Кто придумал телефон айфон

Стивен (Стив) Пол Джобс – американский инженер, предприниматель и изобретатель. В 1970-е он стал одним из основателей корпорации Apple, а в 1980-е – киностудии Pixar. При этом сегодня Стив Джобс известен как человек, который совершил революцию в сфере мобильных гаджетов и стал пионером эры информационных технологий. И справедливо. Почему – узнаете из биографии этого по-настоящему уникального человека.

История Стива Джобса

Становление великого предпринимателя и изобретателя

Стив Джобс (Steven Paul «Steve» Jobs) родился в 1955 году, 24 февраля. Биологическими родителями Стива были не состоящие в браке студенты-мигранты. Отец – сириец Абдулфаттах Джандали, а мать – немка из католической семьи Джоан Шибле. Абдула родился в Хомсе. Он был сыном сирийского миллионера, что позволило мальчику поехать учиться в Нью-Йорк. Джандали познакомился с Шибле, будучи ассистентом преподавателя в Висконсинском университете. Джоан получала там образование в магистратуре.

Родственники Джоан Шибле выступали против её союза с Абдулфатаахам Джандали. Более того, отец девушки, который лежал тогда при смерти, и вовсе пообещал лишить её наследства, если та не послушает заветов папы. В итоге Джоане пришлось отдать сына – новорожденного Стива – на усыновление.

Приёмными родителями будущего гения стали Пол Джобс и Клара Джобс. Девичья фамилия женщины – американки армянского происхождения – Агопян. Пара не могла иметь своих детей и решила усыновить чужого ребёнка. Пол и Клара назвали мальчика Стивеном.

Примечательно, что биологическая мать Стива Джоан была убеждена, что её сын должен иметь высшее образование. Её смутило, что за плечами Пола – лишь средняя школа, а Клара бросила колледж. Женщина согласилась подписать документы об усыновлении лишь после того, как приёмные родители дали письменное обязательство оплатить обучение Стива в университете в полном объёме.

Стивен всю жизнь считал Клару и Пола родными родителями и не любил говорить об усыновлении. Однако однажды всё-таки встретился со своей биологической матерью и младшей сестрой. Произошло это лишь спустя 31 год после усыновления.

В семье Стивен был не единственным ребёнком. Когда мальчику было два года, Клара и Пол взяли из приюта девочку Пэтти. Уже вчетвером они переехали из Сан-Франциско в Маунтин-Вью. Клара работала в будущей Кремниевой долине бухгалтером в одной из первых высокотехнологичных компаний. Пол работал в финансовой холдинговой компании. Чтобы выполнить обязательства перед Джоаной и заработать Стивену на колледж, отец семейства ремонтировал в гараже старые машины и продавал их. Именно Пол привил мальчику любовь к электронике, когда копался с ним в автомобилях и радиоприёмниках.

Школьные годы и первое изобретение Стивена Джобса

Стивен не любил школьные занятия за формализм, но учителя его считали прилежным учеником. Сдав блестяще экзамены в четвёртом классе, мальчик сразу «перепрыгнул» в шестой. Притом что директор предлагал Кларе и Полу перевести Стива сразу в седьмой класс, однако родители решение не рисковать настолько сильно.

Помимо школы, мальчик ходил в научно-исследовательский кружок, который организовала одна из крупнейших в то время компаний в сфере информационных технологий Hewlett-Packard. В клуб приглашали инженеров, которые рассказывали ребятам, над каким проектом работают. Там перед взором Стива первый раз предстал персональный компьютер. На мальчика он уже тогда произвёл сильное впечатление.

На курсах ребята работали над собственными проектами. Стиву удалось собрать частотомер – прибор, который позволял определять частоту периодических сигналов. Там же, в клубе, школьнику удалось договориться с главой компании Hewlett-Packard о первой работе. Билл Хьюлетт предложил 13-летнему мальчику встать за конвейер, на что Стив, конечно, согласился. Позже Джобс будет также раздавать газеты и работать  на складе в магазине электроники. А к 15-ти годам юный изобретатель уже приобретёт первую машины – конечно, при финансовой поддержке родителей – и поставит на неё новый двигатель.

«Синяя коробочка» Джобса и Возняка

В школе Джобса училась «легенда». Стивен Возняк был выпускником, который всерьёз увлекался компьютерами. Его знал каждый ученик, и между собой все называли просто «Воз». Джобсу удалось познакомиться с Возняком, который был старше на целых пять лет. Позже они и вовсе стали лучшими друзьями.

В 1971 году давно учившийся в университете Возняк узнал о некой субкультуре фриков, которые научились захватывать телефонные линии и звонить бесплатно по всему миру. Делали они это, используя звуковую имитацию тонального сигнала специальной частоты.

Один из таких чудаков выяснил опытным путём, что звук необходимой тональности издаёт свисток, который производители овсяных хлопьев Cap’n Crunch кладут внутрь коробки. Оттуда появился псевдоним — Капитан Кранч. Этот чудак изобрёл специальное устройство для захвата телефонной линии и назвал его Blue Box.

Такое же изобретение решили создать Стив Джобс и Стив Возняк. Первая попытка успехом не увенчалась. «Коробочка» — аналоговый прототип — не выдавала устойчивых тоновых сигналов. Тогда решили сделать полностью цифровое устройство. Blue Box начал воспроизводить сигналы частотой с нужной точностью. 

Поначалу друзья просто дурачились, совершая звонки в разные уголки земного шара. Но позже Джобс понял, что «коробочка» может приносить доход. Юноши осознавали, что бизнес — дело рискованное и незаконное, однако начали кустарное производство аппаратов. Джобс и Возняк продали по 150 долларов за штуку порядка сотни Blue Boxes, себестоимость которых была около 40 долларов. Доход предприниматели делили поровну. Несколько раз полицейские наведывались к ним, и производство во избежание дальнейших проблем решено было прекратить. Однако именно первый бизнес научил молодых людей изобретать полезные для общества вещи и делать на этом серьёзные деньги.

Единственная и неудачная попытка Стива Джобса получить высшее образование

В 1972 году Стив покидает родительский дом и поступает в Рид-колледж. Родители юноши выступали против этого учебного заведения из-за стоимости и довольно вольных нравов. Рид-колледж был одним из самых дорогих в США частных гуманитарных университетов. Кроме того, в учебном заведении царила атмосфера хиппи. Притом что программа была насыщенной, а стандарты обучения — высокими. В любом случае — Джобс согласился учиться только там.

В колледже Стив начал интересоваться духовными практиками, стал вегетарианцем, увлекался дзен-буддизмом и даже экспериментировал с голоданием. В вузе Джобс встретил и второго своего близкого друга — Даниэля Коттке, а также познакомился с президентом студенческого совета Робертом Фридланом, который оказал серьёзное влияние на юного предпринимателя.

Джобс полгода проучился в колледже, а затем оставил учёбу. Молодому человеку наскучила обязательная программа. Стива отчислили, но разрешили бесплатно приходить на творческие занятия. Спал при этом юноша у друзей на полу, а еду покупал за счёт сбора и сдачи бутылок.

Прославившие Джобса изобретения: Apple I

В 1975 году Джобс и его давний друг Возняк начали посещать собрания группы энтузиастов, которые называли себя «Клубом самодельных компьютеров». Участники собирались в знаменитом гараже Стива Джобса и думали над тем, как внедрить новые — сложные для понимания простых людей — технологии в жизнь каждого человека. 

Вдохновившись идеями участников клуба, Стив Возняк принялся проектировать машину, которую позже назовут Apple I. Уже за несколько месяцев молодой человек получил уникальный для того времени результат. Воз вывел на экране символы, которые набрал на клавиатуре. Итог работы показал Стиву. Джобс, в свою очередь, вновь заговорил о коммерческом потенциале изобретения друга.

20-летние ребята сначала начали создавать и продавать печатные платы, позже дело дошло и до сборки полноценных компьютеров. Уже через год изобретатели взяли себе помощника — чертёжника Рональд Уэйн. Помимо прямых обязанностей, нового сотрудника использовали как третий голос в тех случаях, когда два других спорили. Втроём 1 апреля 1976 года они создали фирму — Apple Computer Co. Для стартового капитала Джобсу пришлось продать свой микроавтобус и пересесть на велосипед, Возняк же простился с самой дорогой сердцу вещи — программируемым калькулятором. 

Вскоре ребят ждал первый крупный заказ. Местный магазин электроники попросил 50 компьютеров. Однако денег у предпринимателей на детали для такого количества машин не было. Друзьям пришлось взять кредит, но уже через десять дней компьютеры были готовы и поступили в магазин. Каждый из них Джобс, Уэйн и Возняк продали чуть больше чем за 666 долларов.

Полсотни машин также продали «Клубу самодельных компьютеров». Позже несколько сотен ЭВМ реализовались через магазины и среди знакомых предпринимателей.

Один из самых популярных вопросов: почему Apple? Однозначно ответить на этот вопрос нельзя. Одни говорят, что всё дело в дизайнере Роб Янов, который работал тогда с ребятами. Мужчина якобы принёс из магазина яблоки, принялся их рисовать, надкусил одно и понял, что это идеальный рисунок для рекламы компьютеров. Другие утверждают, что коллеги Джобса долго не придумывали название, тогда Стив поставил ультиматум: если не будет других вариантов, назовём ЭВМ «яблоком». Верить или нет в эти версии, — решать вам. Доподлинно известно лишь, что изначально на логотипе был также Ньютон, на которого с дерева падает фрукт. Затем появилось разноцветное яблоко и только к 1998 году — одноцветное, из-за монохромности которого ряби в глазах уже не возникало, как в первых двух случаях.

Прославившие Джобса изобретения: Apple II

Стивен Возняк утверждал, что у его творения — Apple I — по сравнению с простейшими моделями не было никаких электронных инноваций, кроме «динамической» памяти. Все новые идеи он решил воплотить уже в новой машине — Apple II. Платформа была готова в августе 1976 года. С помощью устройства работали со звуком и цветом, а также подключали игровые контроллеры. По сравнению с предыдущими моделями функции были уникальными. 

Apple II стал первым в мире массовым компьютером. Джобс в этот раз впервые позаботился о проведении рекламной компании и создании дизайна, с помощью которого можно было бы обойти конкурентов.

Новую модель продали в разные уголки мира тиражом в пять миллионов экземпляров. Благодаря этому Стив Джобс уже в 25 лет стал миллионером.
После второй модели, последовала третья, а затем Lisa и Macintosh. Фирма Джобса процветала, но среди руководителей компании назревал серьёзный конфликт. В основном — из-за скверного характера Стива.

Lisa, Macintosh и увольнение Стива Джобса

В 1979 году предприниматели работали уже над новой моделью под названием Lisa. Компьютеры были названы в честь дочери Джобса. Тогда сотрудников Apple пригласили в исследовательский центр Xerox, где IT-специалисты впервые увидели компьютеры Alto.

После визита в центр Стив решил во что бы то ни стало разработать интерфейс, который позволял бы давать команды машине с помощью курсора. Новые разработки Джобс решил применить в новой модели — Lisa. Хотел стать главой проекта инновационного компьютера единолично. Столь дерзкие идеи были не по душе другим сотрудникам компании.

Кроме того, в фирме начались проблемы с реализацией другой модели Macintosh. Джобс был уверен, что причина в завышенной цене компьютеров, и принялся обвинять в этом коллег. Стивен решил поставить на машины Lisa эмуляцию не столь популярной модели и продавать ЭВМ под новым брендом — Macintosh XL. Идея дала эффект, но не понравилась ведущим специалистам Apple потому, что по сути была обманом.

Сомнительные действия Джобса вызвали уход нескольких сотрудников. Стив при этом прощался с ними слишком легко, что только пугало коллег. Он становился чересчур требовательным и раздражительным из-за неудачных проектов. Испортились отношения Стивена и другого руководителя — Джона Скалли. Изобретатель решил избавиться от него, однако другие сотрудники не поддержали решение. Напротив, думали отстранить от дел самого Джобса, что и было позже сделано. Некоторое время он формально ещё руководил делами, но поняв, что отсутствия создателя компании никто не замечает и коллеги от него отвернулись, создал новую фирму.

«Я освободился и вошёл в один из самых креативных периодов своей жизни»

Позже именно так про этот период своей жизни скажет Стив Джобс. Ещё до увольнения — в 1985 году — он познакомился с лауреатом Нобелевской премии, биохимиком Полом Бергом. Тот поделился с единомышленником идеями. Джобс решил воплотить их в новой модели компьютера. В Apple предприниматель запустил проект Big Mac, но после ухода исследователя из фирмы его закрыли. Тогда Стиву представилась возможность разрабатывать новые машины уже в другой — своей — фирме. 

Чтобы разработать модель, Джобс переманил к себе из команды Macintosh несколько человек и основал новую компанию под названием NeXT Inc. Со стороны тут же последовали обвинения в недобросовестности бывшего сотрудника. Основатель фирмы отшучивался, мол, компания с четырьмя тысячами сотрудников и оборотом в два миллиарда долларов испугалась шестерых простых ребят.

При создании компьютеров NeXT Джобс использовал самые передовые технологии. Однако для массовых потребителей машины были слишком дорогими. Доход вычислительная техника приносила, но для Стивена недостаточный. 

Миллионер начинает увлекаться компьютерной графикой и следить за деятельностью компании Pixar (тогда называлась The Graphics Group). Эту корпорацию основали в 1979 году для создания анимации. Спустя семь лет Джобс выкупает её у основателя Джорджа Лукаса за пять миллионов долларов: продавец нуждался в деньгах.

Изначально Стивен хотел использовать анимационные фильмы Pixar как рекламу для компьютеров NeXT. Однако из-за необычайной популярности мультфильмов пересмотрел свои планы. Позже — в 2006 году — Disney покупает Pixar за 7,5 миллионов миллиардов (в 1000 раз больше!), а на киностудии выходят такие популярные фильмы, как «В поисках Немо», «История игрушек», «Корпорация монстров». При этом Джобс остаётся акционером компании.

Возвращение к своему детищу: Think Different

Итак, шёл 1996 год. В это время Стив Джобс — владелец сразу двух предприятий. Речь идёт о компании по производству компьютеров NeXT и киностудии Pixar. Однако компьютерная фирма уже три года как не производит машин — только различные инструменты для разработчиков. 

И вот неожиданно 20 декабря Apple — первая компания Джобса — объявляет о намерении купить NeXT. И это несмотря на то, что предложения о покупке компании ранее им уже поступали. В этот раз открылись новые возможности. Руководство «яблока» хотело использовать операционную систему NeXTStep вместо устаревающей Mac OC. Apple приобрели за 427,5 миллионов долларов: 426 миллионов заплатили инвесторам NeXT и ещё 1,5 миллиона — лично Стиву.

Вскоре Джобс — спустя 11 лет изгнания — возвращается в Apple в качестве советника председателя, а позднее становится пожизненным генеральным директором этой компании. Надо отметить, что после возвращения гуру в Apple были закрыты многие проекты и уволены более 3 тысяч сотрудников. Дошло до того, что люди боялись пересекаться с директором в лифте, дабы не лишиться работы. Стив запретил пользовать ПО Apple другим производителям и сократил весь ассортимент до четырёх моделей компьютеров.

Тем не менее, такие меры дали свои плоды. Сократилось малоприбыльное производство, расходы Apple резко сократились, а доходы увеличились. Что же сделал для компании Джобс после своего возвращения?

Новые разработки Стива Джобса

Для своего детища Стив придумывает новый слоган Think Different и выпускает уникальный компьютер iMac. Моноблок сразу привлёк любителей ЭВМ своим футуристическим дизайном и стал самой продаваемой машиной в истории Apple. С помощью iMac Джобсу удалось захватить новый потребительский рынок: треть моноблоков раскупили люди, которые до этого никогда не пользовались компьютерами.

Вторым шагом для Стивена стало создание специализированных магазинов по продаже оборудования Apple. Первые Apple Store были открыты сразу в двух американских городах в мае 2001 года. Основатель компании лично выбирал место для открытия и утверждал каждый элемент дизайна помещений. И это принесло свои плоды. В результате за три года сети удалось достичь показателя почти в 5,6 тысяч посетителей в неделю.

Во многом благодаря Джобсу Apple вернула себе лидирующие позиции на IT-олимпе. Это позволило Стивену осуществить свой план по внедрению операционной системы NeXTStep в персональные компьютеры. Её интерфейс был изменён в стиле Mac и теперь мы знаем её как Mac OS X, ставшую бестселлером.

Затем Джобс решил создать MP3-плеер, и уже в 2001 году на свет вышел первый iPod. Продуманный до мелочей интерфейс, уникальный дизайн, небольшие габариты и удобное управление — это всё про новое изобретение от Apple. Спустя пять лет 75% купленных плееров приходилось именно на iPod, а по объёму продаж этот гаджет сравнялся с компьютером.

Но Джобс не стоит на месте и через год рождает новый хит. Он создаёт первый гаджет, который выполняет функции компьютера, мобильного телефона и плеера. При этом устройством можно управлять при помощи сенсорного интерфейса. Это был, конечно, iPhone. 

Но и телефон стал не последним устройством, созданным Джобсом. Венцом его творений является планшет. Именно он прервал господство персональных компьютеров. Первая модель была представлена самим Стивеном на презентации в Сан-Франциско в 2010 году.

