Steve Jobs - Genius by Design - Essay Example

Steve Jobs Steve Jobs was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder of Apple and Pixar. He was born in San Francisco, California to a Syrian father and mother Joanne Simpson. Paul Jobs and Clara of Mountain View later adopted Steve Jobs. He graduated from Homestead High School in California in 1972. He later enrolled in Portland’s Reed College in Portland. A semester later, Jobs dropped out of the college (Isaacson 3). He later studied philosophy and foreign cultures. Jobs had an inherent interest in technology. He got a job at Atari Inc, a leading manufacturing firm of video games. Steve Jobs made a friendship with a colleague, Steve Wozniak. They both attended the “Homebrew Computer Club” meetings. After saving money for some time, Steve left his country for India in order to explore enlightenment. When he returned, Jobs convinced Wozniak to leave his work at Hewlett Packard to unite with him in his project that was concerned with personal computers. The two sold items such as scientific calculators in order to raise capital. In 1976, the two, Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer in a family garage. The company’s first personal computer went for $666.66. Apple had released three improved editions of personal computer by 1980. The company had a successful IPO, something that made the two founders millionaires (Quinn & Tayal 9). A quarrel with his company’s Board of Directors led to Steve Jobs’ resignation. He decided that he would transform the hardware industry. Hi new company was called NeXTStep. The company produced NeXT Computers. The NeXT Computer was a commercial washout, but managed to help with object-oriented programming, magneto-optical devices and PostScript. In 1996, he returned to Apple after it acquired NeXT. Steve also founded Pixar, which produced blockbuster films that included Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredible. Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreas malignant tumor in 2004 that was successfully treated. In August 2004, Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO and became the Chairman of the Board. Jobs passed away On October 5, 2011 (Isaacson 21). Many people will remember Steve Jobs for many things, for not only the unbelievable products he helped make, but his bequest also broadens to the long-lasting impact he had on technology, gaming, and entertainment. From founding Pixar to developing the Apple and invention of the iPod, people will remember Job’s biggest contributions to technology. Although some of the early Macintosh computers were used for games, and he worked for Atari as a technician, his contribution to the games industry materialized recently with the coming of iOS, the mobile operating system of the company. Steve Jobs takes credit as the main inventor of the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and iOS software. Through his work, Jobs contributed towards creating the most victorious mobile gaming platform around the world. With about 300 million devices sold, billions of downloads served and more than 500,000 apps released since its introduction, iOS boasts of being the fastest growing. Jobs did not anticipate that iOS could become such an all-encompassing gaming platform, but it has changed the industry of mobile gaming (Lyons 12). Before its start, two companies –Nintendo and Sony, dominated the gaming market. Today, the Apple corporation is selling more iOS devices than the two companies combined. The impact of iOS goes beyond units sold and the share of the market since it is also attributed to ushering in an era of game design, control schemes that are touch-enabled, digital delivery methods and hardware functionality. iOS have made games accessible to many people than before (Lyons 34). With the iOS housing iTunes App Store, many games are just a download away. With its simple and motion-enabled system, it is very easy for everyone from a child to an elderly person to play. Without the efforts of Steve Jobs, the gaming industry as we are aware today would not exist. When digital media is concerned, no product has been as influential as the iTunes and iPod, and Jobs led the development of the two. Once more, neither idea was new, but Steve was responsible for making them famous. With the introduction of the iPod in 2001, Apple managed to spark a digital revolution that permitted consumers to carry with them many songs on a single device in pockets. The iPod was a big success and became a leader in Apples products. Initially, iTunes allowed consumers only to split music from compact disks (CDs) and handle their digital library (Quinn & Tayal 16). In 2003, Apple started the iTunes Store that gives users the capacity to download a single track and albums digitally in a legal manner. The iTunes Store was the first digital service to get commercial success since it sold 100 million songs in one year. Today, statistics show that consumers have downloaded over 12 billion songs, and the service now includes movies, television shows, apps for IOS devices and digital books. The service is the largest