霍比特人3百度云 加长:Regarding Steve

Steve Jobs stepped down from his post as the CEO of Apple today. I feel like I should probably write something. But I really don’t know much about what Steve actually did at Apple. Because of Apple’s notorious secrecy, all I really know is that Apple used to suck. Then Steve came back. Then they stopped sucking.

It’s easy to talk about the products. During his second tenure at Apple, Steve has introduced one revolutionary product after the next.

He stood on a stage to introduce OS X, and promised it marked the return of Apple to operating system leadership. It has.

He introduced us to the iPod, and promised it would revolutionize the way we listen to music. It did.

He introduced the iTunes Music Store, and promised it would make CDs obsolete. It has.

He embraced his old enemy Intel, and said that new partnership would reshape the personal computer. It has.

He pulled the iPhone from his pocket and told us that a smartphone could be more than a bit of hardware that sent and received emails. He was right about that one too.

He introduced the iPad, he promised that tablets are the future of computing. I’m still not convinced that’s he’s right about that, but I wouldn’t bet that he’s wrong either.

It’s easy to talk about hardware. I could talk about his mistakes instead. Steve didn’t make as many of those, but there have been some real doozies. It’s easy to forget the time he said that eBook readers were dumb because people don’t read anymore. Or that HTML5 would replace the need for third-party apps on the iPhone. Or that the first few releases of OS X were slow, unwieldy, and just difficult to use. Fortunately, mistakes don’t define the man either.

We’ve all greedily read the horror stories about the culture at Apple. The tales of secret Apple police doing whatever it takes to find the source of leaks and the mercurial firings are Silicon Valley legend. I don’t know whether they’re true. I’ve never spoken to anyone who was fired by Steve. Just people who knew someone who knew someone who felt his wrath. Silicon Valley tall tales don’t define Steve either.

All we really know about Steve’s second tenure at Apple is that the company used to make products that sucked. Today Apple makes consistently great products. With each new bit of hardware, Apple has consistently whittled down the speed bumps that impede us when we use technology. This is a good thing, but I’m not sure that this is Steve Jobs’ legacy either.

I don’t know what Steve’s job at Apple really was. I saw him stand on stage many times, introducing us to one killer product after the next. I saw him make mistakes, like any man. But, he invariably used the word “we” anytime he described the creation of a product. I like that, because no one man builds a product as complex as an iPod, OS X, an iPhone, or a MacBook Air. I like to think that for the most part he made things better, but I don’t even know that for sure.

I don’t know why Steve is quitting his job as CEO. It’s none of my business. I’m OK with that. I’m glad he’ll still be around as the Chairman of Apple’s Board of Directors, if for no other reason than to keep his successors honest.

We won’t really know the specifics of Steve’s legacy at Apple has been until we know the fate of the iPad. I do know that his impact on the world is much greater than a series of products--even one as successful as Apple’s have been. His legacy is more than Apple’s almost-prescient ability to release impossible products two years ahead of the competition. Steve helped reshape the way humans interact with technology. Even under the circumstances, that’s something worth celebrating.