Steve Jobs quits...

[Angstrom]

If Jonathan Ive quits, it's fucking all over.

Word has it he's been contemplating leaving and moving back to London.

Nah, seems unlikely

Ive was treated badly by the UK risk-averse corporate mentality. The UK industry mentality on innovation in general is quite different to the American view. American business has thrived on embracing innovation, British industry is "small c conservative".
He's spent the past 20 years living in California. If he left Apple and headed to the UK, what would he do? Start a design agency in rainy London? even with his reputation, what would he really achieve?
He probably owns a nice giant house in London somewhere, and has use of a corporate jet.

I really doubt he'd relocate full time back to England, away from a company which knows how important he is. Now more than ever.

in fact.
In 2008

"I remember it really clearly, the moment when I realised that technology could be accessible and intuitive. And I had a real clear sense of the people who made it: it speaks to their values and preoccupations. And that's what makes Apple a remarkable and unique company."

Two decades after that moment of epiphany, could he imagine working anywhere else now? Ive laughs, but his answer is emphatic. "No."

[LoopStationZebra]

Not sure that I believe it either, but several tech mags have reported it this past year.

And remember, I've was treated badly at Apple until Jobs returned and rescued him from the basement.

*shrug*

I don't see him remaining at Apple for long, however. I'll give him 3 more years, tops.

[Angstrom]

OK, time's up Ive

get BACK IN THE BASEMENT !!

[simpleton]

Apple stock
Google stock

[beats me]

Moments like this always go best with a Phil Collins ballad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kts6Uykvq1U

[Hidden Driveways]

It's sad. I feel bad for the guy. He can have anything he wants, but the only thing he wants to do is go to work, and he's physically incapable.

Even if he is on stage to introduce the iPhone 5, this is still very grim news. The fact is that under Steve's authority Apple is able to do things no other company can do. Even something as basic as the current Apple keyboard... it's just the most elegantly beautiful and wonderfully comfortable thing to use, nothing even comes close to it. Sure, their mice are horrendous, but still...

It's obvious that Tim Cook is a brilliant Chinese factory wrangler, but that seems pretty removed from the role Steve plays.

[Moody]

There are some who say history repeats itself... Hopefully Apple learned from its past decisions. Otherwise, Dylan sang a song about all this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE

Trivia: Who brought Jobs back to Apple?

[Machinesworking]

Jobs may be one of the most involved CEOs ever, but companies are not made up of a single person.
I bought my first Mac OS computer in 96 before Jobs came back, the OS was great. Jobs doesn't code, period. His "quality control" is standard operating procedure at Apple now, so really there's not much to worry about.

Honestly I kind of hope they experience a slight downturn and lower the prices of the Mac Pro's, they really need to do that. As long as Apple still create an operating system and don't ditch it for mobile technology I'm good.

[beats me]

Honestly I kind of hope they experience a slight downturn and lower the prices of the Mac Pro's, they really need to do that. As long as Apple still create an operating system and don't ditch it for mobile technology I'm good.

I read an interesting article yesterday speculating that Apple may go a route where you could daisy chain a bunch of Mac Minis together that would combine CPUs and RAM to eventually become Mac Pro level. Kind of build your own super computer one Mini at a time. I don't expect that to happen but could you imagine.

[Machinesworking]

Honestly I kind of hope they experience a slight downturn and lower the prices of the Mac Pro's, they really need to do that. As long as Apple still create an operating system and don't ditch it for mobile technology I'm good.

I read an interesting article yesterday speculating that Apple may go a route where you could daisy chain a bunch of Mac Minis together that would combine CPUs and RAM to eventually become Mac Pro level. Kind of build your own super computer one Mini at a time. I don't expect that to happen but could you imagine.

Interesting, I'm more talking about the lack of a middle ground between an iMac and the cheapest Mac Pro. The cheapest Mac Pro is $2,500, it used to be $2,000. The Macbook Pro's have actually gone down in Price, I bought a Powerbook in 2001 for $2,995, the equivalent is $2,199 now. Get where I'm heading with this? The only unreasonable point on their product range price wise (PC users will of course chime in here! ) is the low end Mac Pro.
Here's a very arguably cheaper and much less well configured PC, but at less than half the price. http://www.cpponline.net/HP_z400_Workst ... 9-d5nw.htm
With the high end Mac Pros there's literally no Apple coolness tax, a similar decked out top end Mac Pro (RAM and hard drives bought third party of course), competes very flatly with the PC market, literally maybe $200 difference tops, it's been this way for a while. They really seem to want you to buy an iMac unless you want the fastest computer out there....

[hoffman2k]

Honestly I kind of hope they experience a slight downturn and lower the prices of the Mac Pro's, they really need to do that. As long as Apple still create an operating system and don't ditch it for mobile technology I'm good.

I read an interesting article yesterday speculating that Apple may go a route where you could daisy chain a bunch of Mac Minis together that would combine CPUs and RAM to eventually become Mac Pro level. Kind of build your own super computer one Mini at a time. I don't expect that to happen but could you imagine.

Its not that far-fetched. Logic has the Nodes feature. Xgrid has been around since 2004. Thunderbolt has nearly the same bandwidth used to connect super-clusters. All that is missing is an Xgrid update and optimization for real-time processes.