digital store around the globe. So many characteristics led Steve Jobs to rank high among the most successful entrepreneurs in the 21st century. Jobs personality traits are a model for people in every way to achieve incredible success. Some of the traits that people, businessmen and entrepreneurs can opt to include his strong vision. Jobs vision for Apple Company was to come up with products with elegant design and simple user interface that could be accepted by all age groups. Jobs saw how corporations such as Microsoft were dominating the software industry by developing and licensing operating system to function on multiple platforms. Steve was strongly opposed to that approach. He wanted an entire control over the experience of the user. Jobs achieved this by minimizing his software to run on the products of Apple products. He gained complete control over the user experience in both software and hardware. Jobs had strong leadership skills. The way Jobs stood by his vision managed to inspire his workers and granted much respect from business competitors and partners. When Steve Jobs founded Apple in 1997, and the corporation was in a great financial crisis, he knew how to avoid all, but a few of important projects and products that were in tandem with his vision. His sound decision-making led the funds and resources for the company to survive and turn its finances around. Jobs never once invited users to visit his design studio. He did not depend on market research and crowd sourcing the ideation process. Jobs invited top designers (John Lasseter and Jony Ive) who liked his aesthetics and tracked the simplicity of his design. Jobs and his team depended on themselves and their feelings to manufacture products that people did not even imagine they needed. Such products included the revolutionary iPhone and iPod. Steve Jobs was a wonderful thinking person. Many entrepreneurs that came before Steve were great thinkers, but Jobs became one of the greatest thinking persons of all time-he was simply a showman. Steve Jobs was well aware that people are always doubtful to new ideas. Jobs could put on a show to reveal and show his inventions so that people could comprehend his vision and become excited. Steve was a self-admirer in ways that entrepreneurs are preachers, as well. Steve was known for his public messages and great presentations. One of the main things that Jobs could do very well was to be able to create a beyond reality field. Steve did this both positive and negative ways. The creation of this reality helped to inspire his team to conclude their projects by preferred deadlines in spite of how impossible they appeared. Steve did this by addressing his employees passionately and making them see issues from his eyes. Steve conveyed his vision frequently and had other people believe in his mission. Steve Jobs was a survivor of tough times. Even though Steve was weak and feeble at times due to cancer, he managed to assemble the strength to join board meetings and launch Apple products. If one could see some pictures and videos of Jobs’ last days, one could realize how underfed and weak he looked. Jobs strongly believed that the humans time is limited, so one should have the guts to follow his /her intuition and heart, and all other things are secondary. After building Apple Corporation to be a multi-million dollar corporation, he was kicked out of the company by his board over clashes on how he was managing the company and his personal visions. After he was kicked out, Steve started NeXT—a startup computer company that developed an operating system that was used in OSX. He then became the Pixar’s CEO, which turned a small animation studio into a large animation behemoth with enormous fame. Ultimately, Jobs redeemed management of Apple, but getting kicked out of his company helped strive him to get more experience at different companies, and make the company an even great company (Quinn & Tayal 34). Thinking about Apple as a corporation, it did not essentially invent things—instead it used existing products and concepts, and made them extraordinary. For example, Jobs first had the theory of an operating system that was visual-based from Xerox; with a system called the ‘Xerod PARC’. Steve chiefly took the same notion and manufactured the original Mac, with some enhancements according to his vision. Jobs believed that good artists copy while great artists steal, therefore, he was never cautious of stealing big ideas. Conclusion Steve Jobs will go down the history as one of the most accomplished entrepreneurs and innovator. Steve Jobs left a gap in the world of technology that will take many years to fill. Jobs managed to change the technology industry than no one else. The revolution brought by Steve Jobs will remain forever. References Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. London: Little, Brown, 2011. Print. Lyons, Daniel. Option$: the secret life of Steve Jobs: a parody. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2008. Print. Quinn, Jason, and Amit Tayal. Steve Jobs: genius by design. New Delhi: Campfire Kalyani Navyug Media, 2012. Print. Read More