Человек, живущий на зарплату в один доллар в год

Как было сказано выше, Стив Джобс стал миллионером уже в 25 лет. Тогда его состояние оценивалось в 256 миллионов долларов. В конце жизни создатель самых технологичных телефонов — предсказуемо — был уже миллиардером. 

Причём на своей последней должности — генерального директора Apple — Стив получал годовую зарплату всего лишь в один доллар. Он шутил: «50 центов я получаю за появление на работе и столько же — за эффективность». Но заработная плата ему была уже не нужна. Джобс владел почти 5,5 миллионами акций своей компании общей стоимостью более чем в два миллиарда долларов. Кроме того, ему принадлежали 138 миллионов акций Disney, чья стоимость составляла 4,4 миллиарда долларов. Их изобретатель получил в обмен на продажу студии Pixar.

В 2011 году журнал Forbes поместил Стива Джобса на 39 место в списке самый богатых американцев. Исследователи оценили чистые активы предпринимателя в семь миллиардов долларов.

Жена и дети Стива Джобса

Единственной женой основателя Apple была Лорен Пауэлл. Они познакомились в 1989 году в Стэнфордской школе бизнеса, где Джобс читал лекцию. Их роман развивался стремительно. По признанию Стивена, Лорен вскружила ему голову.

Жена Стива Джобса была младше его на восемь лет. Лорен работала в банке. Они поженились в 1991 году, а спустя полгода у них родился первенец — сын Рид. К 1998 году Стивен стал многодетным отцом. К тому времени у него появились ещё две дочери: Эрин и Ив. 

Однако, на самом деле, у Джобса было четверо детей. Он был отцом ещё одной девочки — Лизы Бреннан. Её мать — Крис — первая девушка Стивена. Они начали встречаться ещё в 1972 году, до окончания школы. Спустя четыре года Крис отправляется с их общим другом в Индию, а по приезду понимает, что беременна. 

Стивен отрицал отцовство под предлогом того, что у Крис были другие мужчины. Девушка устраивала скандалы, обвиняя Джобса в том, что он хочет выставить её гулящей женщиной. При этом юный гений принимал участие в жизни Лизы и не позволил Крис отдать новорождённую чужим людям, как когда-то поступили с ним.

Через год Стивен сдал тест на отцовство. Он показал, что Джобс с вероятностью почти 95% приходится отцом Лизы. Однако основатель Apple ещё долгое время не признавал дочь, придумывая небылицы, якобы 25% мужчин США могли быть отцами девочки. Суд обязал его выплачивать Крис алименты. Позже Стив всё-таки купил своей первой девушке и дочери дом и даже оплачивал Лизе обучение. В дальнейшем Джобс и морально, и финансово редко помогал Крис с девочкой.

Мать Лизы делала в разное время несколько попыток получить компенсацию за годы нищеты от Джобса. Но на все просьбы получала лишь отказ. «Я не очень хорошо реагирую на шантаж», — отвечал Стив. Однако в наследство он оставил первой дочери несколько миллионов долларов. Существенную часть денег Лиза использовала для помощи больной матери.

Последняя презентация и причина смерти Стива Джобса

Вероятно, основатель Apple мог бы сделать ещё очень много для своей компании, но здоровье помешало ему это сделать. С 2003 года Джобс боролся со страшной болезнью — раком поджелудочной железы. В июне 2011 года 56-летний гений проводит свою последнюю презентацию. Он представляет новую операционную систему для смартфонов iOs 5 и сервис iCloud. Но спустя три месяца Стивену пришлось уйти с поста CEO компании, оставив за собой пост председателя совета директоров. Как следствие — акции Apple и Wall Disney Co. мгновенно упали на несколько процентов. Все понимали, что Джобс создавать былые шедевры уже не сможет.

Последние дни гения 

Несмотря на ужасное самочувствие, Стивен старался вникать в дела Apple до самой своей смерти. Он консультировал Тима Кука, которого оставил в качестве своего приемника. 

5 октября 2011 года компании Microsoft и Apple приспустили флаги на своих зданиях: в три часа дня Стив Джобс скончался. Он умер в окружении самых близких людей: детей, жены и сестры. 

От чего умер Стив Джобс — доподлинно известно. Это был рак поджелудочной железы, с которым он боролся восемь лет. Доктор заявлял позже, что к столь ранней смерти привёл первоначальный выбор альтернативного лечения.

Общественное признание Стива Джобса

Основатель Apple сумел всю жизнь держать руку на пульсе времени, создавая фантастические устройства. Он сам создавал это время и диктовал ему свои законы в IT-сфере. Джобс создал и наладил производство множества миниатюрных, но совершенных по своим возможностям устройств: iPhone, iPad, iPod, а также магазины Apple Store и медиаплеер iTunes. Каждое из них появлялось намного раньше аналогов, предлагая конкурентам стандарты качества. И это не говоря о том, что Стив создал один из первых персональных компьютеров, обладавших невероятным коммерческим успехом. 

Ни для кого не секрет, но до сих пор Джобс является символом как минимум одной компании — Apple. В 2010 году Forbes составил список самых влиятельных людей мира, поставив Стивена на 17 место. Спустя месяц Financial Times назвал его человеком года.

Через год в Будапеште появилась первая в мире бронзовая статуя Стива Джобса. Основатель Apple был посмертно награждён премией Grammy. Disney снял посвящённый ему фильм — «Джон Картер», а Pixar — мультфильм «Храбрая серцем». Помимо этого, есть около десятка фильмов о гении XX-XXI столетий. Публицисты и коучи ставят Джобса в один ряд с такими выдающимися изобретателями и предпринимателями, как Генри Форд и Томас Эдисон.

Практически все любители гаджетов и технологий уверены, что первый iPhone выпустила компания Apple в 2007 году. Однако, за 10 лет до этого, когда Стив Джобс только вернулся спасать основанную им яблочную компанию, на рынке гаджетов уже был представлен первый iPhone.

Это был кнопочный стационарный интернет-телефон с расширенным набором возможностей.

Кто придумал первый iPhone

В 1995 году в Калифорнии (США) появилась компания InfoGear Technology Corporation, которая собиралась выйти на рынок телекоммуникационного оборудования. Первым разработанным устройством должна была стать продвинутая модель стационарного телефонного аппарата для бизнеса.

Для этого в InfoGear образуется несколько подразделений, которые начинают работу над проектом с кодовым именем Project Mercury.

Уже через год появляются первые прототипы и рабочие образцы. С незначительными доработками и улучшениями модель отправляется в серийное производство.

Прототипы и ранние образцы iPhone

Выпуск модели осуществлялся совместно с компанией CIDCO. Маркетологи назвали первый производимый гаджет компании CIDCO iPhone, а позднее упростили имя до «iPhone».

Название, по некоторым данным, придумал Боб Акерман, который занимался стратегией развития в компании.

Под этим названием и выпускалась модель продвинутого кнопочного телефона InfoGear, а юридический отдел поспешил запатентовать название «iPhone II» для следующего поколения гаджетов.

Как выглядел самый первый iPhone и что умел делать

Любопытно, что данный аппарат имел схожие с яблочным iPhone черты и был предназначен для решения таких же задач. Разумеется, с поправкой на время и технологии.

Хоть внешне iPhone из 1997 года и напоминал домашние кнопочные телефоны, он имел несколько ярких отличительных особенностей.

Во-первых, лицевую панель украшал большой 7-дюймовый сенсорный дисплей. Это была черно-белая матрица с разрешением 740х480 пикселей.

Во-вторых, устройство оснащалось выдвижной QWERTY-клавиатурой для удобного ввода текста. В сложенном виде она скрывалась внутри корпуса и не выдавала назначение гаджета.

В-третьих, устройство имело несколько предустановленных приложений. Основные программы позволяли осуществлять телефонные вызовы, записывать и хранить в памяти телефонную книгу абонентов, присутствовал почтовый клиент и простенький браузер.

Кроме того были приложения с картами местности, рейтингом кинофильмов, небольшой новостной агрегатор даже голосовая почта. Пользователь мог диктовать сообщение голосом, а оно трансформировалось в текстовое сообщение. Данная опция осуществлялась на серверной стороне и требовала активное подключение к сети.

Гаджет позиционировали в качестве простой замены ПК для некоторых повседневных задач с сетью.

Точной расшифровки названия компания не давала. Однако, в разных рекламных материалах устройство называли information phone или internet phone.

В компании заявляли, что работать с iPhone сможет любой, кто хоть раз пользовался сотовым телефоном и банкоматом.

Устройство презентовали на выставке CES-1998. Жюри мероприятия назвало iPhone самым инновационным устройством года.

Гаджет продавался по цене $499, кроме этого пользователь должен был ежемесячно оплачивать еще $20 за подключение к интернету.

iPhone II (второго поколения) немного отличался от предшественника внешне. Главным новшеством под капотом стала поддержка второй линии связи. Так аппарат мог одновременно осуществлять телефонный вызов и не разрывать при этом соединение с интернетом.

За несколько лет было суммарно продано более 100 000 iPhone первого и второго поколений.

Как права на название оказались у Apple

Весной 2000 года компания InfoGear была поглощена телекоммуникационным гигантом Cisco. Вместе с активами были унаследованы все права на продукты и разработки.

Боссов Cisco не особо интересовал кнопочный стационарный телефон, два поколения которого неплохо продавались в США, Австралии и Новой Зеландии. Разработку следующих поколений приостановили, но поддержку и сервисное обслуживание двух актуальных устройств продолжили. Так права на название «iPhone» оставались у Cisco.

Через несколько лет в компании решили возобновить производство и продажу стационарных IP-телефонов. После небольшого ребрендинга такие устройства начали называться Linksys iPhone CIT. Разработкой занималось подразделение Linksys. Эту производящую сетевое оборудование компанию ранее тоже поглотила Cisco.

И вот 9 января 2007 года на конференции Macworld Стив Джобс представил первый яблочный смартфон. Гаджет сочетал в себе три устройства: интернет коммуникатор, телефон и плеер iPod. Согласно логике и модельному ряду выпускаемых устройств, новый гаджет назвали «iPhone».

Такой громкий анонс не могли не заметить в Cisco. Уже через несколько дней юристы компании подали иск против Apple за нарушение авторских прав.

До сих пор никто точно не говорит, знали ли в Apple до презентации своего смартфона, что права на название «iPhone» принадлежали Cisco. Был ли это дерзкий ход Джобса или упущение кого-то из Apple.

Однако, сразу после иска от Cisco именно Стив решил уладить спор в досудебном порядке. Он был знаком с руководителем компании Чарльзом Джанкарло и провел с ним плодотворные переговоры.

Cisco в то время имела вес и силу сопоставимую с Apple. Все документы подтверждали правоту Чарльза Джанкарло, а его юридический отдел был полон решимости отстаивать права в суде.

Чарльз Джанкарло. С его позволения iPhone Apple называется именно так

Изначально Джобс хотел заполучить название и будущую сверхуспешную торговую марку даром. Он предлагал дружбу между компаниями и возможное сотрудничество в будущем. Но такое “щедрое” предложение не оценили в Cisco.

Тогда основатель Apple начал методично давить на Чарльза Джанкарло и по несколько раз в день предлагать ему какие-то уступки. Руководитель Cisco стал получать множество звонков и писем от Стива.

Cisco позднее тоже выпускала несколько кнопочных моделей iPhone

Стороны договорились о взаимном сотрудничестве в обмен на разрешение использовать название iPhone для Apple. Купертиновцы не получили все права на это наименование, компания Cisco тоже могла выпускать iPhone, но в своей нише телекоммуникационного оборудования для крупного бизнеса.

Точные детали сделки были засекречены, но позднее выяснилось, что Джобс пообещал 10-летний контракт на переоборудование и модернизацию сетевой инфраструктуры Apple. Купертиновцы рассматривали в качестве потенциального партнера компанию Juniper Networks, но по итогам переговоров основным поставщиком стала Cisco.

В итоге именно Джобс вышел из данной ситуации победителем, ведь не заплатил за нужный торговый знак ни одного лишнего доллара.

Через 3 года все повторилось

Однако, на этом история не закончилась. Как вы помните, изначально мобильная операционная система для смартфонов Apple называлась iPhone OS. Такое название программное обеспечение носило до 2010 года.

На летней конференции WWDC в Сан-Франциско Стив Джобс презентовал новый iPhone 4 и ключевое обновление операционной системы под названием iOS 4.

Как позднее оказалось, права на название IOS тоже принадлежали компании Cisco. Ранее они уже выпускали собственное ПО для IP-телефонии с таким именем. IOS (Internet Operating System) использовалось в нескольких моделях стационарных коммуникаторов с возможностью подключения к сети интернет.

К счастью, Джобс заранее знал о проблеме и проводил переговоры до регистрации собственного товарного знака. Стив снова проявил свои лучшие качества и не заплатил за нужное название ни цента.

Apple и Cisco договорились о реализации ряда совместных проектов, а взамен яблочная компания получила монопольные права на использование торговой марки «iOS».

В некоторых документах договоренности между компаниями назывались “исследованиями в области совместимости между продуктами и услугами Apple и Cisco”. Так Джобс смог заполучить все необходимое для ребрендинга и более созвучного наименования мобильной операционной системы iPhone.

Apple и Cisco до сих пор сохраняют хорошие отношения. Компании сотрудничают в разных сферах и иногда реализуют подобные совместные проекты.

(20 голосов, общий рейтинг: 4.95 из 5)

Невероятная история Стива Джобса, основателя Apple началась с того, что в молодости большинство его соседей в Калифорнии в 70-ых были гениями и изобретали всякие супер хитро выдуманные приборы. А Джобс бросил учебу, сдавал бутылки, бесплатно питался в кришнаитском храме, принимал наркотики, медитировал, искал просветления и смысл жизни.

У Джобса был друг Стив Возняк, супер ботаник и гений электроники, который словно маг и волшебник мог собрать компьютер, используя вдвое меньше микросхем, чем обычно. В то время компьютеры продавались только как наборы микросхем, которые нужно было собирать и паять своими руками. И однажды как снег на голову Возняка осенила идея создать цельный системный блок, чтобы все было в одной коробке.

Когда изобретение было готово, Джобс был поражен увиденным — тыкая по клавишам на экране тут же появлялись буквы. Он решил, что это удивительное изобретение должно приносить им доход и сказал:

— «даже если прогорим, у нас будет своя компания, раз в жизни мы хотя бы узнаем, что это такое».

Джобс назвал их новую компанию «Apple Computer». Слово Apple, казалось привычным как кусок пирога, оно располагало к себе и смягчало серьезное Computer.

Они рассказали о своем изобретении в домашнем компьютерном клубе. Их выступление не произвело особого впечатления, но один человек заинтересовался. Владелец компьютерного магазина. Ему нужен был товар на продажу и он сделал заказ на 50 компьютеров.

Чтобы выполнить этот заказ, надо было закупить детали аж на целых 15$ тысяч, которых у них не было. Поэтому Джобс в поисках этих денег вдоль и поперек исколесил всю кремниевую долину. Стоило ему где-нибудь только заикнуться о компьютере предназначавшимся для обычных людей — все банкиры реагировали так, будто им наблевали на ботинки. Все, что он нашел это кредит, который нужно было вернуть уже через 30 дней. Поэтому работа кипела. Компьютеры собирали прямо дома у Джобса. Привлекли всех друзей. Спальня, кухонный стол и гараж превратились в рабочие места.

Джобс умудрился получить огромную скидку на детали, поэтому они произвели компьютеров вдвое больше запланированного: 50 продали владельцу магазина, а оставшиеся 50 распродали по друзьям. Бизнес закрутился и они собрали еще сотню компьютеров и стали предлагать их в магазины электроники втрое дороже себестоимости.

Но и конкуренты не дремали, в 1976 году компьютерные магазины стали появляться как грибы после дождя. Были модели гораздо презентабельное и солиднее, тогда как их модель Apple 1 была похожа на небрежный деревянный чемодан.

Неудачники высшего сорта

Джобс понял, что для того, чтобы выйти на новый уровень, товар должен продаваться не только собранным, но и полностью укомплектованным, чтобы не нужно было отдельно докупать монитор, клавиатуру, корпус и блок питания. Чтобы покупателями были не только хакеры, которые сами собирают компьютеры, но и тысячи простых людей.

В те времена компьютеры были похожи на громоздкие серые металлические ящики, которые гудели как трактор. Поэтому Джобс спроектировал собственный корпус из белого пластика с обтекаемыми краями, чтобы выделить его среди мрачных конкурентов. Инженеры разработали инновационный блок питания, который мог работать без дребезжащего вентилятора. Возняк придумал гениальный способ вывода на экран цветного изображения.

Но все эти навороченные нововведения требовали немалых вложений в производство. Джобс ходил по разным компаниям, но везде получал отказ:

— «Вы нам не нужны, вы даже колледж не окончили».

Вид у Джобса был шокирующий — вонючий хиппи в сандалиях, ужасной прической и наглостью, от которой уши вяли.

