.

      Case in point: when I bought my (non-computer-savvy) mother an iPad, the first thing that got her extremely annoyed was that she couldn't just drag and drop files to it in Explorer like she used to do with her USB sticks, MP3 player, and camera, but had to go through setting up sync in iTunes. She doesn't know what iTunes is, and doesn't want to learn yet another way of doing the exact same thing she already knows how to do.

    17. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So what you're saying is that millions of people are wrong and should bow to your taste. Sounds like a dictatorship.

      It certainly worked for Steve.

    18. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Bobartig · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not Carly Fiorina coming in and fucking up HP for a few years and leaving - Steve Jobs started the company, worked there ~10 years, left for a few, then came back and was CEO for 14 more. No other CEO on the planet is so closely associated with their company. As a pillar of the tech industry, his input drove the state of the art forward. It is a loss for the tech world when any big name leaves for good. By the way, this website is called Slashdot, and its a place for "News for Nerds," you know, people who generally care about technology.

      --
      This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
    19. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Bobartig · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't know how you did it, but you seem to have forgotten about this device called the iPod. Yeah, it brought PMPs to the mainstream. Apple sold a metric butt-load of them and made a mint in the process. Oh yeah, they also created an iTunes store, sold over 10,000,000,000 songs and other related media, and now sells more music than anyone else on the planet, including Walmart.

      iOS and iPhone didn't save Apple, it catapulted them from ludicrously successful to can't-talk-I'm-having-too-many-orgasms-all-the-time successful.

      --
      This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
    20. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It isn't taste, so much as the mass of people don't really need to do anything particularly special with a computer. Or any other thing really.

      You might, and I write might because most people here are complete posers, need your computer to do something particularly taxing or specialized. In the MS-DOS days people mostly needed to correct a paper they wrote without using up all their correction tape, or maintain a basic spreadsheet, or sort a list. No one needed a multi user UNIX machine for that nor did it makes sense to pay for one. MS-DOS and Windows built on top of it was adequate and cheap.

      I'm geeky about rifles. ANd having been a USMC 8541 my tastes run toward quality. When I walk into a rifle shop and see stacks of plastic stocked lowest bidder sticks I think about how people have no taste. But in reality some guy who shoots a deer a year at 75 yards has no need for a McMillan handle and would never ask enough of it appreciate the difference.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    21. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by mjwx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let's be blunt. Only nerds on tech sites worry about "closeness."

      Only aircraft engineers care about mechanical safety.

      That doesn't mean it's not important.

      The average technophobe doesn't worry about openness because they already have it and take it for granted, much like the average airline passenger takes for granted that the plane their flying on wont fall apart. What they dont know, nor want to know is that a lot of work goes on in the background by very dedicated people to ensure that everyone can enjoy the boon of openness or safe flights.

      Shove the average person into a world of "closedness" and they'll start caring about it quick smart.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    22. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by UncleTogie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But realistically, he took the whole open platforms and devices to really bad direction with the closeness of iOS and maybe upcoming Macs.

      Apple shareholders would beg to differ.

      What a coincidence! Standard Oil's shareholders said the same thing back in the day....

      Color me leery when people start equating "makes lots of money for a limited number of rich people" with "doing the right thing."

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    23. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He mostly set it in design. But realistically, he took the whole open platforms and devices to really bad direction with the closeness of iOS and maybe upcoming Macs. Would you really want that for computer world?

      What a silly question.

      Open systems need competition from closed systems just as closed systems need competition from open systems.

      A complete lack of direction cannot be the only way forward, and lack of diversity is not healthy. You need both.

    24. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by rocket+rancher · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seeing a problem and warning other just helps keep the consumer aware of the limitation of the device they are purchasing.

      " If yes, STFU, you KNEW what you were getting into when you laid down the plastic at the Apple Store or Amazon." Since apple doesn't go out of there way to tell people of their limitations, how do you know he was fully informed?

      Limitation? It's a fucking appliance, dude -- you don't buy a dishwasher if you want to do something besides wash dishes, do you? Apple devices are aimed at people that want the functionality, and have zero interest or desire in the mechanism that delivers the functionality. I'm a sysadmin, not a motorcycle geek -- I buy a motorcycle not because it is the most fuel efficient one, or the most mechanically reliable one. I bought a Ducati 1098 because it does what I fucking want it to do -- go insanely fast and look really good in my parking slot at work. I admin linux/windows/solaris/HPUX boxen, but I use an iPhone and an iPad because they do what I want them to do without having to RTFM. Just like my Ducati and my dishwasher.

    25. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Bemopolis · · Score: 3, Informative

      I had an eye-opening experience back when i bought my one apple product, an ipod nano (7 years or so ago), the 8GB model. I had it loaded up with music, and after reinstalling, wanted to get my music back by syncing it with the newly installed itunes. The result was a wiped ipod, as apple does not want me to own my data. Lession leaned.

