I wish that before Steve had left us, someone would have been able to ask him about the lack of a magical user experience for developers. While Apple has always made "closed" hardware, the Apple II and the early Macs were delightful toyboxes for swaths of young people: BASIC, Hypercard, ResEdit, etc. They (we) learned, tinkered, explored, taking the concept of a "bicycle for the mind" to a whole new level.<p>There's a lot to like about modern Mac and iPhone development: the tools and the documentation are arguably better than they've ever been, and the APIs have become absurdly powerful. But there's very little magic or UX to be found for the young and the new: even if you scrape together the $99 and brave the frustrating certificate process, it still takes a lot of overhead to make anything happen on the screen. (Recent improvements like ARC and storyboards help, but they're a band-aid.)<p>I think there remains a tremendous unfilled space in the computing world for usable "prosumer" programming, in the spirit of Hypercard. If the FSF types could pull their neckbeards out of their UNIX sphincters for five minutes, they'd see that the real barrier to truly free software is software that's trivial to learn how to edit or create [1]. And if Steve had seen this as a priority, I have no doubt that he could have made it happen.<p>[1] Obviously, not all software could be written this way; we'd still need engineers. But even web-enabled Hypercard-style apps would allow people to create a great deal of value for themselves and others, and give them the courage to venture deeper.
"Mr. Jobs leaves behind a dominant Apple, fulfilling his original promise to save the company from the brink when he returned in 1997. Because of its enormous strength in both music sales and mobile devices, Apple has more power than at any time in its history, and it is using that power to make the computing experience of its users less free, more locked down and more tightly regulated than ever before. All of Apple’s iDevices — the iPod, iPhone and iPad — use operating systems that deny the user access to their workings. Users cannot install programs themselves; they are downloaded from Apple’s servers, which Apple controls …<p>… Today there is no tech company that looks more like the Big Brother from Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial than Apple itself, a testament to how quickly power can corrupt."
That was something that I needed to read. Yes, Steve was a genious, but we can't let death create a saint from him. With Apple's giant profit margins he <i>could</i> enforce better working conditions. I also don't like the closed ecosystem idea, but that is just my PoV and I understand why people support it to have a better overall usability.
I'm not sure how unique Apple is in supply chain human rights issues, but I will say that it's appalling how little anyone seems to care about who we are literally killing to have nice things. I'm just as hypocritical and evil as everyone else, too, so please save your ad hominem responses.
It'd be interesting if Apple were bold enough to pursue Fair Labor Certification even if it meant pricing their products even higher, but I think Apple has the exact customer base that'd be willing to pay the Fair Labor premium.
No mention of <a href="http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/</a> or the Code of Conduct they put together after the Foxconn fiascos.
I love this op-ed, I've harbored similar feelings since the rise of iTunes and haven't owned an apple product since its arrival. I have always readily admitted the superiority of Apple's design and user experience and I admire Jobs for everything he has accomplished but Apple has never, in my eyes, been a company truly deserving of celebration.
This article makes several valid points, but the overall 'hook' or theme doesn't really make sense. Steve Jobs was very nostalgic, greenlighting the original 'think different' campaign profiling historical figures, and more recently the iconic advertising featuring The Beatles, which apple worked so long to get into iTunes.<p>There are also valid points made about the manufacturing situation in China, but he did not explore any real counterargument. The factory jobs in China are not perfect, but do we know if those workers are fundamentally opposed to it? China tried to avoid this type of capitalistic society for a generation, and was not happy with the results. I think it is fair to critique the standards of the factories, but without providing an alternative solution to lifting a billion people into prosperity, I think it was kind of a low blow against Steve in the article given the timing.
Daisey is more eloquently and sensitively restating the same arguments that Stallman wrote, drawing much flamage, earlier today: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417</a>
This article mirrors my thoughts - Steve Jobs was truly a great business man who revolutionised consumer technology and the entertainment industry.<p>But if we really think that these are the industries that betters humanity, we need a strong reality check.
I wish that the bio at the end, which promotes the author's Steve Jobs monologue (<i>"scheduled to open at the Public Theater on Tuesday"</i>) hadn't been added. It lessens the power of some of the points he brings up, and makes his argument seem more like an advertisement.<p>In addition, the safety, health, and compensation of workers at suppliers' factories in Asia could have been explored more. The fact that workers' rights in China and elsewhere are so poor is one of those uncomfortable realities about global manufacturing that most consumers -- and fans of Apple and Steve Jobs -- would rather forget.
The outpouring of emotion we've seen over the last few days is not due to nostalgia. It's because a person many people have admired and looked up to is gone.<p>Steve Jobs was a hero for a lot of people in technology, especially for entrepreneurs and it's ok to grieve when your heroes die.<p>Nobody is claiming Steve Jobs was perfect, he had flaws like any other a human being. But he was a damn good entrepreneur and for many people that's no small thing, it's what many of us are dedicating our lives to.
Most good things, taken to an extreme, become terrible in some ways. In this case, consumerism -- the United States, and increasingly the world, have taken consumerism to an extreme. Our culture has been systematically shifted by laws, advertising, taxes, and our own desires to drive us towards making and lusting after purchases.<p>We enjoy a high quality of life, and many amazing technologies, in part due to our rampant consumerism, but the side effects may not be worth it.
the wrong shade of yellow in the second “O” that this story mentions
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/2/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKxXTw" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/u/2/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSS...</a>