Apple:
Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs could teach you a thing or two about interior design

Posted on May. 6, ’08, 10:44 AM PT by Aayush Arya

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

He’s the founder of three companies, CEO of one of them, and the largest shareholder of a fourth. He’s a major player in computers, consumer electronics, music, and movies. He’s a billionaire, a pescetarian, and wears only one combination of clothing ever. Did we miss anything? Oh yeah, he’s not too bad at interior design either.

Brad Bird, the Oscar-winning director of Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles and Ratatouille, recently gave an interview to The McKinsey Quarterly for an article, Innovation Lessons from Pixar. When asked “what Pixar does to stimulate a creative culture,” Bird had this to say:

Then there’s our building. Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center—which initially drove us crazy—so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. [Jobs] realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company. [emphasis added]

That, indeed, is a brilliant thought. After all, the one place no one can avoid going to is the bathroom—what’s a better place than it to catch up with your co-workers? If anyone out there reading this post is planning to have an office designed in the near future, keep this little trinket of wisdom from El Jobso in mind. It sure worked wonders for Pixar.

The full interview is behind a pay wall, but you can read the nine key lessons distilled by Carleen Hawn on GigaOM.

[via Daring Fireball]

Jobs drops from number 1 to number 11 for compensation

Posted on May. 5, ’08, 4:58 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Apparently, one really is the loneliest number. How else can you explain Jobs getting so little compensation despite so much success? He only drew $14.6 million in 2007 as compared with the mind boggling $646 million. Clearly, nearly $15 mil is nothing to sneeze at, but that over a half billion dollar difference.

He’s now number 11 on the list of top compensated tech CEOs behind Larry Ellison (Oracle), John Chambers (Cisco), and Jen-Hsun Huang (Nvidia). The difference this past year is most likely Jobs can derive most of his personal wealth from the stock he racked up in 2006. He should be taking us all out for ice cream or something. I want a sugar cone.

[via MacNN]

Introducing the Apple i

Posted on Apr. 16, ’08, 9:28 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Like everybody else who lives and breathes on this fair planet of ours, we find ourselves tingling with anticipation whenever a Stevenote draws near. The next one isn’t for almost two months, but that just gives us plenty of times to wonder what Jobs might unveil. Your guess is as good as ours—actually, that’s not true; our guess is clearly far superior. I mean, come on: just look at our track record. You can’t make up things like that.

Anyway, College Humor has an idea of what Steve might be rolling out on stage come June, so let’s just say: prepare to be blown away. I’d tell you more, but I don’t want to steal his thunder. I wouldn’t want to lose my inside source of information, after all. (Not that Steve Jobs is feeding me the scoop, after all. Of course not. Ahem. As you were.)

Me, I’m just hoping that this will be the year he decides to make his entrance year to Europe’s 80s pop-synth classic “Final Countdown.” That would be epic.

Book Review (original cut): Inside Steve’s Brain

Posted on Apr. 9, ’08, 1:30 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

This morning, the Mothership posted my review of Leander Kahney’s new book, Inside Steve’s Brain, an insightful look at the genius of Steve Jobs.

Of course, as with all fancy high-profile publications, they have to think about brevity when it comes to their content, and thus had to edit my original draft to shorten it.

Well, MacUser is by no means “fancy” or “high-profile” — length and brevity are obviously no concern to us. So I’m posting here the full, un-cut review, in all its longwinded and corny-joke-filled glory.

Check it out after the break.

Jobs to face dungeons, dragons

Posted on Apr. 7, ’08, 9:18 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Have you ever wanted to be Steve Jobs? Think of it: the access to all of Apple’s gadgets, the easy morning wardrobe choices, and, of course, the power of life and death over every living creature. Wired poses the next logical question: if Steve Jobs—and a handful of other luminaries—were a Dungeons & Dragons character, what kind of stats would they have?

Steve Jobs

21st Level Paladin
Strength: 12
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 17
Dexterity: 10
Charisma: 20
Special Abilities: Reality Distortion field allows him to temporarily influence any character, if he rolls less than his Charisma, minus the target’s Intelligence.
Special Equipment: +6 Magical Armor appears as a black turtleneck and blue jeans, but protects him from edged attacks.

Fair enough, but they neglect the fact that Jobs reputedly possesses infravision, and has a THAC0 of just seven. But far more egregious is his purported class: in terms of alignment, Jobs is obviously Chaotic Good, which clearly prohibits him from being a paladin—not to mention that a strength of 12 is a bit low for any fighting class. In reality, Jobs is likely a specialized magic-user (I’d say Illusionist) or possibly a Bard.

Geez, Wired: I figured you’d be able to tell your magic missile from your Bigby’s crushing hand. I guess we know who’s not bringing the Cheetos to our next campaign.

Steve Jobs can cloud the minds of men

Posted on Apr. 2, ’08, 9:18 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

So, remember that brand new 50 acre campus that Apple was planning to build in Cupertino? If you don’t, that’s okay—you’ve just lost any Mac news street cred you thought you had, my friend, that’s all.

Here’s a refresher: two years back, a black be-turtlenecked Steve Jobs descended upon the Cupertino City Council meeting, full of sound and fury, and declared that Apple hoped to build a new campus to accommodate its rapidly expanding work force. El Jobso predicted it would take three to four years to design and build the campus.

Only here we are, almost two years later, and according to Jon Fortt over at Fortune, Apple doesn’t even have building permits yet.