      PEBCAK.
      1) Wipe iPod and enable for disk use.
      2) Back up music library before reinstalling OS.
      3) Drag music files back into iTunes.
      4) Go on with life.

      Unless you meant that the lesson learned was to back your shit up before reinstalling, you learned the wrong lesson.

      --
      "I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
    26. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by s73v3r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm gonna go out on a limb, and say that your mother is in the minority. The vast majority of people don't want to have to deal with Explorer to get their songs on a device.

    27. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by s73v3r · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, it does. It told you EXACTLY what it was going to do. You decided to ignore it, and let it do what it said it was going to do.

    28. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by narcc · · Score: 3, Funny

      1) Wipe iPod and enable for disk use.
      2) Back up music library before reinstalling OS.
      3) Drag music files back into iTunes.
      4) Go on with life.

      Just works, eh?

      So according to your steps ... you wipe the device before you back up your data? How's that work out for you?

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    29. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by Steauengeglase · · Score: 3, Funny

      Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, man just imagine what those guys could have accomplished with an MBA?

    30. Re:This is a sad day for the tech world by GauteL · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Wait, when a consumer spends a dollar for a iBlah, it's a vote for closed garden."

      This is a straw man. The argument here is not that people WANT a closed garden, it is that they don't care. I sincerely doubt that openness figures in people's minds when they buy a consumer product and Apple have proven this with the iPad sales vs. any other tablet. So Android's lead in the phone market is likely to be to something else. Most likely the availability of low-end Android handsets.

      Obviously, this is an indirect consequence of the closed garden. Apple does not compete for low-end markets, so there is no low end iOS devices. However, if Samsung didn't compete for low end Android phones, someone else would because Android is open.

      But this doesn't change the fact that the consumer doesn't care about openness, even if they do care about some of the indirect consequences, and if Apple decided to compete for the low-end market by introducing an iPhone Nano, they would most likely own that market as well.

  2. So... by NecroPuppy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will the Turtleneck of Power be passed on to Cook?

    Or will it instead be enshrined in a glass case at Apple HQ?

    --
    I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
    1. Re:So... by kaizokuace · · Score: 5, Funny

      Will the Turtleneck of Power be passed on to Cook?

      Or will it instead be enshrined in a curved glass case at Apple HQ?

      fixed.

      --
      Balderdash!
  3. And in other news, the iPhone 5... by MrDoh! · · Score: 5, Funny

    is rumoured to have Flash, USB ports, AND a 3.5" floppy disk.

    --
    Waiting for an amusing sig.
    1. Re:And in other news, the iPhone 5... by Chryana · · Score: 4, Funny

      Picture of the upcoming iphone 5.

  4. Loved his work or hated it, he was big by BBTaeKwonDo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We'll miss you, Mr. Jobs. Wish you good health.
    Sincerely,
    Apple fans everywhere

  5. The end of an era by mailman-zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the end of an era. I can only hope that his health is not too bad, but I have my concerns.

    --
    Let's play video games with mailmanZERO
  6. Steve's impact on the world by dreadlord76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even though I don't qualify as an Apple Fanboy, Steve's impact on the world of computing is felt everyday by all of us.
    While Xerox PARC did the original GUI environment, and invented little things like the Mouse, Steve's vision with the Mac changed the computer world. It made computer accessible, influencing Windows and other OSs to make their system accessible to the masses.
    Apple, Next, Pixar, Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPads.
    I believe Steve made the world better.

    1. Re:Steve's impact on the world by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It was designer Steve Jobs that focused on the systematic problems of computer usage that changed the world.

      What on God's green earth are you talking about? Steve Jobs was not the one who saw a problem with the corporate vision of computing-as-a-utility. Wozniak was the one who aligned with people like Lee Felsenstein and the Homebrew Computer Club, and Wozniak was the one who designed PCs that people wanted. Steve Jobs did not envisioned the GUI interface, the mouse, video games, WYSIWYG, tablets, PDAs, smartphones, or anything else that has made Apple a successful company.

      Steve Jobs has two talents: the ability to see what products can be marketed, and the ability to market those products to home computer users. He is not a designer of anything other than good business plans.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    2. Re:Steve's impact on the world by tmp31416 · · Score: 5, Informative

      not again...

      NO.

      Xerox PARC *DID NOT* "do" the original GUI environment. Doug Engelbart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart) did it at SRI.
      Xerox PARC *DID NOT* invent the mouse. Engelbart did it also at SRI.

      People overestimate PARC's importance, downright ignore Engelbart and underestimate Apple's contributions (when they don't say that Jobs & co. "stole" from Xerox)... this cheeses me off royally. /rant

    3. Re:Steve's impact on the world by harperska · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's weird, I believe Woz made the world better.

