Admittedly, as Wilson argued, Steve Jobs probably wasn’t an Einstein. But then again A N Wilson, great writer and polemicist that he is, probably isn’t a Tolstoy. Jobs deserves praise as a visionary and one of the most transformative figures of the information age.
I understand the point that A N Wilson is trying to make in the Mail. In this post-Diana, emotive age in which we live, the public overdo hero worship.
A N Wilson is wrong though if he thinks that all Steve Jobs did was to invent “needless gadgets.” No, what Jobs did transformed the way we live, the way the computer industry thinks about their products and how computers interact with the public.
I agree with Wilson, that Jobs was not, to quote Stephen Fry, “the most important person on the planet.” That was Fry’s delusion not Jobs’s (to quote Charles De Gaulle, “The graveyards of France are filled with indispensible men”).
Many would argue, though, that not since Eve took a bite out of that apple in the Garden of Eden (which the Apple logo alludes to) has so much knowledge been as accessible to people all over the earth.
As with Eve, that knowledge also brings consequence to the world; Wilson is right, there is a lot of useless tosh on the web but that's where man comes in, with the freedom to choose the internet’s wheat from the misinformation chaff.
Printing press inventor, Johannes Guttenberg, who Wilson cites, did not write the Bible he simply made it more accessible to others; yes, as Wilson states, that was transformative to society. Jobs too, through his many products has done the same; the big bulky text of a Guttenberg reduced down to the size of a phone or a pad; an “app”, searchable, annotatable, with instant cross referencing; and not just the Good Book, but the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, Book of Mormon and a whole library of books, movies and music, right in the palm of your hand.
Albert Einstein was a visionary and by all accounts the smartest man ever to grace the planet. To measure up Jobs to Einstein is a bit of an unfair comparison; but to the revolutionaries cited by Wilson, including Guttenberg; Spinning Jenny inventor James Hargreaves, Brunel or Henry Ford of the Industrial Revolution are more apt. You can count Steve Jobs among them.
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. His genius was to mass produce it in such a way, on an assembly line, where the cost came down and for the first time the average middle class family could afford a car, the Model T, available in any colour as long as it was black.
McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc did the same with the simple American Hamburger, “there’s not much you can do to improve on it,” but in Kroc’s case was the ability to mass produce them, inexpensively and with consistent quality; marketing them in such a way that he was able to sell billions of burgers around the world every day.
Bill Gates is the Henry Ford of mass computing, he simply tooled the operating system to make it possible for anyone to use his machines. Michael Dell, also like Ford, found a way of building personal machines on a factory line, bringing down costs, so that nowadays not only is there a car in every garage but several desktop computers and laptops in every house.
Steve Jobs, in his way though, has been more visionary than the others in shaping our relationship with the computer. The computer became more than Charles Babbage envisioned – some sort of ‘computing’ or calculating machine. To Jobs it was not a mere machine: It is a stylish, trend setting device; it communicates, entertains, and bring people together.
Jobs changed our relationship with the computer. He developed the Graphic Interface –the use of symbols that people would ‘point’ at with a device –or mouse—copied by Microsoft and others and totally changing the way we interface with computers. Even today, Apple is doing it again. It was the iPhone that brought us the “app” and the many buttons on the desktop that one simply taps on to access. Now Microsoft and hardware manufacturers are following suit. Touch screen computers (which have been around for about 10 years in certain industries such as mine as a broadcaster) are finally reaching the mass market as manufactures follow where the iPhone, iPod and iPad’s touch screen have led; Microsoft’s latest operating system it is reported, will replace the start button with a series of blocks on the home page for the user to simply point and press with their fingers. Touch screen computers will become standard equipment in the next few years thanks for Job’s vision.
The best comparison to Steve Jobs would be with America’s most prolific inventor and businessman, Thomas Alva Edison. Where Edison was the Benjamin Franklin of his day, Jobs is the Edison of his. These were men who had a transformative effect over their worlds. They were larger-than-life truly American figures. They grasped the idea of the American Dream –Capitalism and the free market-- dreaming both for them and for the many others with the products they invented, improving the lives of millions at the time.
The comparison is apt, the light bulb, invented by Edison, shining over Steve Jobs head illuminating not just the genius of new ideas, but a passion for innovation and the ability to totally transform not just our lives, but to transform the way we use and interact with products such as computers and mobile phones
The comparison is fitting. Edison is famous for the light bulb, but he is also the inventor of the gramophone record and motion picture camera. Jobs replaced the record and the CD with iTunes, the first commercially successful mass marketing of digital music. We now listen to music not on the gramophones or record players of Edison, but the iPods, Nanos, and other devices of Jobs. Jobs, a renaissance man worthy of Edison, also made a major improvement on Edison’s invention of the movie camera. His company Pixar, was the first to make totally digital, computer generated films, such as “Toy Story.”
Sure, Apple computer owners –like Radio Four listeners —can be a little peculiar, snooty and disdainful of PC users (I am one of the latter but not yet one of the former). They look down on us PC users as plebeian and common; not able to think on Apple’s own terms, they believe themselves to be a league apart, no mere geeks, but trendy style setters, their computers as fashion statements.
I can’t necessarily blame them, for Apple is probably the world’s premier brand. In marketing terms, Jobs has developed very distinctive brand values: Stylish, forward thinking, with unique operating software, providing both the hardware and the software. Customers talk about the level of service and training they get at Apple stores, unlike the common cattle-class treatment the rest of us PC users get at the back of the plane. Nothing against Microsoft, I swear by them; Gates like Jobs is also a visionary and one of the great industrialists of the PC age. I have a friend, though, who worked proudly for Microsoft for 17 years. Leaving them last year to set up his own marketing company the first thing he bought was a Mac.
With newspaper readership falling by the day, A N Wilson, who makes his living in the “rag trade” should note the recent comments from Rupert Murdoch, who sees the iPad as the device that will finally monetise newspaper readership on the internet. The iPad, not the newsagent is where you will probably pay for and pick up your Daily Mail in the future.
I would even go so far as to put Jobs up there with the great religious and political leaders named by A N Wilson. Like Thatcher and Reagan, Jobs brought a certain kind of freedom, maybe not political, but a financial freedom to his many investors and employees. Financial freedom to the billions of persons who own and are affected by his products every day; they have enriched our lives, made us more productive and freer. They have allowed us to communicate faster, seek information quicker, to be creative and entertained.
Forward thinking, progressive and intuitive, Jobs, unlike Einstein, was truly a renaissance man. Jobs was a modern day Leonardo da Vinci; an inventor but also an artist.
Apple’s products are post-modernist design classics; aesthetically stylish and functional at the same time. Like da Vinci it is reported that Jobs has left his own “notebooks” with development plans for Apple for the next four years. Jobs was a man with one eye on the product’s design and the other on its functional future.
Steve Jobs was a man ahead of his time who died well before his time. His finger, not just “on the pulse” but pushing it like an “app” (Source from : Daily Mail)
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