Но Джобс не сдавался и добрался до гуру стартап инвестирования кремниевой долины — Дона Валентайна. Но и он посчитал Джобса высшего сорта неудачником в маркетинге, потому что Джобс сам лично ходил по магазинам и предлагал свои товары. Поэтому Валентайн наотрез отказался иметь дело с таким бедолагой. Однако Джобс заставил его что-нибудь ему посоветовать, и Валентайн отправил его к маркетологу Майклу Марккуле, который в свои 33 уже греб деньги лопатой и был сказочно богат. Ни одна живая душа не разбиралась лучше его в ценообразовании, системе сбыта и маркетинге.

То, во что веришь

Когда Марккула увидел компьютер Джобса, у него глаза на лоб вылезли. Apple II настолько его поразил, что он решил не обращать внимание на помойный внешний вид обоих Стивов. В конце концов познакомиться с ножницами никогда не поздно.

Марккула рисовал заоблачные перспективы, он был убежден что Apple превратится в многомиллиардный бизнес и предложил 250 тысяч долларов в обмен на треть акций. В Итоге все получили долю по 26%, остальное оставили для потенциальных инвесторов. 3 января 1977 года была официально зарегистрирована новая корпорация Apple Computer Co.

Марккула учил юнцов уму-разуму, он говорил, что для того, чтобы добиться успеха, не нужно стремиться разбогатеть, нужно просто делать то, во что веришь. Люди в первую очередь судят по обложке. Можно создать первоклассный продукт, но толку ноль, если подать его небрежно.

Джобс впитывал как губка. И на первой выставке в 1977 году он разместился прямо в центре зала, чтобы громко заявить о своем супер гениальном компьютере. Чтобы выделиться среди остальных и ошарашить аудиторию, Джобс обтянул стенд бархатом и сделал эффектное освещение. Он даже впервые в жизни прилично оделся.

В блестящем бежевом корпусе Apple II выглядел солидно, доступно и просто, в отличие от пугающих металлических коробок конкурентов. Впервые люди сами шли к Джобсу, а не он к ним. Прямо на этой выставке он получил заказ на 300 компьютеров.

Apple наконец-то стала настоящей компанией с дюжиной работников. Команда перебралась из гаража в офис в Купертино. Однако новые обязанности давались Джобсу с трудом. Он с каждым днем становился все грубее и деспотичнее — он мог подойти к любому своему сотруднику и сказать, что тот делает полное дерьмо.

Марккула терпеть не мог эти скандалы, и, чтобы обуздать вечно перевозбужденного Джобса, нанял президента Майкла Скотта, у которого была одна задача — укрощать Джобса. Но для Джобса отдать руководство кому-то другому было смерти подобно. Он не признавал ничьих авторитетов и это неминуемо еще больше приводило к конфликтам. Джобс метал гром и молнии, устраивая истерики по любому малейшему поводу, и нередко доводил до слез даже самого себя.

Тем не менее Apple процветала. Омерзительно вонючий как протухший бомж Джобс производил нулевое впечатление на инвесторов, но стоило им потыкать Apple II, как они тут же вкладывали деньги.

Идти ко дну в собственном жиру

12 декабря 1980 года Apple вышла на IPO. Акции выставили по 22 доллара. Все за один час их разлетелось на 4,6 млн. Apple стала самой успешной компанией за всю историю биржи. В 25 лет Джобс стал сказочно богат с состоянием в 256 миллионов долларов.

Конкурентов особо не было и благодаря модели Apple II продажи взлетели до небес — с 2500 тысяч в 1977 году до 210 000 тысяч в 1981. Но Джобсу этого было мало, он хотел оставить след во вселенной. Он надеялся, что этот след оставит модель Apple III — больше памяти, больше экран и промышленный дизайн. Но из-за того, что спрос на компьютеры сильно ускорил рост Apple, компания тонула в собственном жиру, перестала замечать свои же ошибки и превратилась в ожиревший бюрократический орган. Отдел работавший над Apple III был похож на проходной двор.

К тому же Джобс всякий раз грубо вмешивался в проект. Его ненормальная тяга к совершенству, заставила сделать корпус чуть ли не микроскопическим, поэтому плата получилась с чрезмерной плотностью компонентов и плохими коннекторами, которые часто отказывали. Поэтому выпуск Apple III в мае 1980 года с треском провалился. А когда машину наконец доработали было уже слишком поздно, репутация упала ниже плинтуса. А продажи компьютеров IBM вышли на первое место. Косяки списали на инженеров, а Джобс умыл руки и самоустранился — он начал раздумывать над тем, как же создать нечто абсолютно ни на что не похожее.

Чудо рабочий стол

В то время вся Америка как обезумевшая была помешана на VHS видеомагнитофонах, чуть ли каждая семья жаждала их купить, а компьютеры воспринимались как что-то супер непонятное. В компьютерах использовались DOS-запросы, от которых черт ногу сломит. Поэтому должно было произойти восьмое чудо света, чтобы компьютеры стали такими же популярными как видеомагнитофоны.

Однако в исследовательском центре Xerox PARC уже работали над подобным чудом — супер простым компьютером, что даже в стельку пьяный новичок мог разобраться что к чему. Вместо DOS-запросов они придумали использовать графику — рабочий стол с документами и папками, которые как по волшебству открывались по щелчку мышки. В то время это казалось волшебством. Этот проект был строго засекречен. Но в 1979 году Xerox жаждала инвестировать в Apple. И Джобс дал согласие при условии, что они раскроют все свои тайны. В Xerox решили, что возможностей ума у этих выскочек не хватит, чтобы понять их сверх гениальное изобретение и согласились.

Когда Джобс приехал в Xerox, чтобы ознакомиться с новой чудо технологией, Xerox решила обвести его вокруг пальца и показала ему не все. Джобс требовал продолжения. Но всякий раз ему показывали совсем не то, какие-то другие несерьезные программы для отвода глаз от главного секрета. Джобс понял это, понял, что его дурачат и сказал:

— Хватит с нас этой чепухи!

Он позвонил начальнику отдела венчурных инвестиций Xerox и пожаловался, и когда команда Джобса наконец увидела изобретение полностью, они пришли в изумление. Инженер Билл Аткинсон пристально вглядывался в каждый пиксель, чуть не влезая в экран вместе с головой. Джобс скакал вокруг компьютера, взволновано размахивая руками и кричал:

— «Это же золотая жила!»

У Джобса словно пелена с глаз упала, он был потрясен и наконец понял каким должно быть будущее компьютеров.

Xerox получила обещанные сто тысяч акций Apple. Цена этих акций равнялась миллиону, но со стороны это выглядело так, будто татаро-монгольская орда ограбила беззащитных крестьян. Однако одной идеи еще недостаточно, главное воплощение. И у Джобса это получилось великолепно.

Сделали мышку более изящную и удобную. Сделали корпус простой как тостер. Инженеры весьма ощутимо сократили площадь корпуса, засунув системник под экран. Усовершенствовали интерфейс, добавили командам плавности. Компьютер назвали Macintosh.

Пока со всем этим возились, в августе 1981 года IBM выпустила свой компьютер. Джобс считал, что если он проиграет эту битву, то компьютерная отрасль на двадцать лет погрузится в мрачное средневековье. Ему нравилось считать себя восставшим против империи зла и IBM хорошо подходила на эту роль. Джобс считал, что судьба даровала ему величайшую миссию по спасению планеты.

Но чтобы спасти планету нужен был хороший президент, имевший вес на Уолл-Стрит. В 1983 году Джобс понимал, что еще не созрел до такой должности, поскольку перевозбуждался по любому малейшему поводу. Поэтому совет директоров закинул удочку на главного рекламного мага и волшебника того времени Джона Скалли из PepsiCo, но он наотрез отказался. И тогда Джобс переманил его, сказав убийственную фразу, которая вошла в историю:

— «Вы до конца своих дней будете продавать сладкую водичку или наконец решитесь заняться чем-то действительно важным?»

Новая чудо операционная система Apple работала только на родном железе. Джобс считал полную несовместимость с другими компьютерами гениальным решением.

Однако в это время для Apple писал программы тогда еще никому не известный Билл Гейтс. Он увидел в Маке этот чудо интерфейс с потрясающей графикой, быстро въехал что за этим чудом стоит будущее, и в 1983 году на пышной конференции торжественно объявил, что Microsoft разрабатывает Windows с графическим интерфейсом точно таким же как у Apple.

Узнав об этом, Джобс пришел в неистовую ярость и обвинил Гейтса в бессовестной краже! Однако Гейтс дал остроумный ответ, который вошел в историю:

— «Я забрался к нашему общему соседу Xerox, чтобы украсть телевизор, и обнаружил, что ты меня опередил».

Империя зла

Тем временем «Империя зла» опередила Apple. Компания IBM продала компьютеров в трое больше, а их доля на рынке выросла на 26%. Поэтому вся надежда была на Macintosh.

Планируя запуск Мака, Джобс хотел, чтобы люди онемели от изумления. И в 1984 году, команда Apple вместе с режиссером Ридли Скоттом сняла ролик, в котором Apple как богоизбранная мессия восстала против сил тьмы.

В ролике было показано как в сером мире пропаганды, главная героиня в яркой одежде олицетворяет макинтош и своими бунтарскими действиями символизирует революцию. Ролик в духе научной-фантастики намекал на тотальное господство IBM и пророчество Джорджа Оруэлла. IBM олицетворяла империю зла, а Apple альянс повстанцев, который освобождает людей из-под забвения.

Однако у совета директоров этот ролик за 750 тысяч долларов вызвал только позыв к рвоте. Они считали, что это худшая реклама, которую они когда-либо видели.

Но пути назад уже не было, эфирное время было уже куплено, во время матча супер кубка по футболу — это время, когда в США у экранов собирается половина населения страны. Каждая секунда эфира на вес золота: 30 секунд стоит $5,2 млн.

В итоге вся страна наблюдала как под зловещую музыку появилось мрачное изображение марширующей толпы. Дерзкий, тревожный и загадочный Ролик, не похожий ни на один другой, посмотрело 96 миллионов зрителей. В тот вечер все телеканалы бушевали, говоря только об этом.

Ролик имел эффект разорвавшейся бомбы, потому что в то время большинство молодежи считало компьютеры инструментами власти, которые превращают людей в стадо покорных роботов, а реклама ухватила дух революции. Ролик намекал что Apple противостоит зловещему плану крупных корпораций поработить мир и сознание людей.

Ролик хорошо срезонировал с настроением американцев еще и потому, что в это время, на всю катушку шла холодная война с советским тоталитарным режимом, который президент Рейган называл тогда «Империей зла».

Не такой уж и жирный бифштекс

Первые сто дней мак разлетался как горячие пирожки, но когда волна восторга поутихла и иллюзия рассыпалась, оказалось, что это не такой уж и жирный бифштекс. Продажи упали ниже плинтуса.

Mac оказался ужасно тормозным. И никакая реклама не помогала. За красивую картинку приходилось платить — требовалось больше мощности. В Macintosh установили слишком мало памяти. Не было встроенного жесткого диска. Отсутствие вентилятора приводило к частым сбоям. Когда покупатели поняли все это, продажи упали.

Джобс верил, что все к чему он прикасается превращается в золото, и поэтому не проводил тестовых испытаний.

Маку не хватало программ, не было гнезд расширения и был маленький экран. Компьютер выплевывал дискету по любому малейшему поводу и что-то требовал от пользователя. В то время как IBM поддерживал тысячу программ. Из-за бесконечных правок вносимых Джобсом цена на Macintosh выросла до 1995$. Джобс наблюдал ужасающую картину — продавцы в магазинах первым делом показывали клиентам IBM, а тех кто хотел Mac все равно переориентировали на IBM. Поэтому продажи стремились к нулю.

Джобса тяготила такая ситуация. Инженеры погрузились в депрессию. Несколько месяцев они не могли ничего сделать. Многие талантливые люди ушли из компании. Но главной новостью стал уход ветерана Возняка. Он считал высшей степенью тупости недооценивать модель Apple II, которая все еще приносила компании основной доход.

Склады оказались переполнены громадным запасом непроданных компьютеров. Apple была в панике и как Титаник шла ко дну. Во многом виновником был сам Джобс, он сделал компьютер для организаций, а рекламировал обычным людям.

Если бы Джобс не торопился, возможна картина была бы иной, однако ему всегда казалось, что ему отмерена короткая жизнь и поэтому надо поторапливаться, чтобы все успеть.

Лодка без руля

Джобса должен был контролировать Скалли, но Джобс тот еще кукловод, он обворожил Скалли так, что тот потерял голову и стал считать себя особенным. И чем больше Джобс манипулировал им, тем больше презирал.

Разногласия все больше беспокоили совет директоров. Перепады настроения Джобса становились все более резкими. Он мог унизить и втоптать в грязь любого, кого встречал по коридору.

Подчиненные считали компанию лодкой без руля, которую несет в туман. И в итоге Скалли отстранил Джобса от проекта Macintosh.

Джобс решил так просто не сдаваться, и задумал переворот и начал переманивать людей на свою сторону. Однако Скалли узнал об этом и на совете директоров жестко поставил условие, либо он, либо Джобс. Все проголосовали за Скалли — Джобс бы нокаутирован, растоптан в пыль.

Однако многие сотрудники были недовольны увольнением Джобса. Компания больше не годилась для творчества и они ушли вместе с Джобсом.

Члены совета, узнав об этом, отреагировали крайне резко, многие были в бешенстве. Они решили, что Джобс одурачил их. Члены были поражены предательским поступком Джобса, который в тайне задумал увезти прямо из-под носа самых ценных сотрудников. Всех предателей бесцеремонно выдворили с территории компании, а на Джобса подали в суд. После этого акции Apple выросли на 7%, поскольку акционеры были рады что калифорнийский разгильдяй отныне больше не руководит.

Одного дизайна недостаточно

Стива повергли, но не уничтожили, он не собирался уходить в тень. Однажды околачиваясь по университетам, Джобс встретил биохимика, который унывал и негодовал о том, что без мощного компьютера только на один единственный эксперимент у них тратится аж целая неделя. Услышав это, Джобс вдохновился идеей по производству мощных компьютеров для вузов и основал новую компанию Next.

Джобс захотел сделать компьютер в форме идеального черного куба. Куб олицетворял солидность. Подражая японцам, Джобс построил дорогостоящий роботизированный завод, поэтому деньги из его собственного кармана улетали как сквозь пальцы.

В сентябре 1986 весь график пошел коту под хвост. Джобс так ничему и не научился. На заводе стояли кресла за 20$ тысяч, а компании грозило банкротство. Чтобы найти еще деньги, Джобс выставил 10% акций за 3$ млн. — сумма, которую он взял с потолка. У компании до этого момента не было никаких достижений, ни продукции, ни доходов. Поэтому ни один инвестор не торопился вкладывать деньги.

И все же Джобс привлек внимание одного — техасца Росса Перро, который проникся идеями Джобса, позвонил и сказал:

— «Если понадобятся деньги, только свистни».

Чуть ли не больше всего в жизни Перо жалел, что в свое время не инвестировал в Microsoft, когда Билл Гейтс будучи еще совсем молодым сосунком, клянчил у него деньги. На этот раз Перо был твёрдо намерен не повторять своих ошибок и вложил 20$ млн. за долю в 16%.

Кроме денег, Перо привнес солидность Next в глазах других. Где бы он не был, он всем и каждому нахваливал Джобса. А вот Билл Гейтс был другого поля ягодой, он называл машину Джобса барахлом с идиотским корпусом, а проект обреченным на провал.

В октябре 1988 Джобс провел блестящую презентацию NeXT, чем вызвал бурю восторга. Но интерес быстро приутих и о его компьютере быстро позабыли. А когда наконец компьютер поступил на рынок в 1989 году, продажи не превышали каких-то мизерных 400 единиц в месяц. Для Next оказалось мало совместимых программ, и на рынке были более дешевые аналоги. Дорогой завод простаивал. А компания теряла деньги. Джобса злорадно называли одноразовым чудом, потому что кроме модели Apple II у него не было ничего кроме провалов.

Одного дизайна недостаточно, чтобы компьютер хорошо продавался. Святая империя Джобса разваливалась, в то время как Microsoft росла как на дрожжах, превращалась в пуп земли.

Бородатый шаман одурачил Apple

В 1994 году продажи Apple тоже упали ниже плинтуса. С тех пор как они вышвырнули Джобса их инновационный запал вовсе затух. А Microsoft в это время пожинала плоды успешного копирования идеи — в 1995 году Windows стала самой успешной ОС всех времен, в то время как прибыль Macintosh была на грани катастрофы.

Наблюдая как Microsoft стремительно поглощает долю рынка, а компьютеры с Windows сметают с полок, руководители Apple отступили от принципа Джобса и разрешили продавать лицензию на ОС Macintosh другим производителям, однако это еще больше усугубило ситуацию, продажи компьютеров упали в недосягаемые низы. Руководство считало, что единственный путь спасения – продать кому-нибудь компанию. Но никто не хотел покупать хромую лошадь, которая одной ногой уже в могиле.

Джобс мог бы поглотить Apple и снова стать главой своего детища. Но он не хотел насильственного поглощения, он хотел, чтобы они сами его позвали. Они проявляли интерес к его операционной системе. В этом и заключался план порабощения Джобса: Apple покупает его, а это дает ему право войти в совет директоров, а оттуда рукой подать до должности генерального директора.

