The most important thing he did (because everything else came after) was to talk companies into providing parts on credit, and for a low price. Woz said in an interview that this was something he couldn't possibly have done. Without Jobs (and Job's personality) Apple couldn't have produced anything. Well, and that he talked Woz into actually starting a company in the first place.

We have to separate the different versions of Apple the company.

V1 - Jobs and Woz, The Apple 6502 series (1, 11, 111) the Lisa, the Mac (various versions). Apple creates something new and exciting and becomes a household name.

V2 - Jobs and Woz gone. Lots of failed crap oozes out. Worse crap follows. The Newton (ultimate crap). Finally, just licensing the Apple logo and name. I buy shares in Apple.

V3 - Jobs returns. Convinces Gates to support him. Creates excitement and builds lots of new crap that actually creates whole new industry shifts and really, really sells. Makes the company the largest in the world (ever). Back to being a household name - even more than before. I sell shares in Apple.

V4- Jobs dies. Lots more same old, same old crap. Core target market begins to loose interest. Company begins to fail slowly without the creative input from Jobs.

Make no mistake. Despite the input from Woz and other technical whizzes Jobs was what made Apple successful, regardless of how he made it happen - he did.

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Bill

BillO is absolutely right. (Although I believe the early Apple model numbers should be spelled I, ][, ]|[.)

For my part, I think Apple's single biggest contribution to the computer industry was the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. With small adjustments to fit particular computers, they still apply to a large extent today.

Well said!! I agree 100%.

Well, not 100% because I actually think *SOME* of the machines Apple produced during V2 wasn't all bad. Honestly, PC's weren't much better. It was the dark times. OS9 did suck, however. I have a few of those Macs like the LC and LCII. They are actually pretty cool machines for what they were.

The LC is particularly cool because I can take the whole thing apart...remove CPU, etc. Everything...without needing a screw driver. Even remove the CPU fan and PSU. All in about 4 minutes. It's slower than Christmas...but beautifully designed.

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Cat; the other white meat.

In general I agree with Bill...

I think Steve Jobs was more visionary than several others in his generation, but that's my view. As for the Mac interface, that was done by Xerox Research Parc... and Jobs was able to leverage it for the Mac... job well done (pun intended).

Gates on the other hand was more technical, a different business approach and the like and was able to capitalize on the IBM-Microsoft relationship, which helped immensely.

Oddly, back in the early 90's my director asked me to get a small team, like 3 people, and attend a C-level executive conference at a very plush country club in Palm Springs. Guy Kawasaki was in attendance and gave the intro speech and some good info and approach for the vendors that were there (I was representing IBM software group) before the C-level execs came in. The setting was a plush office environment, high-end desks, chairs, decor, etc. and was shared by two vendors (really huge office setting). So it was supposed to be a relaxed setting where you could talk 1:1 with C-levels about their business needs in a nice casual setting. It was a great event actually and we closed some business as well.

My team was there to talk about OS/2 to the corporate execs (it (OS/2) was very successful in the finance sector for a long time)... our room mates were from Next... yup, Steve Job's Next company. I have to say, chatting with them was very much akin to chatting with a group of folks that are in a cult and totally immersed. They talked about Steve as if he was the "next" messiah (okay, cheeky plug, but it was sure was at that level). My team and myself were amused, but that's it. After all, we're talking about a computer and some software to make it go... not the end of one world and the beginning of another.

After the first day, we tried to avoid them... turns out most of the corporate execs and other vendors did too. Say what you will, bottom line, Jobs knew how to inspire people and knew how to present technology in a product form better than most. So kudos to him for making Apple what it has become. Granted, I'm still a Mac user and much prefer OSX over any Windoze release and over Linux as well (which makes a great server mostly) but I am a bit leery over their future. Once Jobs' future plans complete execution, who there can come up with the next round of future products.... I don't think anyone there is up to the task, 'tis a shame, but time will tell.

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust

This trope is old and tired. Basically suggesting that Apple drag and dropped the Xerox tech and stuffed in to in a small, beige box.

Apple was working on the Lisa before they visited PARC. The kernel of the GUI ideas were based off of a demo of the Smalltalk system, which is extraordinarily crude - especially compared to either the Lisa or the Macintosh. ST was basically windows, text editing, a mouse pointer, pop up menus, and a scrollbar. Certainly innovative at the time. But just the most base of systems.

Certainly there are common elements, but the suggestion of Apple just lifting it is misplaced. They did a boat load of work. At minimum, they just had whatever notes they took from what they saw from both the early ST systems, and the Altos. They didn't have code. They didn't have architecture. They had "B&W display, and this mouse thing with windows".

After that, they had to craft everything up from scratch. Mac OS's biggest failing was simply that it came too early before memory protection and was burdened by legacies of that through it's entire life time until it got replaced by NeXTStep.

Apple left Xerox with nothing more than ideas (ideas they paid for), and pushed them far off on their own direction. We still would have had a Lisa even if they never went to PARC to see the Alto. (Whether it would have become a Mac, who knows.)

Modern GUIs (desk top and mobile) are far, far more indebted to Apple's work than Apple was to Xerox's.

Here's a couple of snippets from a very worthwhile first-person account from Alan Kay on the context of the Xerox visit and Jobs' response to it, including his blind spots:



[Original Quora link here]

So THAT'S where Gore got the idea for inventing the internet!!!



(sorry, I couldn't resist)

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Cat; the other white meat.