Well, of course you wouldn’t be able to find building permits, Jon. This is Apple we’re talking about. They’re not going to tip their hand in such a pedantic fashion. The first anybody will know of the new campus is when it’s unveiled, fully-built and staffed, onstage at Jobs’s 2009 Macworld keynote. It’s just like The Shadow.

[hat tip: Matthew P.]

Jobs names “Crazy” blogger as successor

Posted on Apr. 1, ’08, 8:56 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

We should have seen this one coming, but when Jobs said this morning that he had a “surprising announcement” coming later in the day, we figured it had something to with Apple releasing an iJetpack or something. But with all the talk in recent months over what Apple would do if Steve Jobs were to step down, it’s only logical that he would have to anoint some sort of successor to reassure shareholders.

But former Crazy Apple Rumors Site editor-in-chief John Moltz? I mean, I guess it makes sense: Moltz has been conspicuously absent from the Mac community since shutting down CARS earlier this year. In a statement, Steve spoke of Moltz’s fitness to lead:

“Nobody knows Apple like John,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “He has an intuitive grasp of the company’s culture and purpose, and the board and I think he’ll make a fantastic CEO to lead Apple into the next era of its life. You can see the dedication, the passion in his eyes.”

“At least, I hope that’s what it is.”

“There’s just nobody…even remotely like John Moltz,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Nobody. In the history of the whole world.”

Schiller then muttered something under his breath which sounded vaguely like “Thank god.”

Apple PR denied allegations that Moltz’s ascension to heir apparent was the result of any sort of sensitive information that the former blogger had acquired about elite $4,000/hour escort services and Apple’s board of directors.

For his part, Moltz declared that his first move as CEO would be to reinstitute Apple’s long dormant sexbot program. He also announced his intended moves for Apple’s executive leadership: Schiller will be staying on, but Moltz plans to appoint productivity guru Merlin Mann as Vice President of Making Backpacks out of Mac SEs, and Macworld Senior Editor Chris Breen’s Hair as Chief Bouffant. Daring Fireball proprietor John Gruber will replace the entire public relations department, which will now respond to any complaints with non-sequitur comments about the Yankees and/or Stanley Kubrick, and will make public a list of notable “Jackasses.”

We here at MacUser offer our full support to the incoming El Moltzo leadership and have already sold all of our Apple stock.

[Photo by John Gruber]

Steve Jobs: “…and just thirty-nine more things.”

Posted on Apr. 1, ’08, 8:09 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

You thought there 39 weeks left in the year, didn’t you? Well, Steve Jobs is about to blow your mind. You may have been anticipating a new Apple announcement every week, but did you ever think that you’d see all the products announced on the same day? With a completely gratuitous use of italics to boot? I doubt it, friendo.

We’ve already gotten word on the Newton Ivi and Apple’s new apparel line, but The Man in Black (Turtlenecks) said this morning that Apple would be revealing the rest of their year’s products and updates throughout the day. “I know I said back at Macworld that there were fifty weeks to go, but the truth is that we’re so excited about our product pipeline that we just couldn’t wait to share it with you,” Jobs said. “Tuesday’s always been a big day for us, and as today is the 32nd anniversary of Apple’s founding, we decided to let it all go. I mean, hey, 32, 39, those are pretty close, right?”

When pressed about future plans, given the revelation of the entire product roadmap for 2008, Jobs hinted that he might have a surprising announcement later today. He also alluded to plans to regrow his sweet mid-80s porn star mustache.

BW: Apple and Steve are star performers

Posted on Mar. 28, ’08, 2:20 PM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Business

Apple and Steve Jobs have found themselves on yet another list of top something-or-others. This time it’s BusinessWeek’s round-up of 50 “star performers” in the ten sectors of the S&P 500. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Apple made the cut, coming in at #6. Here’s what the BW had to say:

The Cupertino (Calif.) company has become the poster child for market fears of a slowdown in consumer spending. Chief Executive Steve Jobs has signaled that, despite any recession, Apple won’t be trimming its R&D budget. With $18 billion in cash on hand, many expect the product- obsessed Jobs to go on the offensive. He has already announced a corporate version of the iPhone.

That’s the “damn the torpedos” Jobs we know and love. Apple was bested in the trankings by Coach, Gilead Sciences, Allegheny Technologies, Verizon, and Questar—fully half of which, I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of before.

Tech rivals Microsoft and Google came in at #41 and #34 respectively, which, if nothing else, reflects my ability to pick out small blue-tinted thumbnails of Steve Ballmer and Eric Schmidt—a skill I’m not entirely sure how to leverage, to be honest. Oh, and Avon, which is headed by Apple board member Andrea Jung, made #18 too. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

The Reality Distortion Field is reality

Posted on Mar. 19, ’08, 5:31 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Good news. The next time you spend hundreds, or thousands, of dollars on the latest Apple product, you can blame the RDF. Up until recently, you might have gotten laughed at, but now you’ve got a Duke University and University of Waterloo study to back you up.

College students had two logos shown to them, an Apple and an IBM one. They were then prompted to think of uses for a brick. The Apple logo viewers were statistically more creative. The logo, it messes with your brain man.

“These experiments demonstrate that most any brand that has strong associations with particular traits could have the capacity to influence how we act,” Chartrand said.

Influence how we act? There we have it. I can’t help it. That logo appears and the synapses scream “BUY BUY BUY”. I just can’t ignore it anymore. That Airport Express was inexpensive, right?

[via Slashdot]