И Apple попалась на удочку, в 1996 году они купили Next за 426 млн. Билл Гейтс узнав об этом, был вне себя от гнева. Он считал, что бородатый шаман одурачил Apple и продал им никому не нужный мусор.

Поначалу в 1997 году Джобс особо не вмешивался в дела компании и был в Apple как неофициальный консультант. Его использовали только для показухи. Но постепенно начал выдвигать своих людей на ключевые позиции.

Между тем под старым управлением Apple еле-еле шевелилась, а продажи на всех парах летели в пропасть. В какой-то момент Джобса наконец пригласили занять пост генерального директора. Но Джобс отказался, не смотря на это, власть у него была реальная.

Главой Apple тогда был Эд Вулард. Даже он подумывал об уходе на фоне катастрофической ситуации с компанией.

В 1997 году текучка кадров шла обильной рекой, чтобы ее остановить, Джобс решил наконец вмешаться в дела руководства и пересмотреть цены опционов сотрудников, но директора встали на дыбы как взбесившиеся кони.

Тогда Джобс заявил, что иначе он уйдет из компании и больше никогда не вернется, поскольку у него нет времени сюсюкаться с советом, и потребовал, чтобы все подали в отставку — только тогда он вернется. Остаться мог лишь Вулард. Сила была на стороне Джобса. В сложившейся ситуации, многие и сами хотели уйти. Даже «отец» Марккула смотал удочки. Джобс наконец занял пост генерального директора.

Рок-звезда снова на сцене

К этому времени Джобс набрался мудрости и стал зрелым. Как только власть оказалась в его руках, он сразу же запретил продавать лицензию на ОС Macintosh и принялся уничтожать расплодившиеся клоны. Джобс считал, что это самый идиотский поступок на свете — позволить, чтобы производители паршивых компьютеров использовали его супер ОС и урвали кусок прибыли своими грязными щупальцами.

Компания пекла как блины множество вариантов моделей каждого продукта. Это было чистое безумие — тонны совершенно ненужной продукции. Даже сотрудники уже сами не понимали, что делают. Джобс на 70% урезал ассортимент.

Способность Джобса к концентрации спасла Apple. В первый же год он уволил более 3000 сотрудников. После двух лет ошеломительных потерь, когда до банкротства оставалось рукой подать, Apple наконец-то выдавила прибыль.

Весть о возвращении Джобса к рулю подняла акции Apple с 13 до 20 долларов. На конференции Macworld в Бостоне в августе 1997 года, преданные фанаты Apple, встречали Джобса словно рок-звезду. На выступлении Джобс неожиданно объявил о партнерстве с Microsoft, которая инвестирует в Apple 150 млн. Злейшие враги вдруг объединились. К тому моменту Microsoft уже была на рынке царем горы, поэтому Джобсу нужна была дружба с Гейтсом, чтобы выиграть время и выкарабкаться со дна.

На этих новостях акции взлетели до небес, всего за день прибавив к стоимости компании 830 млн. Apple была одной ногой в могиле, и вдруг вернулась к жизни.

Гигантская капля

В индустрии компьютеров, все производители создавали одинаковые серые коробки, отдавая производство на сторону, а сами соревновались только в цене. Джобс решил, что революционное устройство должно соответствующе выглядеть. В большинстве компаний дизайнеры пляшут под дудку производителей, но Джобс сделал все наоборот: сначала дизайн, а инженеры подстраиваются под корпус.

Так в 98-ом появился безумный и футуристичный iMac с прозрачным корпусом из бирюзового пластика, похожего на гигантскую каплю. В то время этот компьютер выглядел так, будто его телепортировали из будущего. Вместо бледных блоков, отдельных мониторов и вороха из проводов было представлено на редкость изящное устройство. В те времена люди побаивались и сторонились техники. Но обладатели iMac ставили его дома на самом видном месте, чтобы гости завидовали.

Люди как одичалые сметали компьютеры с прилавков. К концу года продали 800 000 штук. Билл Гейтс всех вокруг уверял что этот успех временный.

Торговый гигант

Джобса возмущало то, что на полках в магазинах его супер инновационные компьютеры стояли в одном ряду с отвратительным ширпотребом вроде Dell, а продавцы даже не удосуживались объяснять отличия. И располагались эти магазины в черт знает в каких дебрях. Поэтому Джобс решил строить собственные магазины. Он сам проектировал каждую мельчайшую деталь в интерьере в стиле минимализма.

Аналитики дружно предсказывали провал. Совет директоров тоже был не в восторге от новой сумасшедшей идеи Джобса. Многие фирмы разорялись, когда открывали собственную сеть. Это казалось безумием. Однако к 2004 магазины Apple посещало уже больше пяти тысяч человек в неделю, а прибыль достигла 1,2 млрд — абсолютный рекорд для розницы. При открытии новой точки, посетители ночевали у дверей, чтобы первыми попасть внутрь.

Цифровое сердце

Но проблема с магазинами просто меркла по сравнению со зловещей тьмой, которая нависла над цифровым миром в 2001 году. В 90-ых слово интернет звучало как магическое заклинание, у инвесторов поехала крыша и все ломанулись вкладывать деньги в доткомы. Но распухший до предела пузырь доткомов лопнул и индекс NASDAQ сразу рухнул почти на 50%. Поэтому все говорили, что песенка эпохи компьютеров спета.

Но Джобс посчитал, что им это только на пользу. И пока конкуренты туго затянули пояса, Apple продолжала изобретать и превратила компьютер в цифровой узел — сердце для всех других гаджетов, которое управляло и синхронизировало. Теперь втыкнуть камеру и закачать видео на диск было проще пареной репы, а благодаря программе iMovie даже в дупель окоченевший пенсионер мог запросто смонтировать крутой блокбастер со спецэффектами и музыкой.

Все сделаны в аду

Однако при синхронизации с музыкой Apple ждала головная боль. В 2000 году все как обезумевшие стали копировать музыку на компьютеры и записывали собственные сборники на диски. В тот год в США было продано около (трехсот) 320 млн. пустых болванок.

Но тогда все программы были крайне неудобными и сложными. В 2001 Джобс создал iTunes — программа для записи дисков, как часть того самого сердца. Но этого было мало, нужно было чтобы iTunes хорошо коннектилась с музыкальными плеерами. Но в то время все плееры были полным дерьмом, как будто их сделали в аду. Ими было невозможно пользоваться, а вмещали они всего каких-то жалких 16 песен. И поскольку Джобс обожал слушать музыку, он решил сделать собственный плеер.

Тюремный надзиратель промывает мозги

Плеер состряпали всего за один год. Такой нереально быстрый срок был достигнут потому что Джобс размахивал хлыстом перед сотрудниками как тюремный надзиратель перед рабами. Он верил, если хочешь супер команду, надо быть беспощадным. Слабые притягивают слабых. Жесткость Джобса приносила пользу. Десятки обиженных сотрудников заканчивали свои жалостливые истории признанием, что Джобс добился от них того, о чем они даже и мечтать не могли. Джобс умел промыть мозги и заразить команду стремлением и уверенностью в том, что они могут невозможное. И люди делали невозможное, потому что не знали, что невозможное невозможно.

Так появился iPod со встроенным жестким диском размером с монету, который вмещал тысячу песен и работал без подзарядки 10 часов. До любого трека можно было добраться всего в три касания. Рядом с iPod все остальные плееры выглядели так, будто их сделали где-то в Узбекистане.

Но публика скептически отнеслась к iPod с его заоблачной ценой в 399 долларов в 2001 году. В интернете шутили что название iPod расшифровывается как «Идиоты потребовали много денег». Тем не менее, вскоре, продажи взлетели до небес. В каждом квартале можно было увидеть человека с белыми наушниками.

Вслед за собой, хорошие продажи iPod подстегнули продажи компьютеров iMac. Поэтому Джобс пустил на рекламу iPod еще больше — астрономические 75 миллионов. Это в сто раз больше чем тратили конкуренты. И этим подмял под себя весь рынок.

Дикий запад

Но в 2002 году в музыкальной индустрии Apple столкнулась с новой проблемой. Чтобы закачать музыку в iPod нужно было скачивать ее в интернете, а интернет в те года заполонили пиратские сервисы.

Пиратство в те дни довело всех до белого колена. Вокруг царил дикий запад. Звукозаписывающие компании судорожно искали способ защиты. И страдали не только они, люди скачивая бесплатную музыку сталкивались с вирусами и ужасным качеством.

Джобс понял, что лучший способ бороться с воровством — создать альтернативу. Потому что у 80% людей ворующих музыку просто не было выбора. И Джобс создал онлайн магазин музыки iTunes Store, и убедил ведущие звукозаписывающие компании разрешить продавать в нем музыку. И не целыми альбомами, а поштучно — отдельно песнями, каждая по 99 центов. Потому что обычно в альбомах только 2-3 трека нормальных, остальное унылое дерьмо.

Контракты многих музыкантов запрещали продавать музыку по отдельности. Поэтому Джобсу пришлось лично уговаривать некоторых артистов. Когда Джобс показал Dr. Dre взаимодействие iPod и iTunes Store, тот воскликнул:

— «Чувак, ну наконец-то хоть кто-то это сделал!»

На момент открытия в 2003 году в магазине было 200 000 песен. За первые шесть дней продали аж целый миллион произведений.

Но многие люди не могли пользоваться iTunes Store, потому что магазин не работал на Windows. Никто и подумать не мог, что когда-то этот день настанет, но в 2003 Apple сделала версию iTunes для своего заклятого врага — Windows. Журналисты спросили Джобса, каково быть разработчиком программы для Windows? Джобс ответил:

— «Это как передать стакан ледяной воды кому-нибудь в аду».

К 2004 году Apple заняла господствующее положение на рынке плееров. Если раньше, чтобы привлечь знаменитость к рекламе, нужно было отстегнуть ей астрономическую сумму, то теперь, музыканты сами мечтали появиться в рекламе iPod. Поскольку это гарантировало им ошеломительный успех. Например, напрочь всеми забытый Боб Дилан в своем клипе прорекламировал iPod и в первую же неделю занял первое место в чарте Billboard. iTunes мог кого угодно буквально катапультировать на пьедестал славы.

Устройство элитных

Продажи iPod поражали. В 2004 году продали 5 миллионов. В 2005 уже 20 миллионов. Но неожиданно по всему миру стали появляться телефоны с уже встроенным плеером. Это означало только одно — iPod скоро станет покойником. Видеокамеры уже начали продаваться хуже из-за этого. Джобс понял, что если не сделать телефон, то они останутся у пустого корыта.

Он заметил одну странность, в то время все телефоны на рынке были страшными как ободранные кирпичи. И пока в них разберешься мозг взорвется. Вся эта всепроникающая тупость вдохновила его создать по-настоящему удобный телефон. К тому же, как раз в то время, рынок телефонов рос не по дням, а по часам. Джобс понял, что если среди серого дерьма появится супер продукт, то у него будет такой же ошеломительный успех, как был с iPod.

В 2004 сотрудники Apple стали замечать, как их коллеги загадочным образом пропадают из офиса и больше никогда не появляются. Никто не мог объяснить куда они деваются. Таким образом Джобс вербовал людей для секретной лаборатории по созданию эпичного устройства. Инженеры считали себя элитными и почти не выходили из лаборатории: они ели, принимали душ, ночевали, отмечали праздники и работали в одном месте.

В то время сенсорные экраны уже появились, но все они работали со стилусом. Джобс считал, что если ты предлагаешь стилус, то ты покойник, поэтому его элитные инженеры создали сенсор без стилуса. В результате на экране можно было взмахом пальца двигать картинку. В то время это казалось волшебством.

Кнопки клавиатуры забирали много пространства экрана, поэтому элитные инженеры сделали кнопки виртуальными, которые появляются только тогда, когда они нужны. В итоге экран занял все место до самых краев, корпус имел лишь тонкий ободок по краям. В результате получился iPhone, который объединял в себе три устройства: плеер, компьютер и телефон.

Когда в 2007 году iPhone поступил в продажу, конкуренты считали, что он слишком дорогой, за свои 500 долларов. Деловые люди не будут пользоваться телефоном без клавиатуры, думали они. Но к концу 2010 года Apple продала 90 миллионов iPhone, компания урвала больше половины прибыли мирового рынка сотовых телефонов. Фанаты называли iPhone «Телефоном Иисуса». Теперь, благодаря этому универсальному устройству, бюджет Apple больше даже чем у министерства финансов США

Игла в заезженной пластинке

5 октября 2011 года, на следующий день после презентации iPhone 4S Стив Джобс умер. Ему было 56. Неслыханный траур окутал всю планету. Все магазины превратились в храмы.

Когда Джобс обнаружил опухоль поджелудочной железы, он долгое время лечил ее черт знает чем — всякими травами и корешками. Поэтому раковая опухоль успела распространился на другие органы, и врачи оказались бессильны.

Нечасто встретишь сорокалетнего инноватора, но у Джобса дела пошли в гору как раз тогда, когда ему исполнилось сорок лет. Джобс доказал, что и после сорока человек может оставаться вдохновленным. Он всегда недоумевал над тем, почему те, кому за 30, начинают мыслить узкими шаблонами и перестают следить за прогрессом. Люди словно игла в заезженной пластинке, застревают в этих шаблонах, а потом и вовсе не могут от них освободиться и прокисают. Крайне редко, когда человек не теряет интереса к жизни и до самой смерти сохраняет детскую любознательность.

Джобс прославлял безумцев и бунтарей, всех тех, кто думают иначе, нестандартно. Маркетинг Джобса каким-то образом заставлял людей поверить в то, что они свободные, творческие, прогрессивные бунтари, только потому что используют Apple. В таком позиционировании бренда Джобс вдохновлялся подходом компании Nike, которая первая придумала расхваливать не сам продукт, а тех, кто им пользуется. История Nike.

Текст может показаться необычным, потому что изначально это была речь для видео на YouTube. История подготовлена на основе книги: Уолтера Айзексона «Стив Джобс» и Джеффри Янга «iКона. Стив Джобс»

Apple — одна из самых дорогих корпораций в мире на текущий момент, которая изначально создавалась как компания по производству персональных компьютеров.

✅ А в дальнейшем Эпл также стала одной из первых, что разработала операционную систему с графическим интерфейсом в стиле классических «окон», которые можно размещать на рабочем столе в удобном для себя порядке.

Но сейчас большую часть выручки Apple получает благодаря продажи своих смартфонов — iPhone. А почему компания вообще занялась производством телефонов? И когда появился первый Айфон в мире?

Кто такой легендарный Стив Джобс: основатель Apple и создатель Айфона

Стив Джобс — один из основателей Apple (открыл компанию вместе со Стивом Возняком), а также главный изобретатель.

Многие его также именовали как «промышленный дизайнер», так как именно он всегда отвечал за создание первоначальных идей о том, как должен выглядеть конечный продукт.

И значительную долю внимания при этом Стив Джобс уделял тому моменту, какие первоначальные эмоции вызывает производимый компанией продукт. Это привело к тому, что с ним согласовывали даже дизайн упаковки для большинства выпускаемых гаджетов!

Но ещё до того, когда появился 1 Aйфон, Apple уже более 6 лет активно занималась производством и продвижением другого носимого гаджета — iPod.

Он по праву являлся самым популярным носимым мини-плеером как в США, так и за рубежом (хотя официально продавался далеко не во всех странах). И именно благодаря опыту, полученному при его разработке, а также при интеграции сервиса iTunes Music, первый iPhone получился именно таким, каким есть.

А придуманный тогда же Стивом Джобсом тренд (сенсорный экран, встроенный магазин приложений) производителями смартфонов используется и по нынешний день.

Кто создал телефон Айфон?

Главным идеологом был именно Стив Джобс. А в разработке ему помогала команда из более чем 200 специалистов, среди которых был также сформирован отдельный дизайнерский отдел.

С чего все начиналось: идея Айфона и ее развитие

👍 Ещё в 2004 году Стив Джобс понял, что вектор развития носимых гаджетов движется в сторону того, что у каждого человека появится свой персональный мини-компьютер, который также заменить и фотоаппараты, MP3-проигрыватели. А потому и интерес к iPod со временем у пользователей будет снижаться.

Первой попыткой исправить это была коллаборация с компанией Motorola и выпуск телефона серии ROKR.

Главная его отличительная особенность — он был совместим с iTunes Music. То есть в него было предустановлено специальное приложение для синхронизации музыки с данным сервисом и её легального приобретения.

Но такой «опыт» оказался провальным, так как рекламная кампания была провалена, а сама стоимость гаджета многими посчиталась слишком завышенной. И это было отправной точкой для того, чтобы в дальнейшем произошел первый выпуск iPhone.

Сам Стив Джобс утверждал, что Motorola ROKR — телефон, который во многих аспектах его не устраивает как разработчика и как пользователя.

То есть iPhone первого поколения был своего рода экспериментом — Apple решила полностью устранить все недостатки ROKR. Но в каком году появился 1 Айфон и как долго заняла его разработка?

Первая презентация айфона: прорыв на мобильном рынке

Итак, в каком году появился первый iPhone?

Его официальная презентация состоялась 9 января 2007 года в Сан-Франциско (на конференции Macworld Conference & Expo). Но вот его продажи начались только в средине 2007 года (в США в продажу поступил только в июне, а спустя некоторое время — и в других странах мира).

