Stephen Fry meets Steve Jobs

Notable quote:<p><i>"Will you perhaps leave Apple on this high, a fitting end to your career here?" "I don't think of my life as a career," he says. "I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That's not a career — it's a life!"</i>

Worth reading for the anecdotes and Stephen's wonderful writing style alone, but here's a key point I sometimes need reminding of (apologies for the long quote):<p><i>What Ive and his team understand is that if you have an object in your pocket or hand for hours every day, then your relationship with it is profound, human and emotional. Apple's success has been founded on consumer products that address this side of us: their products make users smile as they reach forward to manipulate, touch, fondle, slide, tweak, pinch, prod and stroke.</i><p><i>If you are immune to that kind of thing, or you think it somehow weak, pretentious, artsy-fartsy or unbusinesslike, then there are enough functional objects in the market for you. But you might consider this: from the starting point of delight, detail, finish, polish and design come not, it seems, shallow high-end toys for the affluent but increasingly products that are ... well, awesomely functional.</i>

"One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker's Guide that humankind has yet devised."<p>I find this pretty touching, when I first read the hitchhikers guide I remember the excitement of owning a guide, while I doubt I will get an ipad, if I do, it will certainly have a "dont panic" cover

I think the one of the most telling nuggets in that piece is from designer Jonathan Ive:<p>"For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there's nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with"<p>Also, as someone with experience in quantitative marketing, the following quote made a lot of sense as well. In my opinion, quantitative marketing and analytics are great tools, and as we've seen in both sports and business, people use them do have an advantage. Again, however, in my opinion these tools are too reactionary and don't leave as much room for creative thought.<p>"It's not for us to predict what others will do," Ive says. "We have to concentrate on what we think is right and offer it up."<p>You gotta give it to jobs, that Ive guy is obviously incredibly bright and Jobs takes credit for finding him too.

As something of a Fry fanboy I get the sense that the Time sub-editors did some serious work on that article. Much of the tone remains but the progress and overall rhythm of the piece seem off-kilter from what I'd expect.

<i>"I have met five British Prime Ministers, two American Presidents, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson and the Queen. My hour with Steve Jobs certainly made me more nervous than any of those encounters."</i>

Kind of a frightening photo of Jobs with that story, too.