      Yes, Woz is an amazing engineer, and Jobs is a sales guy. But Jobs had the vision that Woz lacked. If Jobs hadn't convinced Woz to join him in founding Apple, Woz would have remained just another engineer at HP or wherever. The truth is that everything that Apple has done has been the vision of Jobs (except during the exile years when Apple had no vision). Jobs just needed a good engineer to implement his vision of what personal computing should be. In the beginning, that was Woz. In Apple 2.0, that has been various people, mostly the team he brought with him from NeXT, as well as Jonny Ive who could implement his aesthetic vision for technology.

      The hope is that this team that could implement Jobs' vision can have its own vision that is just as visionary.

    4. Re:Steve's impact on the world by kocsonya · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Xerox PARC *DID NOT* invent the mouse. Engelbart did it also at SRI."

      Um, Telefunken had a mouse with a ball before Engelbart had his with the wheels. That is, the German mouse was already like the (mechanical) mice we have today. See http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/misc/telefunken.shtml

  7. Enjoy a happy retirement by Kittenman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Put your feet up, go fishing, read some books. Lord knows you've earned it. And nope, I'm not an Apple man - but I recognize hard work when I see it.

    --
    "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. High standards is the lesson by QuatermassX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm rather saddened by this news. Jobs' attention to detail and intolerance of crap amazes and inspires me.

    It's simple, really. We should all have such high standards, perhaps then the world would be full of more exquisite and useful things.

  10. Re:Lemme be the frist to say: by blind+monkey+3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, buy. I'm going full-in. I'll be an millionaire.

    So, you're telling us your a billionaire then?

    --
    BM3
  11. Re:What happens next? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Then, maybe, just maybe, I could consider buying a Mac. But then again, more factories like Foxconn wouldn't exactly be great."

    Right. Because those Foxconn components in your Dell, HP, or Lenovo PC, or Android phone are made by the *not* evil Foxconn. You know, the one in Iowa where everyone makes UAW level wages, gets free health care and plenty of paid time off.....

    --
    There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
  12. We'll miss ya, but thanks for the past and next yr by mbourgon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    End of an era. I started with an Apple ][+ and am typing this on my iPad 2. These definitely been ups and downs, and I still love the old NeXTStep OS.

        On the plus side, it looks like the short term (next 1-2 years) is taken care of.
    iPhone5-cross carrier
    iPad3
    The new paradigm machines due out later this year (not sure what this is besides an A5 ultralight/ultra cheap)
    AppleTV becomes a game console.

    Live well, Steve. You may have been pompous and arrogant, but you cared about the design.

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
  13. Not so fast... by rocket+rancher · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple itself announced that Jobs has been elected chairman of the board.

  14. Re:Tomorrow is another day by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're under the assumption that nobody can drive a tech company like Jobs. If that is the case, even a very ill Steve would be better than a fully healthy somebody else. But that may not be good for Steve.

    The one thing Steve brought to Apple was the last details that are often missing from products. You may not like the iPhone lockdown or Macs or whatnot, but to ignore where smartphones and tablets are today, you have to admit that AAPL was THE driving force behind those products. THEY got it right, first time, out of the box.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  15. Re:To Quote Obi-Wan by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Funny

    No exaggeration. This is one of the only tech news stories that I've actually heard about IRL instead of the internet. Someone actually looked at me on the sidewalk and said "Oh my God, Steve Jobs retired!"

    I said "FIRST PSOT!!!!" and was trying to think how to use HTML formatting to link to a relevant XKCD before I realized it was a conversation and not slashdot. But it's okay, I'm safely back in Mom's basement now.

  16. Ha, history fail by unassimilatible · · Score: 3, Informative

    Perhaps you didn't hear that Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985, then Apple failed in his absence, then Jobs came back and orchestrated the greatest comeback in corporate history, and made stockholders like myself a fortune.

    Apple also bought NeXT from Jobs for millions, and it became the Mac OS.

    Oh, and this thing he bought called "Pixar" for $5M? He turned it into the most successful movie studio in history, and sold it for like $6 billion.

    Epic history fail.

    --
    Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
  17. execution is NOT marketing by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You must have missed the part where I gave Jobs credit for his marketing talent.

    He didn't miss that part. It was simply wrong.

    Oh sure Jobs has some marketing talent. But far more than that, he has the ability to EXECUTE a product.

    That means taking raw technologies and forming them into something people actually want to buy. It means betting on the right technologies for a long lasting platform, or having the skill to make what you picked work for you (really a mixture of both).

    Marketing is the very tiny tip of the iceberg where you try to get through to people what you have actually made. But it doesn't help at all unless people want to buy what you have made. You can't market a bad product from a cold start with no rep, and unless you have built up a good reputation over time with products people have liked using they are not going to trust that your product is what you say it is.

    Jobs is also really good at being willing to move on to new frontiers instead of simply milking what they have to death. That is what I think he spent to most time trying to drill into Cook and other Apple execs, hopefully the message has got through.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley