[X4U] Apple sans Jobs comments

[David Ledger]

At 12:39 -0700 5/10/13, Cat wrote:
>Wondering what people think about commentary about Apple without Steve Jobs...
>things like, "Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs" and other "discoveries" 
>like this meant to suggest that Apple is doomed to coast on the 
>fumes of Jobs's legacy until it withers and fades.
>In some commentaries, Google/android are cited as the real innovators.
>How much of this is substance, and how much is marketing spin?
>thoughts?
>
>cat

I think Apple are still innovating but with some initial direction 
from Steve Jobs' ideas and way of doing things. Unfortunately I've 
yet to see any positive post-Jobs innovations. The "make OS X and iOS 
work the same" idea is a Jobs idea, and in my opinion one of the 
worst Apple ever had. The details of the way that idea is implemented 
are post-Jobs and from the reactions I read are poor. I only have a 
SIMless hand-me-down iPhone 3 so I can't judge myself.

Google have been innovators in the search engine sphere, but Android 
(I've seen them in shops) is just a patent avoiding poor attempt to 
provide the functionality of iOS; just like Windows 3 was a patent 
avoiding poor attempt to provide the functionality of MacOS.

Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs just as no person can be another. Remember 
that we use the Mac because Jobs had insight and Woz has technical 
expertise not because Apple made good products and happened to be 
started, and later run, by someone with good ideas. Jobs was key to 
Apple and the chance of them (or any other company) getting a 
replacement with the same insight is minute. This doesn't mean that 
Apple can't still innovate, but that their advantage over the 
competition is reduced. They still have a lot of expertise that can 
innovate. In Jobs' latter days he selected the good ideas of others 
at Apple and directed them so that they were in tune with his ideals. 
Those good ideas will continue to be produced. It's now up to Apple, 
not just Tim Cook, to do the directing and tuning. No other company 
has this long history of cultivating innovation among the ranks.

I'm no blind worshipper of Steve Jobs. I regard a lot of changes he 
made in his last ten years as undesireable (like the replacement of 
some Unix techniques and the OS X - iOS merge). What I really deplore 
is using software changes to force hardware sales. He started that 
and it's being continued. If I were ever in the market for a Tablet 
or a Smartphone I would buy second best rather than Apple simply 
because of that.

One company that constantly claims to innovate is M$. The only actual 
innovation that I can see that they've made is the three fingered 
salute - and that is only an admission that the software is faulty 
and needs a recovery method. When the systems I used and managed had 
that sort of problem there would be a full post-mortem to discover 
and correct the fault, not just say 'oh well Š' and reboot.

David - computers since '69, Unix since '83, Mac user since '86, Mac 
owner since '92.


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk