Did you consider Steve Jobs to be a Genius?

**Murder after Midnight** · 08-22-2013, 02:42 PM

Not long ago a made thread asking had any one seen the jobs movie and i noticed a few snide remarks and comments made about the guy.
He was genius IMO. I was very impressed with his work........... What do the rest of you guys think

***SMWS6TA*** · 08-22-2013, 03:23 PM

I do consider him smarter then Bill Gates in regards to computer software, but Bill was smarter in seeing the future and cornering the market early on is what made him stupid rich. Jobs on the other hand made Apple products, in the beginning, into works of art.

My beef with Apple is for the price you pay for their products it's still damn expensive for something made in China.

**wileyCoyote** · 08-22-2013, 03:26 PM

...safe to say he played a leading role in pioneering portable multimedia devices, in the later years, ...he turned apple around and made it the leader... he had the vision and determination and marketing saavy to bring products to bear that had mainstream appeal.... a genius?, ...maybe, ...a product development and marketing genius?, ...definitely

**chuckie669** · 08-22-2013, 04:02 PM

There's also Isteve movie on Netflix played by Justin long

**Murder after Midnight** · 08-22-2013, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by chuckie669

There's also Isteve movie on Netflix played by Justin long

Is it any good?

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by wileyCoyote

...safe to say he played a leading role in pioneering portable multimedia devices, in the later years, ...he turned apple around and made it the leader... he had the vision and determination and marketing saavy to bring products to bear that had mainstream appeal.... a genius?, ...maybe, ...a product development and marketing genius?, ...definitely

Wiley Droppin that ISM(knowledege)

I agree 100%

**theorangeguy** · 08-22-2013, 05:14 PM

steve jobs never cared about share holders...all he cared about was making a product that consumers loved and could use with ease. That in turn made apple what it was...I will say that the head engineer that worked with him never got enough credit for the products that were created while Jobs was alive.

**raynor139** · 08-22-2013, 05:44 PM

Wozniak made that company in the early days. Jobs didnt create anything he took existing things and made them into easily usable and highly marketable devices. Mp3 players had been out for a few years before the ipod came out. Same with early smart phones. He took them and made them sleek and user friendly and built a entire ecosystem around them. Itunes breaks even and most os upgrades they either lose money or break even. They make all their money on hardware premium they charge and the fees they charge app developers, 30% fee on anything you sale through them. That was his genius in a way. He had a vision and nothing would stop him. He had a reputation for being a giant ass and would run you over if you got in his way. So personally do I think he was a genius, no, I feel he was one of the best business visionaries of our time.

**Murder after Midnight** · 08-22-2013, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by raynor139

Wozniak made that company in the early days. Jobs didnt create anything he took existing things and made them into easily usable and highly marketable devices. Mp3 players had been out for a few years before the ipod came out. Same with early smart phones. He took them and made them sleek and user friendly and built a entire ecosystem around them. Itunes breaks even and most os upgrades they either lose money or break even. They make all their money on hardware premium they charge and the fees they charge app developers, 30% fee on anything you sale through them. That was his genius in a way. He had a vision and nothing would stop him. He had a reputation for being a giant ass and would run you over if you got in his way. So personally do I think he was a genius, no, I feel he was one of the best business visionaries of our time.

WHat makes you so sure Jobs didn't have a hand in creating anything? I have heard confliting reports on that subject.............

**Murder after Midnight** · 08-22-2013, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by theorangeguy

steve jobs never cared about share holders...all he cared about was making a product that consumers loved and could use with ease. That in turn made apple what it was...I will say that the head engineer that worked with him never got enough credit for the products that were created while Jobs was alive.

Those are valid points man but keep and mind what i asked........Don't really want to go to off topic, discussing whether he was fair or not.................

**theorangeguy** · 08-23-2013, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by Murder after Midnight

Originally Posted by theorangeguy

steve jobs never cared about share holders...all he cared about was making a product that consumers loved and could use with ease. That in turn made apple what it was...I will say that the head engineer that worked with him never got enough credit for the products that were created while Jobs was alive.

Those are valid points man but keep and mind what i asked........Don't really want to go to off topic, discussing whether he was fair or not.................

I wouldn't call him a genius...he just was smart enough to acknowledge what people like and was also smart enough to realize that if he centralized all devices around an interconnected OS people could not get away from them.

**silverWS6** · 08-23-2013, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by raynor139

Wozniak made that company in the early days. Jobs didnt create anything he took existing things and made them into easily usable and highly marketable devices. Mp3 players had been out for a few years before the ipod came out. Same with early smart phones. He took them and made them sleek and user friendly and built a entire ecosystem around them. Itunes breaks even and most os upgrades they either lose money or break even. They make all their money on hardware premium they charge and the fees they charge app developers, 30% fee on anything you sale through them. That was his genius in a way. He had a vision and nothing would stop him. He had a reputation for being a giant ass and would run you over if you got in his way. So personally do I think he was a genius, no, I feel he was one of the best business visionaries of our time.

Originally Posted by theorangeguy

I wouldn't call him a genius...he just was smart enough to acknowledge what people like and was also smart enough to realize that if he centralized all devices around an interconnected OS people could not get away from them.

Originally Posted by wileyCoyote

...safe to say he played a leading role in pioneering portable multimedia devices, in the later years, ...he turned apple around and made it the leader... he had the vision and determination and marketing saavy to bring products to bear that had mainstream appeal.... a genius?, ...maybe, ...a product development and marketing genius?, ...definitely

I'm with these guys, my wife was reading about him a while back and I would peak in every now and then but to my understanding he didn't really "invent" anything, he just essentially made it better and like other people have said the phone, tablet, and mp3 player were out way before apple products really hit the market and people were like "ERMERGHARD this stuff is great!" If I'm wrong then excuse me but I stopped carrying to keep reading after I learned a couple things

**GTP231** · 08-25-2013, 05:01 AM

Like stealing the Xerox os in the 70s?

**SiggyZ** · 08-25-2013, 08:34 AM

I realize this is the Steve Jobs thread, but similarly, Bill Gates created MSDOS by stealing the DOS system idea fom IBM and the rest is history.

**67CamaroRSSS** · 08-26-2013, 07:43 AM

Originally Posted by SiggyZ

I realize this is the Steve Jobs thread, but similarly, Bill Gates created MSDOS by stealing the DOS system idea fom IBM and the rest is history.

He also stole the Windows GUI from Apple...

**CJREX** · 08-26-2013, 10:49 AM

And Apple got it from Xerox.

Actually, this is something that Apple WAS very good at, taking an idea from someone else that may have been only partially useful and refining it and making it actually work.

The list goes on and on.

Ipod was not the first MP3 player but it was the first one to have a very functional interface.

Ipad was not the first tablet computer, but it was the first one that did not royally suck and actually worked properly.

Unless the new iPhones and iPads coming out soon are something really special, I feel that the days of Apple dominance may be dwindling. Tim Cook does not seem to have the same vision of keeping Apple at the forefront.

**SiggyZ** · 08-28-2013, 03:31 AM

Good point and then there was Windows 95.

Originally Posted by 67CamaroRSSS

He also stole the Windows GUI from Apple...

**tnthub** · 08-30-2013, 05:14 AM

Steve Jobs was a genius in that he was the "BASF" of inventors... He may not have created the widget but he made it better. He was also a jerk. I met him one time at an industry hall of fame event and was introduced to him by a leading industry editor and he blew us both off while muttering something about people being idiots... So I sat down with Dan Bricklin (who invented the spreadsheet) and had a nice conversation.

**Schnell** · 08-31-2013, 06:33 AM

Genious? Haha. What did Jobs invent?

**Blakbird24** · 09-04-2013, 06:09 PM

The problem with the legacy of Steve Jobs is that most people don't understand it. He is hailed as the great innovator, when really he didn't actually create a damn thing. He is viewed as revolutionizing an industry...which he technically did...but again he gets credit for the wrong reasons. He didn't invent or create a single physical thing. What he did do better than just about anyone in the history of tech is sell things.

Steve Jobs was a MARKETING genius.

iPod, iPhone, and iPad were not truly revolutionary. They were not the first, and they did not, on their own, change the industry. However, Jobs had a way of making people think they had to have what he was selling. He applied his magic to all of the products he presided over, and in a convoluted way, did revolutionize the way we use technology. So while people are technically right in the way they interpret Jobs' legacy, they arrive at that view for the wrong reasons. Steve Jobs should get credit for seeing what existed, and realizing that it would sell if presented right, then pursuing that vision with relentless fervor.

It's tough to argue that the approach of offering something mediocre that people BELIEVE to be great instead of offering something truly great and allowing it to sell itself isn't the better approach, after what Jobs did. The iPhone was an instant success. It took Android phones three years to overtake the iPhone, despite the fact that many of those phones were both more powerful, more useful, and cheaper. Same thing is happening now with tablets. The iPad is a blown up iPhone...it's competing against purpose-built tablets that can run 100x the software that it can. Yet those competing tablets are just now starting to overtake the iPad.

Jobs saw opportunities and locked on to them and would not let go. He hit a gold mine with three of them (and yes he failed at plenty of others in the process). That's it.

Without Steve Jobs, Apple is once again mortal. The magic that he created around his products is gone, and without it, people are now seeing Apple's offerings for what they really are. For the casual user, Apple offers a great choice. It's simple, it's pretty. But Apple's products were never meant to compete on substance, they never had to. Jobs had the public loving his products before they ever saw them. These days, Samsung is the benchmark....and without Jobs' magic, Apple can no longer compete.

The only way Apple was ever competitive was when it created it's own segment, and that's what it's going to have to do again to stay relevant. Releasing nothing but incremental updates to existing products will not work for Apple, the ecosystem is too restrictive. People will continue to leave the compound in favor of freedom. The only rumors that exist now are the "iTV" and "iWatch", both of which are old news and already available from competitors, and something relating to shoes...i'm not sure where they could go with that. So it's not looking good.

Wow this turned into quite a speech. I'm going to put the mike down now.