Steve Jobs narrates the first Think Different commercial "Here's To The Crazy Ones" in 1997. This version never aired - Apple instead used Richard Dreyfuss. They made the wrong choice.
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Steve Jobs, 2005:
No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there.
And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.
And that is as it should be. Because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.
[…]
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Watch the video, then read Merlin Mann's 'No One Needs Permission To Be Awesome'.
Charlie Brooker, in today's Guardian:
Look at the App Store. Read the reviews of novelty games costing 59p. Lots of slaggings – which is fair enough when you're actively warning other users not to bother shelling out for something substandard. But they often don't stop there. In some cases, people insist the developers should be jailed for fraud, just because there weren't enough levels for their liking. I once read an absolutely scathing one-star review in which the author bitterly complained that a game had only kept them entertained for four hours.
FOUR HOURS? FOR 59P? AND YOU'RE ANGRY ENOUGH TO WRITE AN ESSAY ABOUT IT? ON YOUR EXPENSIVE IPHONE? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?
It's an excellent article on the internet's entitlement culture, which also mentions the general attitude towards Spotify, a service which as far as I'm concerned doesn't cost enough. Or at least doesn't reward artists enough.
A couple of years ago I whinged about it for 'ownership' reasons. I've changed my mind completely on that bit, ever since I stopped using it exclusively on a computer and hooked it up to my Sonos S5 and my phone.
It's the biggest life changing revolution in how I listen to music. even more than the advent of iTunes. Last week I read about the new Blondie album, and I was then listening to it within seconds, including all the awful reggae tracks. Same with the 2009 Julian Casablancas record, described by someone as their favourite album of the century. I launched the Sonos iOS app and listened (and sadly failed) to hear what the fuss was about. It was better than The Strokes stuff, but then again to me so is Black Lace.
Having so much music available instantly is great for discovery and nostalgia.
Last night I listened to Addams Groove by MC Hammer. Now that is timeless.
If something exceeds your ability to understand how it works it sort of becomes magical.
Thankfully for most people, that's a pretty low bar.
Brilliant stuff from ThinkGeek, but I'm secretly gutted that this "post playground product" was an April Fool.
I'd have bought one. With the optional line pack.
In last week's Sunday Times (link paywalled) Jon Bon Jovi had a 'J'accuse' moment:
I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business...
A decade spanning multi-million selling artist has some insight into the modern history of the challenges that music retail has faced. The advent of the cassette, the recordable cassette, the compact disc, the recordable compact disc, the digital era, mp3, PC hard drives, personal music players (from the Walkman to the iPod). There's also been this thing we know as the internet, and with it p2p services from Napster to BitTorrent. Jon, like most of us remembers that all of this happened before the iTunes music store opened in 2003. Jon doesn't think it matters. It's all Steve's fault.
Some of us may come to the logical conclusion that it is the internet that is driving the future of the entertainment industry, not to mention broadcast and 'print' media. Some commentators may even suggest that the iTunes Music Store has offered the music industry a temporary stay of execution, giving it an opportunity to adapt this changing environment and consumers attitudes towards 'ownership'. A time to develop viable methods of a la carte / subscription services and re-writing traditional contracts with artists over revenue splits, royalties and advances. Some of us may conclude that, to date, the industry has done precious little to adapt, has worked against the interest of tech companies (including Apple) and by consequence their mutual consumers, and it's future thinking is still clouded by old business models (if the reported revenue sharing on services like Spotify is anything to go by).
Jon thinks all these factors are irrelevant. His attack on the Jobsian Shop of Horrors stems from nostalgia:
Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.
God, it was a magical, magical time.
Gambling away limited disposal income on what might turn out to be two good songs and eight duffers. Paying for a product without knowing what it contained, particularly from an artist you weren't sure if you liked that much. Yes that was so much fun. "Magical", even. We'd still be doing that today if it hadn't been for Steve Jobs. Of course.
It seems that Bon Jovi was just attacking the concept of the digital download, but in the event that his concentration on Jobs the person may be a critique on all things Apple, Jeremy Horwitz of fanboi repository iLounge has written a MacPadPodPhone themed response in a delightfully passionate "Open Letter to Jon Bon Jovi on "What's Really Killing The Music Business":
Speaking just for myself, the next Bon Jovi concert I’ll consider attending now will be one with a completely different set list of tracks that I like as much as the ones you released 20 years ago. All you have to do is start recording them, and I promise that my wife or I will purchase them. So will the rest of your fans.
Perhaps that's Bon Jovi's biggest gripe. He can't make more than a dollar from someone who just wants to buy 'Living On A Prayer' anymore. Here's the video. Think of it like an advert. I hope it helps, Jon, although you may not need it. No-one may want your new stuff, but you seem to be doing ok.
photo: Engadget
Steve Jobs, speaking today at the iPad 2 launch:
This is worth repeating. It's in Apple's DNA that technology is not enough. It's tech married with the liberal arts and the humanities. Nowhere is that more true than in the post-PC products. Our competitors are looking at this like it's the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are post-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive.
It is worth repeating.
Forget the reality distortion field stuff involved with an Apple announcement (unless adding cameras and faster responsiveness are essential for you, the new product revealed today really isn't, if you already have one.) This isn't what all the Apple love / envy / hate is all about.
Jobs has spoken before in interviews about the post PC era but never quite so directly in a presentation before.
For most people, computers are way too complicated. I'm the go-to person for others' tech woes and I see this all the time. There's still a long way to go but at least how we think about this is changing. Simplicity and ease of use wins over a feature set every time.
Modern UI / UX designers already know this. Software developers are slowly catching on. Hardware manufacturers are still not there yet.
With one exception.