И о самой презентации сейчас ходит не меньше слухов, чем об линейке iPhone в целом. Её и сейчас можно без проблем посмотреть на том же YouTube.

➡️ В какой-то мере заслугой этому было то, что презентацию проводил сам Стив Джобс, а первые его слова, когда он вышел на сцену, были «наконец-то мы придумали умный смартфон».

А ведь до этого сотовые телефоны больше воспринимались как устройство для связи с парочкой дополнительных элементарных функций (которые использовались больше для развлечения).

Apple же задала тренд на разработку именно персональных мини-ПК. Ведь сейчас смартфоны по функционалу практически не уступают стационарным компьютерам!

Когда появился первый айфон в России?

Официальные его продажи в РФ так и не стартовали. Но примерно в конце 2007, а также в начале 2008 года его стали не совсем легально ввозить на территорию страны (в том числе и магазины, которые занимались продажей сотовых телефонов).

Кстати, изначально год выпуска первого Айфона мог бы быть 2006-м. Но презентацию отложили на несколько месяцев для формирования окончательной договоренности с Foxconn (на их производстве в Китае собирали телефоны) и AT&T.

Роль AT&T в продажах первых Айфонов

А вот об этом мало кто упоминает: когда изобрели первый Айфон, то весомую роль в его популяризации сыграла компания AT&T (крупнейший американский оператор сотовой связи).

Сейчас, наверное, всем известен такой формат сотрудничества с провайдерами связи, когда абонент с ним подписывает контракт, например, на 3-годовое обслуживание, а за это получает возможность приобрести телефон со скидкой вплоть до 90%.

И впервые такой формат сотрудничества как раз и был реализован Apple и AT&T. То есть получить iPhone первого поколения можно было практически бесплатно, если стать контрактным абонентом AT&T.

И желающих это сделать оказалось настолько много, что Эпл в срочном порядке решала проблему дефицита выпускаемых смартфонов!

С того момента, когда появились первые Айфоны на потребительском рынке, прошел всего год. А данный телефон стал одним из самых популярных и продаваемых в США.

Это удивительный факт, так как Apple до этого смартфонами не занимались. Но им удалось стать ключевым конкурентом для той же Nokia, Motorola и даже Blackberry.

Как выглядел первый iPhone

Изначально проект назывался как «Project Purple 2». Разработка проводилась в обстановке строжайшей секретности.

Те, кто ранее работал над смартфоном, утверждают, что сперва он должен был стать похожим на iPod предыдущего поколения. То есть у него было бы традиционное «колесо» для управления устройством. Но чем больше функций в дальнейшем добавляли в гаджет — тем меньше такой формат управления устраивал самого Джобса.

Так что первый телефон Эпл неоднократно начинали разрабатывать повторно «с нуля», пока не дошли до основной концепции — сенсорный экран, занимающий большую часть лицевой стороны девайса, а также единственная кнопка Home под ним.

Все производители смартфонов и сейчас придерживаются данного дизайна. Правда, площадь экрана на лицевой панели увеличилась, а кнопка Home была упразднена (можно сказать, что она стала «сенсорной»).

Какие функции были в первом iPhone

А вот в плане функционала после презентации Айфон не особо удивлял.

Да, у него был уникальный интерфейс, он умел подключаться к интернету, поддерживал BlueTooth, Wi-Fi. Но вот устанавливать сторонние приложения нельзя было.

Поэтому девайс, помимо веб-браузинга, умел только звонить, работать с SMS-сообщениями, проигрывать музыку и фотографировать. Была также возможность посмотреть быстро текущие котировки акций на бирже. Всё остальные новшества, типа «магазин программ AppStore», были добавлены только с обновлениями.

А вот в чем оказались больше всего заинтересованы покупатели устройства, так это форматом «общения» с интерфейсом с помощью жестов. Все эти «свайпы» и «щелчки» для масштабирования изображения пользователем воспринимались как какой-то «магией».

И с того момента, когда появился первый Айфон, его программная поддержка длилась ещё более 3 лет. Последняя официальная версия iOS для него — это 3.1.3.

Минусы и плюсы первого iPhone

Ключевые преимущества iPhone в том виде, в котором он вышел изначально:

• инновационный форм-фактор и принцип взаимодействия пользователя с операционной системой;
• поддержка всех распространенных (и недавно появившихся) стандартов беспроводной связи;
• дизайн (комбинация металла и пластика, девайс привлекал к себе внимание);
• функциональность (добавленную уже с обновлениями).

Недостатки:

• нестабильная работа с EDGE (в сетях AT&T);
• отсутствие поддержки 3G;
• не совсем удачное решение по синхронизации устройства с ПК (в частности, работающих под управлением Windows);
• сравнительно непродолжительное время автономной работы;
• не было возможности снимать видео (хотя проигрывание видеороликов — доступно).

Но с выходом следующих iPhone эти недостатки были устранены. Можно утверждать, что именно iPhone 3-го поколения стал тем самым устройством, который изначально и хотел получить Стив Джобс.

Современные модели айфонов

Эволюция айфонов от 1 поколения до нынешнего такова, что ежегодно Apple представляет новую линейку своих смартфонов. Но неизменным остаётся их форм-фактор, принцип работы iOS, а также регулярная интеграция инновационных технологий.

На сегодня Айфоны умеют:

• фотографировать и снимать видео в HDR-диапазоне, что сопоставимо с камерами среднего ценового сегмента;
• подключаться к самым современным сетям сотовой и беспроводной связи (со скоростью передачи данных вплоть до 1 Гбит);
• использоваться в качестве игрового устройства (Айфоны являются самыми производительными смартфонами).

Итого, Стив Джобс — тот, кто создал телефон Apple и сделал эту компанию одну из самых узнаваемых во всем мире. Он был тем, кто кардинально изменил вектор развития всей сферы производства носимых гаджетов.

Причем его идеи соблюдаются даже после его смерти (Стив Джобс умер от рака в 2011 году, через несколько дней после презентации iPhone 4S).

Steve Jobs
Jobs introducing the iPhone 4 in 2010
Born	February 24, 1955 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	October 5, 2011 (aged 56) Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Resting place	Alta Mesa Memorial Park
Education	Reed College (attended)
Occupations	Entrepreneur industrial designer media proprietor investor
Years active	1971–2011
Known for	Pioneer of the personal computer revolution with Steve Wozniak Co-creator of the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and first Apple Stores
Title	Co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Co-founder, primary investor, and chairman of Pixar Founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT
Board member of	The Walt Disney Company[1] Apple Inc.
Spouse	Laurene Powell ​ (m. )​
Partner	Chrisann Brennan (1972–1977)
Children	4, including Lisa and Eve
Relatives	Mona Simpson (sister) Bassma Al Jandaly (cousin) Malek Jandali (cousin)
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (posthumous, 2022)
Signature

Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company’s board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Jobs was born in San Francisco to a Syrian father and German-American mother. He was adopted shortly after his birth. Jobs attended Reed College in 1972 before withdrawing that same year. In 1974, he traveled through India seeking enlightenment before later studying Zen Buddhism. He and Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak’s Apple I personal computer. Together the duo gained fame and wealth a year later with production and sale of the Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers. Jobs saw the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto in 1979, which was mouse-driven and had a graphical user interface (GUI). This led to the development of the unsuccessful Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the breakthrough Macintosh in 1984, the first mass-produced computer with a GUI. The Macintosh introduced the desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to feature vector graphics.

In 1985, Jobs was forced out of Apple after a long power struggle with the company’s board and its then-CEO, John Sculley. That same year, Jobs took a few Apple employees with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialized in computers for higher-education and business markets. In addition, he helped to develop the visual effects industry when he funded the computer graphics division of George Lucas’s Lucasfilm in 1986. The new company was Pixar, which produced the first 3D computer-animated feature film Toy Story (1995) and went on to become a major animation studio, producing over 25 films since.

In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple as CEO after the company’s acquisition of NeXT. He was largely responsible for reviving Apple, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. He worked closely with English designer Jony Ive to develop a line of products that had larger cultural ramifications, beginning with the «Think different» advertising campaign and leading to the Apple Store, App Store (iOS), iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iTunes Store. In 2001, the original Mac OS was replaced with the completely new Mac OS X (now known as macOS), based on NeXT’s NeXTSTEP platform, giving the operating system a modern Unix-based foundation for the first time. In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He died of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. In 2022, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Background

Family

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali (Arabic: عبد الفتاح الجندلي).^[2] His cousin, Bassma Al Jandaly, maintains that his birth name was Abdul Lateef Jandali.^[3] He was adopted by Clara (née Hagopian) and Paul Reinhold Jobs.^[2]

Abdulfattah «John» Jandali was born and raised in an Arab Muslim household in Homs, Syria. As an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, he was a student activist and was imprisoned for his political activities.^[4] He pursued a PhD at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Joanne Schieble, an American Catholic of German and Swiss descent.^[4][5] Both of the same age, Jandali was a doctoral candidate and a teaching assistant for a course Schieble was taking.^[6] Novelist Mona Simpson, Jobs’s biological sister, noted that Schieble’s Catholic parents were unhappy that their daughter was with a Muslim.^[7] Jobs’s biographer Walter Isaacson states that Schieble’s dying father «threatened to disown her if she wed Abdulfattah»,^[6] so they remained an unmarried couple.^[5]

Paul Jobs was a Coast Guard mechanic.^[8] After leaving the Coast Guard, he married Clara Hagopian, an American of Armenian descent, in 1946.^[9] An ectopic pregnancy led them to consider adoption in 1955.^[8][9][10] Hagopian’s parents were survivors of the Armenian genocide.^[11]

Early life

Schieble became pregnant with Jobs in 1954, when she and Jandali spent the summer with his family in Homs. According to Jandali, Schieble deliberately did not involve him in the process: «Without telling me, Joanne upped and left to move to San Francisco to have the baby without anyone knowing, including me.»^[13]

Schieble gave birth to Jobs in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, and chose an adoptive couple for him that was «Catholic, well-educated, and wealthy»,^[14][15] but the couple later changed their minds.^[14] He was then placed with Paul and Clara Jobs, who lacked wealth and college education, and Schieble refused to sign the adoption papers.^[16] She asked the court to find a different family,^[14] but consented when Paul and Clara pledged to fund his college education.^[17]

In his youth, his parents took him to a Lutheran church.^[18] When he was in high school, Clara admitted to his girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, that she «was too frightened to love [Steve] for the first six months of his life … I was scared they were going to take him away from me. Even after we won the case, Steve was so difficult a child that by the time he was two I felt we had made a mistake. I wanted to return him.» When Chrisann shared this comment with Steve, he stated that he was already aware,^[14] and later said he had been deeply loved and indulged by Paul and Clara. Many years later, Jobs’s wife Laurene also noted that «he felt he had been really blessed by having the two of them as parents.»^{[19][page needed]} Jobs would «bristle» when Paul and Clara were referred to as his “adoptive parents”, and he regarded them as his parents “1,000%”. Jobs referred to his biological parents as «my sperm and egg bank. That’s not harsh, it’s just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more.»^[8]

Childhood

Paul Jobs worked in several jobs that included a try as a machinist,^[21]
several other jobs,^[22] and then «back to work as a machinist».

Paul and Clara adopted Jobs’s sister Patricia in 1957^[23] and by 1959 the family had moved to the Monta Loma neighborhood in Mountain View, California.^[24] Paul built a workbench in his garage for his son in order to «pass along his love of mechanics”. Jobs, meanwhile, admired his father’s craftsmanship «because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him … I wasn’t that into fixing cars … but I was eager to hang out with my dad.»^[25] By the time he was ten, Jobs was deeply involved in electronics and befriended many of the engineers who lived in the neighborhood.^{[26][page needed]} He had difficulty making friends with children his own age, however, and was seen by his classmates as a «loner».^{[26][page needed]}

Jobs had difficulty functioning in a traditional classroom, tended to resist authority figures, frequently misbehaved, and was suspended a few times. Clara had taught him to read as a toddler, and Jobs stated that he was «pretty bored in school and [had] turned into a little terror… you should have seen us in the third grade, we basically destroyed the teacher.»^{[26][page needed]} He frequently played pranks on others at Monta Loma Elementary School in Mountain View. His father Paul (who was abused as a child) never reprimanded him, however, and instead blamed the school for not challenging his brilliant son.^[28]

Jobs would later credit his fourth grade teacher, Imogene «Teddy» Hill, with turning him around: «She taught an advanced fourth grade class, and it took her about a month to get hip to my situation. She bribed me into learning. She would say, ‘I really want you to finish this workbook. I’ll give you five bucks if you finish it.’ That really kindled a passion in me for learning things! I learned more that year than I think I learned in any other year in school. They wanted me to skip the next two years in grade school and go straight to junior high to learn a foreign language, but my parents very wisely wouldn’t let it happen.» Jobs skipped the 5th grade and transferred to the 6th grade at Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View^{[26][page needed]} where he became a «socially awkward loner».^[29] Jobs was often «bullied» at Crittenden Middle, and in the middle of 7th grade, he gave his parents an ultimatum: either they would take him out of Crittenden or he would drop out of school.^[30]

Though the Jobs family was not affluent and used all savings in 1967 to buy a new home, allowing Jobs to change schools.^{[26][page needed]} The new house (a three-bedroom home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California) was in the better Cupertino School District, Cupertino, California,^[31] and was embedded in an environment even more heavily populated with engineering families than the Mountain View area was.^{[26][page needed]} The house was declared a historic site in 2013, as the first site of Apple Computer.^[27] As of 2013, it was owned by Jobs’s sister, Patty, and occupied by his stepmother, Marilyn.^[32]

When he was 13, in 1968, Jobs was given a summer job by Bill Hewlett (of Hewlett-Packard) after Jobs cold-called him to ask for parts for an electronics project.^{[26][page needed]}

Homestead High

The location of the Los Altos home meant that Jobs would be able to attend nearby Homestead High School, which had strong ties to Silicon Valley.^[20] He began his first year there in late 1968 along with Bill Fernandez,^{[26][page needed]} who introduced Jobs to Steve Wozniak, and would become Apple’s first employee. Neither Jobs nor Fernandez (whose father was a lawyer) came from engineering households and thus decided to enroll in John McCollum’s Electronics I class.^{[26][page needed]} Jobs had grown his hair long and become involved in the growing counterculture, and the rebellious youth eventually clashed with McCollum and lost interest in the class.^{[26][page needed]}

He underwent a change during mid-1970: «I got stoned for the first time; I discovered Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and all that classic stuff. I read Moby Dick and went back as a junior taking creative writing classes.»^{[26][page needed]} Jobs later noted to his official biographer that «I started to listen to music a whole lot, and I started to read more outside of just science and technology—Shakespeare, Plato. I loved King Lear … when I was a senior I had this phenomenal AP English class. The teacher was this guy who looked like Ernest Hemingway. He took a bunch of us snowshoeing in Yosemite.» During his last two years at Homestead High, Jobs developed two different interests: electronics and literature.^[33] These dual interests were particularly reflected during Jobs’s senior year as his best friends were Wozniak and his first girlfriend, the artistic Homestead junior Chrisann Brennan.^[34]

In 1971, after Wozniak began attending University of California, Berkeley, Jobs would visit him there a few times a week. This experience led him to study in nearby Stanford University’s student union. Instead of joining the electronics club, Jobs put on light shows with a friend for Homestead’s avant-garde jazz program. He was described by a Homestead classmate as «kind of brain and kind of hippie … but he never fit into either group. He was smart enough to be a nerd, but wasn’t nerdy. And he was too intellectual for the hippies, who just wanted to get wasted all the time. He was kind of an outsider. In high school everything revolved around what group you were in, and if you weren’t in a carefully defined group, you weren’t anybody. He was an individual, in a world where individuality was suspect.» By his senior year in late 1971, he was taking freshman English class at Stanford and working on a Homestead underground film project with Chrisann Brennan.^[35][36]

Around that time, Wozniak designed a low-cost digital «blue box» to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. He was inspired by an article titled «Secrets of the Little Blue Box» from the October 1971 issue of Esquire.^[37] Jobs decided then to sell them and split the profit with Wozniak. The clandestine sales of the illegal blue boxes went well and perhaps planted the seed in Jobs’s mind that electronics could be both fun and profitable.^[38] In a 1994 interview, he recalled that it took six months for him and Wozniak to design the blue boxes.^[39] Jobs later reflected that had it not been for Wozniak’s blue boxes, «there wouldn’t have been an Apple».^[40] He states it showed them that they could take on large companies and beat them.^[41][42]

By his senior year of high school, Jobs began using LSD.^[43] He later recalled that on one occasion he consumed it in a wheat field outside Sunnyvale, and experienced «the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point».^[44] In mid-1972, after graduation and before leaving for Reed College, Jobs and Brennan rented a house from their other roommate, Al.^[45]

Reed College

In September 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.^[46] He insisted on applying only to Reed, although it was an expensive school that Paul and Clara could ill afford.^[47] Jobs soon befriended Robert Friedland,^[48] who was Reed’s student body president at that time.^{[26][page needed]} Brennan remained involved with Jobs while he was at Reed. He later asked her to come and live with him in a house he rented near the Reed campus, but she refused.^{[citation needed]}

After just one semester, Jobs dropped out of Reed College without telling his parents.^[49] Jobs later explained this was because he did not want to spend his parents’ money on an education that seemed meaningless to him. He continued to attend by auditing his classes,^[50] including a course on calligraphy that was taught by Robert Palladino. In a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Jobs stated that during this period, he slept on the floor in friends’ dorm rooms, returned Coke bottles for food money, and got weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. In that same speech, Jobs said: “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”^[51]

1974–1985

Pre-Apple

In February 1974, Jobs returned to his parents’ home in Los Altos and began looking for a job.^[53] He was soon hired by Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California, as a technician.^[53][54] Back in 1973, Steve Wozniak designed his own version of the classic video game Pong and gave its electronics board to Jobs. According to Wozniak, Atari only hired Jobs because he took the board down to the company, and they thought that he had built it himself.^[55] Atari’s cofounder Nolan Bushnell later described him as «difficult but valuable», pointing out that «he was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that.»^[56]

During this period, Jobs and Brennan remained involved with each other while continuing to see other people. By early 1974, Jobs was living what Brennan describes as a “simple life” in a Los Gatos cabin, working at Atari, and saving money for his impending trip to India.^{[citation needed]}

Jobs traveled to India in mid-1974^[57] to visit Neem Karoli Baba^[58] at his Kainchi ashram with his Reed friend (and eventual Apple employee) Daniel Kottke, searching for spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted because Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973. Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Haidakhan Babaji.^[54]

After seven months, Jobs left India^[59] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke.^[54] Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved, and he wore traditional Indian clothing.^[60][61] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences «one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life».^[62][63] He spent a period at the All One Farm, a commune in Oregon that was owned by Robert Friedland. Brennan joined him there for a period.^{[citation needed]}

During this time period, Jobs and Brennan both became practitioners of Zen Buddhism through the Zen master Kōbun Chino Otogawa. Jobs was living in his parents’ backyard toolshed, which he had converted into a bedroom.^{[citation needed]} Jobs engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US.^[64] He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.^[65]

In mid-1975, after returning to Atari, Jobs was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout.^[66] According to Bushnell, Atari offered $100 (equivalent to about $500 in 2021) for each TTL chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the TTL count to 46, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.^[67] According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari paid them only $700 (instead of the actual $5,000), and that Wozniak’s share was thus $350.^[68] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and explained that he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.^[69]

Jobs and Wozniak attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975, which was a stepping stone to the development and marketing of the first Apple computer.^[15]

Apple (1976–1985)

By March 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of the Apple I computer and showed it to Jobs, who suggested that they sell it; Wozniak was at first skeptical of the idea but later agreed.^[70] In April of that same year, Jobs, Wozniak, and administrative overseer Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer Company (now called Apple Inc.) as a business partnership in Jobs’s parents’ Crist Drive home on April 1, 1976. The operation originally started in Jobs’s bedroom and later moved to the garage.^[71][72] Wayne stayed briefly, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the active primary cofounders of the company.^[73] The two decided on the name «Apple» after Jobs returned from the All One Farm commune in Oregon and told Wozniak about his time in the farm’s apple orchard.^[74] Jobs originally planned to produce bare printed circuit boards of the Apple I and sell them to computer hobbyists for $50 (equivalent to about $240 in 2021) each. To fund the first batch, Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van.^[75][76] Later that year, computer retailer Paul Terrell purchased 50 fully assembled Apple I units for $500 each.^[77][78] Eventually about 200 Apple I computers were produced in total.^[79]

External image
Jobs and Steve Wozniak with an Apple I circuit board, c. 1976.

A neighbor on Crist Drive recalled Jobs as an odd individual who would greet his clients “with his underwear hanging out, barefoot and hippie-like”. Another neighbor, Larry Waterland, who had just earned his PhD in chemical engineering at Stanford, recalled dismissing Jobs’s budding business compared to the established industry of giant mainframe computers with big decks of punchcards: “Steve took me over to the garage. He had a circuit board with a chip on it, a DuMont TV set, a Panasonic cassette tape deck and a keyboard. He said, ‘This is an Apple computer.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ I dismissed the whole idea.” Jobs’s friend from Reed College and India, Daniel Kottke, recalled that as an early Apple employee, he “was the only person who worked in the garage … Woz would show up once a week with his latest code. Steve Jobs didn’t get his hands dirty in that sense.” Kottke also stated that much of the early work took place in Jobs’s kitchen, where he spent hours on the phone trying to find investors for the company.^[32]

They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product marketing manager and engineer Mike Markkula.^[80] Scott McNealy, one of the cofounders of Sun Microsystems, said that Jobs broke a «glass age ceiling» in Silicon Valley because he’d created a very successful company at a young age.^[42] Markkula brought Apple to the attention of Arthur Rock, which after looking at the crowded Apple booth at the Home Brew Computer Show, started with a $60,000 investment and went on the Apple board.^[81] Jobs was not pleased when Markkula recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor in February 1977 to serve as the first president and CEO of Apple.^[82][83]

After Brennan returned from her own journey to India, she and Jobs fell in love again, as Brennan noted changes in him that she attributes to Kobun (whom she was also still following). It was also at this time that Jobs displayed a prototype Apple I computer for Brennan and his parents in their living room. Brennan notes a shift in this time period, where the two main influences on Jobs were Apple Inc. and Kobun. By early 1977, she and Jobs would spend time together at her home at Duveneck Ranch in Los Altos, which served as a hostel and environmental education center.^{[citation needed]}

In April 1977, Jobs and Wozniak introduced the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire.^[84] It is the first consumer product to have been sold by Apple Computer. Primarily designed by Wozniak, Jobs oversaw the development of its unusual case and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply.^[85] During the design stage, Jobs argued that the Apple II should have two expansion slots, while Wozniak wanted eight. After a heated argument, Wozniak threatened that Jobs should «go get himself another computer». They later agreed on eight slots.^[86] The Apple II became one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products in the world.^[87]

As Jobs became more successful with his new company, his relationship with Brennan grew more complex. In 1977, the success of Apple was now a part of their relationship, and Brennan, Daniel Kottke, and Jobs moved into a house near the Apple office in Cupertino.^{[citation needed]} Brennan eventually took a position in the shipping department at Apple.^[88] Brennan’s relationship with Jobs deteriorated as his position with Apple grew, and she began to consider ending the relationship. In October 1977, Brennan was approached by Rod Holt, who asked her to take «a paid apprenticeship designing blueprints for the Apples».^{[citation needed]} Both Holt and Jobs believed that it would be a good position for her, given her artistic abilities. Holt was particularly eager that she take the position, and puzzled by her ambivalence toward it. Brennan’s decision, however, was overshadowed by the fact that she realized she was pregnant, and that Jobs was the father. It took her a few days to tell Jobs, whose face, according to Brennan, “turned ugly” at the news. At the same time, according to Brennan, at the beginning of her third trimester, Jobs said to her: «I never wanted to ask that you get an abortion. I just didn’t want to do that.»^{[citation needed]} He also refused to discuss the pregnancy with her.^[89] Brennan turned down the internship and decided to leave Apple. She stated that Jobs told her «If you give up this baby for adoption, you will be sorry» and «I am never going to help you.»^{[citation needed]} According to Brennan, Jobs «started to seed people with the notion that I slept around, and he was infertile, which meant that this could not be his child.» A few weeks before she was due to give birth, Brennan was invited to deliver her baby at the All One Farm. She accepted the offer.^{[citation needed]} When Jobs was 23 (the same age as his biological parents when they had him)^[89] Brennan gave birth to her baby, Lisa Brennan, on May 17, 1978.^[90] Jobs went there for the birth after he was contacted by Robert Friedland, their mutual friend and the farm owner. While distant, Jobs worked with her on a name for the baby, which they discussed while sitting in the fields on a blanket. Brennan suggested the name «Lisa» which Jobs also liked and notes that Jobs was very attached to the name “Lisa” while he «was also publicly denying paternity». She would discover later that during this time, Jobs was preparing to unveil a new kind of computer that he wanted to give a female name (his first choice was “Claire” after St. Clare). She stated that she never gave him permission to use the baby’s name for a computer and he hid the plans from her. Jobs worked with his team to come up with the phrase, «Local Integrated Software Architecture» as an alternative explanation for the Apple Lisa.^[91] Decades later, however, Jobs admitted to his biographer Walter Isaacson that «obviously, it was named for my daughter».^[92]

When Jobs denied paternity, a DNA test established him as Lisa’s father.^{[clarification needed]} It required him to pay Brennan $385 (equivalent to about $1,000 in 2021) monthly in addition to returning the welfare money she had received. Jobs paid her $500 (equivalent to about $1,400 in 2021) monthly at the time when Apple went public and made him a millionaire. Later, Brennan agreed to interview with Michael Moritz for Time magazine for its Time Person of the Year special, released on January 3, 1983, in which she discussed her relationship with Jobs. Rather than name Jobs the Person of the Year, the magazine named the generic personal computer the «Machine of the Year».^[93] In the issue, Jobs questioned the reliability of the paternity test, which stated that the «probability of paternity for Jobs, Steven… is 94.1%».^[94] He responded by arguing that «28% of the male population of the United States could be the father». Time also noted that «the baby girl and the machine on which Apple has placed so much hope for the future share the same name: Lisa».^[94]

In 1978, at age 23, Jobs was worth over $1 million (equivalent to $4.15 million in 2021). By age 25, his net worth grew to an estimated $250 million (equivalent to $745 million in 2021).^[95] He was also one of the youngest «people ever to make the Forbes list of the nation’s richest people—and one of only a handful to have done it themselves, without inherited wealth».^{[26][page needed]}

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment on the top two floors of The San Remo, a Manhattan building with a politically progressive reputation. Although he never lived there,^[96] he spent years renovating it thanks to I. M. Pei. In 2003, he sold it to U2 singer Bono.^{[citation needed]}

In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple’s CEO, asking, «Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?»^[97]

In 1984, Jobs bought the Jackling House and estate, and resided there for a decade. Thereafter, he leased it out for several years until 2000 when he stopped maintaining the house, allowing weathering to degrade it. In 2004, Jobs received permission from the town of Woodside to demolish the house to build a smaller, contemporary styled one. After a few years in court, the house was finally demolished in 2011, a few months before he died.^[98]

Jobs took over development of the Macintosh in 1981, from early Apple employee Jef Raskin, who had conceived the project. Wozniak and Raskin had heavily influenced the early program, and Wozniak was on leave during this time due to an airplane crash earlier that year.^{[99][100][101]} On January 22, 1984, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled «1984», which ended with the words: «On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.»^[102] On January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience at Apple’s annual shareholders meeting held in the Flint Auditorium at De Anza College.^[103][104] Macintosh engineer Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as «pandemonium».^[105] The Macintosh was inspired by the Lisa (in turn inspired by Xerox PARC’s mouse-driven graphical user interface),^[106][107] and it was widely acclaimed by the media with strong initial sales.^[108][109] However, its low performance and limited range of available software led to a rapid sales decline in the second half of 1984.^{[108][109][110]}

External video
The Machine That Changed The World, The Paperback Computer; Interview with Steve Jobs, 1990, 50:08, May 14, 1990, WGBH Media Library & Archives[111]

Sculley’s and Jobs’s respective visions for the company greatly differed. Sculley favored open architecture computers like the Apple II, targeting education, small business, and home markets less vulnerable to IBM. Jobs wanted the company to focus on the closed architecture Macintosh as a business alternative to the IBM PC. President and CEO Sculley had little control over chairman of the board Jobs’s Macintosh division; it and the Apple II division operated like separate companies, duplicating services.^[112] Although its products provided 85% of Apple’s sales in early 1985, the company’s January 1985 annual meeting did not mention the Apple II division or employees. Many left, including Wozniak, who stated that the company had «been going in the wrong direction for the last five years» and sold most of his stock.^[113] Though frustrated with the company’s and Jobs’s dismissal of the Apple II in favor of the Macintosh, Wozniak left amicably and remained an honorary employee of Apple, maintaining a lifelong friendship with Jobs.^{[114][115][116]}

By early 1985, the Macintosh’s failure to defeat the IBM PC became clear,^[108][109] and it strengthened Sculley’s position in the company. In May 1985, Sculley—encouraged by Arthur Rock—decided to reorganize Apple, and proposed a plan to the board that would remove Jobs from the Macintosh group and put him in charge of «New Product Development». This move would effectively render Jobs powerless within Apple.^{[26][page needed]} In response, Jobs then developed a plan to get rid of Sculley and take over Apple. However, Jobs was confronted after the plan was leaked, and he said that he would leave Apple. The Board declined his resignation and asked him to reconsider. Sculley also told Jobs that he had all of the votes needed to go ahead with the reorganization. A few months later, on September 17, 1985, Jobs submitted a letter of resignation to the Apple Board. Five additional senior Apple employees also resigned and joined Jobs in his new venture, NeXT.^{[26][page needed]}

The Macintosh’s struggle continued after Jobs left Apple. Though marketed and received in fanfare, the expensive Macintosh was hard to sell.^{[117]: 308–309} In 1985, Bill Gates’s then-developing company, Microsoft, threatened to stop developing Mac applications unless it was granted «a license for the Mac operating system software. Microsoft was developing its graphical user interface … for DOS, which it was calling Windows and didn’t want Apple to sue over the similarities between the Windows GUI and the Mac interface.»^[117]: 321 Sculley granted Microsoft the license which later led to problems for Apple.^[117]: 321 In addition, cheap IBM PC clones that ran Microsoft software and had a graphical user interface began to appear. Although the Macintosh preceded the clones, it was far more expensive, so «through the late 1980s, the Windows user interface was getting better and better and was thus taking increasingly more share from Apple».^[117]: 322 Windows-based IBM-PC clones also led to the development of additional GUIs such as IBM’s TopView or Digital Research’s GEM,^[117]: 322 and thus «the graphical user interface was beginning to be taken for granted, undermining the most apparent advantage of the Mac…it seemed clear as the 1980s wound down that Apple couldn’t go it alone indefinitely against the whole IBM-clone market.»^[117]: 322

1985–1997

NeXT computer

Following his resignation from Apple in 1985, Jobs founded NeXT Inc.^[118] with $7 million. A year later he was running out of money, and he sought venture capital with no product on the horizon. Eventually, Jobs attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot, who invested heavily in the company.^[119] The NeXT computer was shown to the world in what was considered Jobs’s comeback event,^[120] a lavish invitation-only gala launch event^[121] that was described as a multimedia extravaganza.^[122] The celebration was held at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, October 12, 1988. Steve Wozniak said in a 2013 interview that while Jobs was at NeXT he was «really getting his head together».^[99]

NeXT workstations were first released in 1990 and priced at $9,999 (equivalent to about $21,000 in 2021). Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced and designed for the education sector, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive.^[123] The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. Making use of a NeXT computer, English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990 at CERN in Switzerland.^[124]

The revised, second generation NeXTcube was released in 1990. Jobs touted it as the first «interpersonal» computer that would replace the personal computer. With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. «Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionize human communications and groupwork», Jobs told reporters.^[125] Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube’s magnesium case.^[126] This put considerable strain on NeXT’s hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.^[127] The company reported its first yearly profit of $1.03 million in 1994.^[128] In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for Web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store,^[127] MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

Pixar and Disney

External video
Presentation by Jobs on the future of computer-animated films, March 31, 1998, C-SPAN

In 1986, Jobs funded the spinout of The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital and $5 million of which was paid to Lucasfilm for technology rights.^[129]

The first film produced by Pixar with its Disney partnership, Toy Story (1995), with Jobs credited as executive producer,^[130] brought financial success and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released. Over the course of Jobs’s life, under Pixar’s creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits A Bug’s Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); The Incredibles (2004); Cars (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up (2009); Toy Story 3 (2010); and Cars 2 (2011). Brave (2012), Pixar’s first film to be produced since Jobs’s death, honored him with a tribute for his contributions to the studio.^[131] Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3 and Brave each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.^[132][133]

In 2003 and 2004, as Pixar’s contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership,^[134] and in January 2004, Jobs announced that he would never deal with Disney again.^[135] Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to mend relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company’s largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company’s stock.^[136] Jobs’s holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about 1% of the company’s stock and whose criticisms of Eisner—especially that he soured Disney’s relationship with Pixar—accelerated Eisner’s ousting. Upon completion of the merger, Jobs received 7% of Disney shares, and joined the board of directors as the largest individual shareholder.^{[136][137][138]} Upon Jobs’s death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.^[139]

After Jobs’s death, Iger recalled in 2019 that many warned him about Jobs, “that he would bully me and everyone else”. Iger wrote, “Who wouldn’t want Steve Jobs to have influence over how a company is run?», and that as an active Disney board member “he rarely created trouble for me. Not but rarely”. He speculated that they would have seriously considered merging Disney and Apple had Jobs lived.^[135] Floyd Norman, of Pixar, described Jobs as a «mature, mellow individual” who never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.^[140] In early June 2014, Pixar cofounder and Walt Disney Animation Studios President Ed Catmull revealed that Jobs once advised him to «just explain it to them until they understand” in disagreements. Catmull released the book Creativity, Inc. in 2014, in which he recounts numerous experiences of working with Jobs. Regarding his own manner of dealing with Jobs, Catmull writes:^{[141][page needed]}

In all the 26 years with Steve, Steve and I never had one of these loud verbal arguments, and it’s not my nature to do that. … but we did disagree fairly frequently about things. … I would say something to him and he would immediately shoot it down because he could think faster than I could. … I would then wait a week … I’d call him up, and I give my counterargument to what he had said, and he’d immediately shoot it down. So I had to wait another week, and occasionally this went on for months. But ultimately one of three things happened. About a third of the time he said, «Oh, I get it, you’re right.» And that was the end of it. And it was another third of the time in which [I’d] say, «Actually I think he is right.» The other third of the time, where we didn’t reach consensus, he just let me do it my way, never said anything more about it.^[142]

1997–2011

Return to Apple

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $400 million. The deal was finalized in February 1997, bringing Jobs back to the company he had cofounded.^[143] Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive on September 16.^[144] In March 1998, to concentrate Apple’s efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated several projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, “afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs’s summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company.»^[145] Jobs changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company’s technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs’s guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the «interim» modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.^[146] Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title «iCEO».^[147]

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While nurturing open-ended innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that «real artists ship».^[148]

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987, when Jobs first criticized Dell for making «un-innovative beige boxes».^[149] On October 6, 1997, at a Gartner Symposium, when Dell was asked what he would do if he ran the then-troubled Apple Computer company, he said: «I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”^[150] Then, in 2006, Jobs emailed all employees when Apple’s market capitalization rose above Dell’s. It read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.^[151]

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the «reality distortion field» and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as «Stevenotes») at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences.^[152]

Jobs usually went to work wearing a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by Issey Miyake, Levi’s 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers.^[153][154] Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson «…he came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style.»^[153]

Jobs was a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.^[155]

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,^[156] though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.^[157]

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple’s poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple’s annual meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read «Steve, don’t be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste.»

In 2006, he further expanded Apple’s recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and «environmentally friendly disposal» of their old systems.^[158] The success of Apple’s unique products and services provided several years of stable financial returns, propelling Apple to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.^[159]

Jobs was perceived as a demanding perfectionist^[160][161] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting innovation and style trends. He summed up this self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky:

There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. «I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.» And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.^[162]

On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple board of directors for revenue lost because of alleged securities fraud.^[163][164]

In a 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed that he had met with US President Barack Obama, complained about the nation’s shortage of software engineers, and told Obama that he was «headed for a one-term presidency».^[165] Jobs proposed that any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a US university should automatically be offered a green card. After the meeting, Jobs commented, «The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done . . . . It infuriates me.»^[165]

Health problems

In October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer. In mid-2004, he announced to his employees that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.^[166] The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor;^[167] Jobs stated that he had a rare, much less aggressive type, known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.^[166]

Jobs resisted his doctors’ recommendations for medical intervention for nine months,^[168] in favor of alternative medicine. According to Harvard researcher Ramzi Amri, this «led to an unnecessarily early death». Other doctors agree that Jobs’s diet was insufficient to address his disease. However, cancer researcher and alternative medicine critic David Gorski wrote that «it’s impossible to know whether and by how much he might have decreased his chances of surviving his cancer through his flirtation with woo. My best guess was that Jobs probably only modestly decreased his chances of survival, if that.»^[169][170] Barrie R. Cassileth, the chief of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s integrative medicine department,^[171] on the other hand, said, «Jobs’s faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his life … He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer that is treatable and curable … He essentially committed suicide.»^[172] According to biographer Walter Isaacson, «for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined».^[173] «Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies, and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He was also influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004».^[174][175] He underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or «Whipple procedure») that appeared to remove the tumor successfully.^[176][177] Jobs did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.^[166][178] During Jobs’s absence, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.^[166]

In January 2006, only Jobs’s wife, his doctors, and Iger and his wife knew that his cancer had returned. Jobs told Iger privately that he hoped to live to see his son Reed’s high school graduation in 2010.^[135] In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His «thin, almost gaunt» appearance and unusually «listless» delivery,^[179][180] together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about the state of his health.^[181] In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) attendees who saw Jobs in person said he «looked fine».^[182] Following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that «Steve’s health is robust.»^[183]

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs’s 2008 WWDC keynote address.^[184] Apple officials stated that Jobs was victim to a «common bug» and was taking antibiotics,^[185] while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure.^[178] During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Jobs’s health by insisting that it was a «private matter». Others said that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs’s hands-on approach to running his company.^[186][187] Based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, The New York Times reported, «While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug’, they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer.»^[188]

On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure’s death. Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it,^[189] intensifying rumors concerning Jobs’s health.^[190] Jobs responded at Apple’s September 2008 Let’s Rock keynote by paraphrasing Mark Twain: «Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.»^[191][192] At a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading «110/70», referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.^[193]

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company’s final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs’s health.^[194][195] In a statement given on January 5, 2009, on Apple.com, Jobs said that he had been suffering from a «hormone imbalance» for several months.^[196][197]

On January 14, 2009, Jobs wrote in an internal Apple memo that in the previous week he had «learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought».^[198] He announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009, to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who previously acted as CEO in Jobs’s 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple, with Jobs still involved with «major strategic decisions».^[198]

In 2009, Tim Cook offered a portion of his liver to Jobs, since both share a rare blood type and the donor liver can regenerate tissue after such an operation. Jobs yelled, «I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that.»^[199]

In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.^{[200][201][202]} Jobs’s prognosis was described as «excellent».^[200]

Resignation

On January 17, 2011, a year and a half after Jobs returned to work following the liver transplant, Apple announced that he had been granted a medical leave of absence. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees, stating his decision was made «so he could focus on his health». As it did at the time of his 2009 medical leave, Apple announced that Tim Cook would run day-to-day operations and that Jobs would continue to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company.^[203][204] While on leave, Jobs appeared at the iPad 2 launch event on March 2, the WWDC keynote introducing iCloud on June 6, and before the Cupertino City Council on June 7.^[205]

On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation as Apple’s CEO, writing to the board, «I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.»^[206] Jobs became chairman of the board and named Tim Cook as his successor as CEO.^[207][208] Jobs continued to work for Apple until the day before his death six weeks later.^{[209][210][211]}

Death

Jobs died at his Palo Alto, California, home around 3 p.m. (PDT) on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor,^{[15][212][213]} which resulted in respiratory arrest.^[214] He had lost consciousness the day before and died with his wife, children, and sisters at his side.^[215] His sister, Mona Simpson, described his death thus: «Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'» He then lost consciousness and died several hours later.^[215] A small private funeral was held on October 7, 2011, the details of which, out of respect for Jobs’s family, were not made public.^[216]

Apple^[217] and Pixar each issued announcements of his death.^[218] Apple announced on the same day that they had no plans for a public service, but were encouraging «well-wishers» to send their remembrance messages to an email address created to receive such messages.^[219] Apple and Microsoft both flew their flags at half-staff throughout their respective headquarters and campuses.^[220][221]

Bob Iger ordered all Disney properties, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland, to fly their flags at half-staff from October 6 to 12, 2011.^[222] For two weeks following his death, Apple displayed on its corporate Web site a simple page that showed Jobs’s name and lifespan next to his grayscale portrait.^{[223][224][225]} On October 19, 2011, Apple employees held a private memorial service for Jobs on the Apple campus in Cupertino. It was attended by Jobs’s widow, Laurene, and by Tim Cook, Bill Campbell, Norah Jones, Al Gore, and Coldplay. Some of Apple’s retail stores closed briefly so employees could attend the memorial. A video of the service was uploaded to Apple’s website.^[226]

California Governor Jerry Brown declared Sunday, October 16, 2011, to be «Steve Jobs Day».^[227] On that day, an invitation-only memorial was held at Stanford University. Those in attendance included Apple and other tech company executives, members of the media, celebrities, politicians, and family and close friends of Jobs. Bono, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joan Baez performed at the service, which lasted longer than an hour. The service was highly secured, with guards at all of the university’s gates, and a helicopter overhead from an area news station.^[228][229] Each attendee was given a small brown box as a «farewell gift» from Jobs, containing a copy of the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.^[230]

Childhood friend and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,^[231] former owner of what would become Pixar, George Lucas,^[232] former rival, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,^[233] and President Barack Obama^[234] all offered statements in response to his death.

At his request, Jobs was buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only nonsectarian cemetery in Palo Alto.^[235][236]

Innovations and designs

Jobs’s design aesthetic was influenced by philosophies of Zen and Buddhism. In India, he experienced Buddhism while on his seven-month spiritual journey,^[237] and his sense of intuition was influenced by the spiritual people with whom he studied.^[237] He also learned from many references and sources, such as modernist architectural style of Joseph Eichler,^{[citation needed]} and the industrial designs of Richard Sapper^[238] and Dieter Rams.^{[citation needed]}

According to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, «Steve didn’t ever code. He wasn’t an engineer and he didn’t do any original design…»^[239][240] Daniel Kottke, one of Apple’s earliest employees and a college friend of Jobs, stated: «Between Woz and Jobs, Woz was the innovator, the inventor. Steve Jobs was the marketing person.»^[241]

He is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 346 United States patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards, and packages. His contributions to most of his patents were to «the look and feel of the product». He and his industrial design chief Jonathan Ive are named for 200 of the patents.^[242] Most of these are design patents as opposed to utility patents or inventions; they are specific product designs such as both original and lamp-style iMacs, and PowerBook G4 Titanium.^[243][244] He holds 43 issued US patents on inventions.^[243] The patent on the Mac OS X Dock user interface with «magnification» feature was issued the day before he died.^[245] Although Jobs had little involvement in the engineering and technical side of the original Apple computers,^[240] Jobs later used his CEO position to directly involve himself with product design.^[246]

Involved in many projects throughout his career was his long-time marketing executive and confidant Joanna Hoffman, known as one of the few employees at Apple and NeXT who could successfully stand up to Jobs while also engaging with him.^[247]

Even while terminally ill in the hospital, Jobs sketched new devices that would hold the iPad in a hospital bed.^[215] He despised the oxygen monitor on his finger, and suggested ways to revise the design for simplicity.^[248]

Since his death, he has won 141 patents, more than most inventors during their lifetimes. He holds over 450 patents in total.^[249]

Apple I

Although entirely designed by Steve Wozniak, Jobs had the idea of selling the desktop computer, which led to the formation of Apple Computer in 1976. Both Jobs and Wozniak constructed several of the Apple I prototypes by hand, funded by selling some of their belongings. Eventually, 200 units were produced.^[79]

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the world’s first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products,^[87] designed primarily by Wozniak, and Jobs oversaw the development of the Apple II’s unusual case^[250] and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply.^[85] It was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire by Jobs and Wozniak as the first consumer product sold by Apple.

Apple Lisa

The Lisa is a personal computer developed by Apple from 1978 and sold in the early 1980s. It is the first personal computer with a graphical user interface for business users.^[251] The Lisa sold poorly, at 100,000 units.^[252]

In 1982, after Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project,^[253] he took over the Macintosh project, adding inspiration from Lisa. The final Lisa 2/10 was modified and sold as the Macintosh XL.^[254]

Macintosh

Once he joined the Macintosh team, Jobs took over the project after Wozniak had experienced a traumatic airplane accident and temporarily left the company.^[99] Jobs launched the Macintosh on January 24, 1984, as the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse.^[255] This first model was later renamed to Macintosh 128k among the prolific series. Since 1998, Apple has phased out the Macintosh name in favor of «Mac», though the product family has been nicknamed «Mac» or «the Mac» since inception. The Macintosh was introduced by a US$1.5 million Ridley Scott television commercial, «1984».^[256] It aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, received as a «watershed event»^[257] and a «masterpiece».^[258] Regis McKenna called the ad «more successful than the Mac itself».^[259] It uses an unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by a Picasso-style picture of the computer on her white tank top) to save humanity from the conformity of IBM’s domination of the computer industry. The ad alludes to George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which describes a dystopian future ruled by a televised «Big Brother.»^[260][261]

The Macintosh, however, was expensive, which hindered its ability to be competitive in a market already dominated by the Commodore 64 for consumers, and the IBM Personal Computer and its accompanying clone market for businesses.^[262] Macintosh systems still found success in education and desktop publishing and kept Apple as the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade.

NeXT Computer

After Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985, he started NeXT, a workstation computer company. The NeXT Computer was introduced in 1988 at a lavish launch event. Using the NeXT Computer, Tim Berners-Lee created the world’s first web browser, the WorldWideWeb. The NeXT Computer’s operating system, named NeXTSTEP, begat Darwin, which is now the foundation of most of Apple’s products such as Macintosh’s macOS and iPhone’s iOS.^[263][264]

iMac

Main article: iMac

Apple iMac G3 was introduced in 1998 and its innovative design was directly the result of Jobs’s return to Apple. Apple boasted «the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else’s.»^[265] Described as «cartoonlike», the first iMac, clad in Bondi Blue plastic, was unlike any personal computer that came before. In 1999, Apple introduced the Graphite gray Apple iMac and since has varied the shape, color and size considerably while maintaining the all-in-one design. Design ideas were intended to create a connection with the user such as the handle and a «breathing» light effect when the computer went to sleep.^[266] The Apple iMac sold for $1,299 at that time. The iMac also featured forward-thinking changes, such as eschewing the floppy disk drive and moving exclusively to USB for connecting peripherals. This latter change resulted, through the iMac’s success, in the interface being popularized among third-party peripheral makers—as evidenced by the fact that many early USB peripherals were made of translucent plastic (to match the iMac design).^[267]

iTunes

iTunes is a media player, media library, online radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple. It is used to play, download, and organize digital audio and video (as well as other types of media available on the iTunes Store) on personal computers running the macOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The iTunes Store is also available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.

Through the iTunes Store, users can purchase and download music, music videos, television shows, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, and movie rentals in some countries, and ringtones, available on the iPhone and iPod Touch (fourth generation onward). Application software for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch can be downloaded from the App Store.

iPod

Main article: iPod

The first generation of iPod was released October 23, 2001. The major innovation of the iPod was its small size achieved by using a 1.8″ hard drive compared to the 2.5″ drives common to players at that time. The capacity of the first generation iPod ranged from 5 GB to 10 GB.^[268] The iPod sold for US$399 and more than 100,000 iPods were sold before the end of 2001. The introduction of the iPod resulted in Apple becoming a major player in the music industry.^[269] Also, the iPod’s success prepared the way for the iTunes music store and the iPhone.^[270] After the first few generations of iPod, Apple released the touchscreen iPod Touch, the reduced-size iPod Mini and iPod Nano, and the screenless iPod Shuffle in the following years.^[269]

iPhone

Apple began work on the first iPhone in 2005 and the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. The iPhone created such a sensation that a survey indicated six out of ten Americans were aware of its release. Time declared it «Invention of the Year» for 2007 and included it in the All-TIME 100 Gadgets list in 2010, in the category of Communication.^[271] The completed iPhone had multimedia capabilities and functioned as a quad-band touch screen smartphone. A year later, the iPhone 3G was released in July 2008 with three key features: support for GPS, 3G data and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA. In June 2009, the iPhone 3GS, whose improvements included voice control, a better camera, and a faster processor, was introduced by Phil Schiller.^[272] The iPhone 4 was thinner than previous models, had a five megapixel camera capable of recording video in 720p HD, and added a secondary front-facing camera for video calls.^[273] A major feature of the iPhone 4S, introduced in October 2011, was Siri, a virtual assistant capable of voice recognition.^[274]

iPad

Main article: iPad

The iPad is an iOS-based line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple. The first iPad was released on April 3, 2010. The user interface is built around the device’s multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPad includes built-in Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity on select models. As of April 2015, more than 250 million iPads have been sold.^[275]

Personal life

Marriage

In 1989, Jobs first met his future wife, Laurene Powell, when he gave a lecture at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was a student. Soon after the event, he stated that Laurene «was right there in the front row in the lecture hall, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her … kept losing my train of thought, and started feeling a little giddy.»^{[19][page needed]} After the lecture, he met her in the parking lot and invited her out to dinner. From that point forward, they were together, with a few minor exceptions, for the rest of his life.^{[19][page needed]}

Jobs proposed on New Year’s Day 1990 with «a fistful of freshly picked wildflowers».^{[19][page needed]} They married on March 18, 1991, in a Buddhist ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.^{[19][page needed]} Fifty people, including Jobs’s father, Paul, and his sister Mona, attended. The ceremony was conducted by Jobs’s guru, Kobun Chino Otogawa. The vegan wedding cake was in the shape of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and the wedding ended with a hike and Laurene’s brothers’ snowball fight. Jobs reportedly said to Mona: «You see, Mona […], Laurene is descended from Joe Namath, and we’re descended from John Muir.»^[276]

Jobs’s and Powell’s first child was born in 1991.^[277] Jobs’s father, Paul, died a year and a half later, on March 5, 1993. Jobs’s childhood home remains a tourist attraction and is currently owned by his stepmother (Paul’s second wife), Marilyn Jobs.^[278]

Jobs and Powell had two more children; Eve Jobs, born in 1998, is a fashion model.^[277] The family lived in Palo Alto, California.^[279]

Although a billionaire, Jobs made it known that, like Bill Gates, he had stipulated that most of his monetary fortune would not be left to his children.^[280][281] Both men had limited their children’s access, age appropriate, to social media, computer games, and the Internet.^[282][283]