[beats me]

Honestly I kind of hope they experience a slight downturn and lower the prices of the Mac Pro's, they really need to do that. As long as Apple still create an operating system and don't ditch it for mobile technology I'm good.

I read an interesting article yesterday speculating that Apple may go a route where you could daisy chain a bunch of Mac Minis together that would combine CPUs and RAM to eventually become Mac Pro level. Kind of build your own super computer one Mini at a time. I don't expect that to happen but could you imagine.

Interesting, I'm more talking about the lack of a middle ground between an iMac and the cheapest Mac Pro. The cheapest Mac Pro is $2,500, it used to be $2,000. The Macbook Pro's have actually gone down in Price, I bought a Powerbook in 2001 for $2,995, the equivalent is $2,199 now. Get where I'm heading with this? The only unreasonable point on their product range price wise (PC users will of course chime in here! ) is the low end Mac Pro.
Here's a very arguably cheaper and much less well configured PC, but at less than half the price. http://www.cpponline.net/HP_z400_Workst ... 9-d5nw.htm
With the high end Mac Pros there's literally no Apple coolness tax, a similar decked out top end Mac Pro (RAM and hard drives bought third party of course), competes very flatly with the PC market, literally maybe $200 difference tops, it's been this way for a while. They really seem to want you to buy an iMac unless you want the fastest computer out there....

There was a couple counter points mentioned as to why Apple probably wouldn’t go the daisy chained Mini route. First if they did that it would get away from Apple’s elegant simplicity and lead to confusion and issues with the common user. Second you’d ultimately end up paying more to get a bunch of Minis up to Mac Pro standards. Still an interesting concept though.

The high price of the Mac Pros was also mentioned, but it was argued that when a user buys a Mac Pro they probably know exactly what they want and are willing to pay for it. Apple doesn’t want the Mac Pros to be the every man’s computer, and if we’re going to be honest there’s probably that sort of feeling amongst those who pay for it. It’s about status. But also iMacs and MBPs can easily handle most jobs. I’ve even heard of major motion pictures being edited entirely on a MBP, probably on the Indie level, but still.

[LoopStationZebra]

If they aren't careful, they'll fill that *needed* gap that MW is talking about with FIFTY MOTHERFUCKING MODELS. All with ridiculous and obtuse fucking naming conventions.

The Performa X74-54s!

Jesus Wept.

Just like they did after Jobs was shitcanned.

And they're rep and sales went down the fucking SHITTER.

Jobs did a lot more at Apple than quality control and whatever day to day shit that CEOs do... (eat babies alive, kick old women down the stairs, etc etc) He was, using an industry term, the ultimate 'product picker'. That's a talent and skill that is no fucking small thing. ie. Sony. ie Samsung. ie Microsoft. ie: Pretty much everyone else. Sure he hasn't always picked winners, but he nixes 99% of what gets proposed and that's a good thing.

He also micromanaged every single detail of every single product and every single bit of packaging and every single detail and material that went into the Apple stores. A friend of mine was the Senior Design at the firm that designed the first Apple stores. Jobs went to Every Single Meeting and agonized relentlessly about every fucking detail. 2 hour schedule meetings would turn into all day events in which he'd grill the design team over and over. He's also do a shitload of homework on construction details and techniques. He'd actually come to the meetings INFORMED. *gasp*

The thing to take away? No detail was too small and everything got run past the guy. The only things he wasn't that involved with were anything related to MobileMe or .mac or whatever the fuck those goofy cloud things were called. He famously rarely took vacations and shrugged most of the 'rich and famous' lifestyle trappings found in other business titans.

He was also an amazing 'talent picker'; recognizing talents and strengths in people where others had shrugged them off (see Jon Ive basement story). That's another quality that just isn't that common. He also wasn't afraid to shitcan anyone or any project that he felt was retarded.

[beats me]

Jobs did a lot more at Apple than quality control and whatever day to day shit that CEOs do... (eat babies alive, kick old women down the stairs, etc etc) He was, using an industry term, the ultimate 'product picker'. That's a talent and skill that is no fucking small thing. ie. Sony. ie Samsung. ie Microsoft. ie: Pretty much everyone else. Sure he hasn't always picked winners, but he nixes 99% of what gets proposed and that's a good thing.

He also micromanaged every single detail of every single product and every single bit of packaging and every single detail and material that went into the Apple stores. A friend of mine was the Senior Design at the firm that designed the first Apple stores. Jobs went to Every Single Meeting and agonized relentlessly about every fucking detail. 2 hour schedule meetings would turn into all day events in which he'd grill the design team over and over. He's also do a shitload of homework on construction details and techniques. He'd actually come to the meetings INFORMED. *gasp*

The thing to take away? No detail was too small and everything got run past the guy. The only things he wasn't that involved with were anything related to MobileMe or .mac or whatever the fuck those goofy cloud things were called. He famously rarely took vacations and shrugged most of the 'rich and famous' lifestyle trappings found in other business titans.

He was also an amazing 'talent picker'; recognizing talents and strengths in people where others had shrugged them off (see Jon Ive basement story). That's another quality that just isn't that common. He also wasn't afraid to shitcan anyone or any project that he felt was retarded.

It hurts my heart to see it all spelled out like that.

[Machinesworking]

Jobs may be one of the most involved CEOs ever, but companies are not made up of a single person.