Family

Chrisann Brennan notes that after Jobs was forced out of Apple, «he apologized many times over for his behavior» towards her and Lisa. She said Jobs «said that he never took responsibility when he should have, and that he was sorry».^[284] By this time, Jobs had developed a strong relationship with Lisa and when she was nine, Jobs had her name on her birth certificate changed from «Lisa Brennan» to «Lisa Brennan-Jobs».^{[14][page needed]} Jobs and Brennan developed a working relationship to co-parent Lisa, a change which Brennan credits to the influence of his newly found biological sister, Mona Simpson, who worked to repair the relationship between Lisa and Jobs.^{[14][page needed]} Jobs had found Mona after first finding his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, shortly after he left Apple.^[285]

Jobs did not contact his birth family during his adoptive mother Clara’s lifetime, however. He would later tell his official biographer Walter Isaacson: «I never wanted [Paul and Clara] to feel like I didn’t consider them my parents, because they were totally my parents […] I loved them so much that I never wanted them to know of my search, and I even had reporters keep it quiet when any of them found out.»^[285] However, in 1986, when Jobs was 31, Clara was diagnosed with lung cancer. He began to spend a great deal of time with her and learned more details about her background and his adoption, information that motivated him to find his biological mother. Jobs found on his birth certificate the name of the San Francisco doctor to whom Schieble had turned when she was pregnant. Although the doctor did not help Jobs while he was alive, he left a letter for Jobs to be opened upon his death. As he died soon afterwards, Jobs was given the letter which stated that «his mother had been an unmarried graduate student from Wisconsin named Joanne Schieble.»^[285]

Jobs only contacted Schieble after Clara died in early 1986 and after he received permission from his father, Paul. In addition, out of respect for Paul, he asked the media not to report on his search.^[286] Jobs stated that he was motivated to find his birth mother out of both curiosity and a need «to see if she was okay and to thank her, because I’m glad I didn’t end up as an abortion. She was twenty-three and she went through a lot to have me.»^[287] Schieble was emotional during their first meeting (though she wasn’t familiar with the history of Apple or Jobs’s role in it) and told him that she had been pressured into signing the adoption papers. She said that she regretted giving him up and repeatedly apologized to him for it. Jobs and Schieble would develop a friendly relationship throughout the rest of his life and would spend Christmas together.^[288]

During this first visit, Schieble told Jobs that he had a sister, Mona, who was not aware that she had a brother.^[287] Schieble then arranged for them to meet in New York where Mona worked. Her first impression of Jobs was that «he was totally straightforward and lovely, just a normal and sweet guy.»^[289] Simpson and Jobs then went for a long walk to get to know each other.^[289] Jobs later told his biographer that «Mona was not completely thrilled at first to have me in her life and have her mother so emotionally affectionate toward me … As we got to know each other, we became really good friends, and she is my family. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I can’t imagine a better sister. My adopted sister, Patty, and I were never close.»^[289]

Jobs then learned his family history. Six months after he was given up for adoption, Schieble’s father died, she wed Jandali, and they had a daughter, Mona.^[4][290] Jandali states that after finishing his PhD he returned to Syria to work, and then Schieble left him.^[4] They divorced in 1962^[20] and he said then he lost contact with Mona for a time:

I also bear the responsibility for being away from my daughter when she was four years old, as her mother divorced me when I went to Syria, but we got back in touch after 10 years. We lost touch again when her mother moved and I didn’t know where she was, but since 10 years ago we’ve been in constant contact, and I see her three times a year. I organized a trip for her last year to visit Syria and Lebanon and she went with a relative from Florida.^[4]

A few years later, Schieble married an ice skating teacher, George Simpson. Mona Jandali took her stepfather’s last name, as Mona Simpson. In 1970, after divorcing her second husband, Schieble took Mona to Los Angeles and raised her alone.^[290]

When Simpson found that their father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was living in Sacramento, California, Jobs had no interest in meeting him as he believed Jandali didn’t treat his children well^[291] and allegedly because of finding a Seattle Times article about Jandali’s abandonment of his students on a trip to Egypt in 1974.^[5] Simpson went to Sacramento alone and met Jandali, who worked in a small restaurant. They spoke for several hours, and he told her that he had left teaching for the restaurant business. He said he and Schieble had given another child away for adoption but that «we’ll never see that baby again. That baby’s gone.» He said he once managed a Mediterranean restaurant near San Jose and that «all of the successful technology people used to come there. Even Steve Jobs … oh yeah, he used to come in, and he was a sweet guy and a big tipper.» At the request of Jobs, Simpson did not tell Jandali that she had met his son.^[292]

After hearing about the visit, Jobs recalled that «it was amazing … I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands.» However, Jobs still did not want to meet Jandali because «I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn’t trust him not to try to blackmail me or go to the press about it … I asked Mona not to tell him about me.»^[292] Jandali later discovered his relationship to Jobs through an online blog. He then contacted Simpson and asked «what is this thing about Steve Jobs?» Simpson told him that it was true and later commented, «My father is thoughtful and a beautiful storyteller, but he is very, very passive … He never contacted Steve.» Because Simpson herself researched her Syrian roots and began to meet the family, she assumed that Jobs would eventually want to meet their father, but he never did. Jobs also never showed an interest in his Syrian heritage or the Middle East. Simpson fictionalized the search for their father in her 1992 novel The Lost Father.^[288] Malek Jandali is their cousin.^[293]

Philanthropy

Jobs’s views and actions on philanthropy and charity are a public mystery.^[294] He maintained privacy over his occasional few such actions which were publicly known. He has been a key figure in public discussions about societal obligations of the wealthy and powerful. Through his career, the media investigated and criticized him and Apple as unusually and inexplicably mysterious or absent among powerful leaders and especially billionaires. His name is absent from the Million Dollar List of all large global philanthropy.^[295] Some have speculated about his possible secret role in large anonymous donations.^[294]

Mark Vermilion, former charitable leader for Joan Baez, Apple, and Jobs, attributed Jobs’s lifelong minimization of direct charity to his perfectionism and limited time. Jobs, Vermilion, and supporters said over the years that corporate products were Jobs’s superior contributions to culture and society instead of direct charity.^[295] In 1985, Jobs said, «You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.»^[294]

Shortly after leaving Apple, he formed the charitable Steven P. Jobs Foundation, led by Mark Vermilion, hired away from Apple’s community leadership. Jobs wanted a focus on nutrition and vegetarianism but Vermilion wanted social entrepreneurship. That year, Jobs soon launched NeXT and closed the foundation with no results. Upon his 1997 return to Apple, Jobs optimized the failing company to the core, such as eliminating all philanthropic programs, never to be restored. In 2007, Stanford Social Innovation Review magazine listed Apple among «America’s least philanthropic companies». A few months after another unflattering news report, Apple started a program to match employees’ charitable gifts.^[295] Jobs has declined to sign The Giving Pledge, launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for fellow billionaires.^[295][294] He donated $50 million to Stanford hospital and contributed to efforts to cure AIDS.^[296] Bono reported «tens of millions of dollars» given by Apple while Jobs was CEO, to AIDS and HIV relief programs in Africa, which inspired other companies to join.^[295]

Honors and awards

• 1985: National Medal of Technology (with Steve Wozniak), awarded by US President Ronald Reagan^[298]
• 1987: Jefferson Award for Public Service^[299]
• 1989: Entrepreneur of the Decade by Inc.^[300]
• 1991: Howard Vollum Award from Reed College^[301]
• 2004–2010: Listed among the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World on five separate occasions^[302]
• 2007: Named the most powerful person in business by Fortune magazine^[303]
• 2007: Inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts^[304]
• 2012: Grammy Trustees Award, an award for those who have influenced the music industry in areas unrelated to performance^[305]
• 2012: Posthumously honored with an Edison Achievement Award for his commitment to innovation throughout his career^[306]
• 2013: Posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend^[307]
• 2017: Steve Jobs Theatre opens at Apple Park^[308]
• 2022: Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President Joe Biden, the country’s highest civilian honor^[309]

In popular culture

See also

• Seva Foundation
• Timeline of Steve Jobs media

References

Bibliography

• Isaacson, Walter (2011). Steve Jobs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781451648546.
• Isaacson, Walter (2015). Steve Jobs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781501127625.
• Linzmayer, Owen W. (2004). Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company. No Starch Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-59327-010-0. Retrieved April 15, 2014.

External links

• Steve Jobs official memorial page at Apple
• Steve Jobs discography at Discogs
• Steve Jobs at IMDb
• Steve Jobs profile at Forbes
• Steven Paul Jobs The Vault at FBI Records
• Steve Jobs at Andy Hertzfeld’s The Original Macintosh (folklore.org)
• Steve Jobs at Steve Wozniak’s woz.org
• 2011: «Steve Jobs: From Garage to World’s Most Valuable Company.» Computer History Museum
• 2005: Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford University
• 1995: Steve Jobs, Founder, NeXT Computer, excerpts from an Oral History Interview at Smithsonian Institution, April 20, 1995
• 1994: Steve Jobs in 1994: The Rolling Stone Interview in Rolling Stone
• 1990: Steve Jobs Archived December 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine – memory and imagination
• 1983: The «Lost» Steve Jobs Speech from 1983; Foreshadowing Wireless Networking, the iPad, and the App Store (audio clip)

Business positions
Preceded by Gil Amelio	CEO of Apple 1997–2011	Succeeded by Tim Cook
Preceded by	Apple Chairman 1985	Succeeded by Mike Markkula
Preceded by	Apple Chairman 2011	Succeeded by Arthur D. Levinson

Steve Jobs
Jobs introducing the iPhone 4 in 2010
Born	February 24, 1955 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	October 5, 2011 (aged 56) Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Resting place	Alta Mesa Memorial Park
Education	Reed College (attended)
Occupations	Entrepreneur industrial designer media proprietor investor
Years active	1971–2011
Known for	Pioneer of the personal computer revolution with Steve Wozniak Co-creator of the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and first Apple Stores
Title	Co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Co-founder, primary investor, and chairman of Pixar Founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT
Board member of	The Walt Disney Company[1] Apple Inc.
Spouse	Laurene Powell ​ (m. )​
Partner	Chrisann Brennan (1972–1977)
Children	4, including Lisa and Eve
Relatives	Mona Simpson (sister) Bassma Al Jandaly (cousin) Malek Jandali (cousin)
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (posthumous, 2022)
Signature

Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company’s board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Jobs was born in San Francisco to a Syrian father and German-American mother. He was adopted shortly after his birth. Jobs attended Reed College in 1972 before withdrawing that same year. In 1974, he traveled through India seeking enlightenment before later studying Zen Buddhism. He and Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak’s Apple I personal computer. Together the duo gained fame and wealth a year later with production and sale of the Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers. Jobs saw the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto in 1979, which was mouse-driven and had a graphical user interface (GUI). This led to the development of the unsuccessful Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the breakthrough Macintosh in 1984, the first mass-produced computer with a GUI. The Macintosh introduced the desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to feature vector graphics.

In 1985, Jobs was forced out of Apple after a long power struggle with the company’s board and its then-CEO, John Sculley. That same year, Jobs took a few Apple employees with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialized in computers for higher-education and business markets. In addition, he helped to develop the visual effects industry when he funded the computer graphics division of George Lucas’s Lucasfilm in 1986. The new company was Pixar, which produced the first 3D computer-animated feature film Toy Story (1995) and went on to become a major animation studio, producing over 25 films since.

In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple as CEO after the company’s acquisition of NeXT. He was largely responsible for reviving Apple, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. He worked closely with English designer Jony Ive to develop a line of products that had larger cultural ramifications, beginning with the «Think different» advertising campaign and leading to the Apple Store, App Store (iOS), iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iTunes Store. In 2001, the original Mac OS was replaced with the completely new Mac OS X (now known as macOS), based on NeXT’s NeXTSTEP platform, giving the operating system a modern Unix-based foundation for the first time. In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He died of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. In 2022, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Background

Family

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali (Arabic: عبد الفتاح الجندلي).^[2] His cousin, Bassma Al Jandaly, maintains that his birth name was Abdul Lateef Jandali.^[3] He was adopted by Clara (née Hagopian) and Paul Reinhold Jobs.^[2]

Abdulfattah «John» Jandali was born and raised in an Arab Muslim household in Homs, Syria. As an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, he was a student activist and was imprisoned for his political activities.^[4] He pursued a PhD at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Joanne Schieble, an American Catholic of German and Swiss descent.^[4][5] Both of the same age, Jandali was a doctoral candidate and a teaching assistant for a course Schieble was taking.^[6] Novelist Mona Simpson, Jobs’s biological sister, noted that Schieble’s Catholic parents were unhappy that their daughter was with a Muslim.^[7] Jobs’s biographer Walter Isaacson states that Schieble’s dying father «threatened to disown her if she wed Abdulfattah»,^[6] so they remained an unmarried couple.^[5]

Paul Jobs was a Coast Guard mechanic.^[8] After leaving the Coast Guard, he married Clara Hagopian, an American of Armenian descent, in 1946.^[9] An ectopic pregnancy led them to consider adoption in 1955.^[8][9][10] Hagopian’s parents were survivors of the Armenian genocide.^[11]

Early life

Schieble became pregnant with Jobs in 1954, when she and Jandali spent the summer with his family in Homs. According to Jandali, Schieble deliberately did not involve him in the process: «Without telling me, Joanne upped and left to move to San Francisco to have the baby without anyone knowing, including me.»^[13]

Schieble gave birth to Jobs in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, and chose an adoptive couple for him that was «Catholic, well-educated, and wealthy»,^[14][15] but the couple later changed their minds.^[14] He was then placed with Paul and Clara Jobs, who lacked wealth and college education, and Schieble refused to sign the adoption papers.^[16] She asked the court to find a different family,^[14] but consented when Paul and Clara pledged to fund his college education.^[17]

In his youth, his parents took him to a Lutheran church.^[18] When he was in high school, Clara admitted to his girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, that she «was too frightened to love [Steve] for the first six months of his life … I was scared they were going to take him away from me. Even after we won the case, Steve was so difficult a child that by the time he was two I felt we had made a mistake. I wanted to return him.» When Chrisann shared this comment with Steve, he stated that he was already aware,^[14] and later said he had been deeply loved and indulged by Paul and Clara. Many years later, Jobs’s wife Laurene also noted that «he felt he had been really blessed by having the two of them as parents.»^{[19][page needed]} Jobs would «bristle» when Paul and Clara were referred to as his “adoptive parents”, and he regarded them as his parents “1,000%”. Jobs referred to his biological parents as «my sperm and egg bank. That’s not harsh, it’s just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more.»^[8]

Childhood

Paul Jobs worked in several jobs that included a try as a machinist,^[21]
several other jobs,^[22] and then «back to work as a machinist».

Paul and Clara adopted Jobs’s sister Patricia in 1957^[23] and by 1959 the family had moved to the Monta Loma neighborhood in Mountain View, California.^[24] Paul built a workbench in his garage for his son in order to «pass along his love of mechanics”. Jobs, meanwhile, admired his father’s craftsmanship «because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him … I wasn’t that into fixing cars … but I was eager to hang out with my dad.»^[25] By the time he was ten, Jobs was deeply involved in electronics and befriended many of the engineers who lived in the neighborhood.^{[26][page needed]} He had difficulty making friends with children his own age, however, and was seen by his classmates as a «loner».^{[26][page needed]}

Jobs had difficulty functioning in a traditional classroom, tended to resist authority figures, frequently misbehaved, and was suspended a few times. Clara had taught him to read as a toddler, and Jobs stated that he was «pretty bored in school and [had] turned into a little terror… you should have seen us in the third grade, we basically destroyed the teacher.»^{[26][page needed]} He frequently played pranks on others at Monta Loma Elementary School in Mountain View. His father Paul (who was abused as a child) never reprimanded him, however, and instead blamed the school for not challenging his brilliant son.^[28]

Jobs would later credit his fourth grade teacher, Imogene «Teddy» Hill, with turning him around: «She taught an advanced fourth grade class, and it took her about a month to get hip to my situation. She bribed me into learning. She would say, ‘I really want you to finish this workbook. I’ll give you five bucks if you finish it.’ That really kindled a passion in me for learning things! I learned more that year than I think I learned in any other year in school. They wanted me to skip the next two years in grade school and go straight to junior high to learn a foreign language, but my parents very wisely wouldn’t let it happen.» Jobs skipped the 5th grade and transferred to the 6th grade at Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View^{[26][page needed]} where he became a «socially awkward loner».^[29] Jobs was often «bullied» at Crittenden Middle, and in the middle of 7th grade, he gave his parents an ultimatum: either they would take him out of Crittenden or he would drop out of school.^[30]

Though the Jobs family was not affluent and used all savings in 1967 to buy a new home, allowing Jobs to change schools.^{[26][page needed]} The new house (a three-bedroom home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California) was in the better Cupertino School District, Cupertino, California,^[31] and was embedded in an environment even more heavily populated with engineering families than the Mountain View area was.^{[26][page needed]} The house was declared a historic site in 2013, as the first site of Apple Computer.^[27] As of 2013, it was owned by Jobs’s sister, Patty, and occupied by his stepmother, Marilyn.^[32]

When he was 13, in 1968, Jobs was given a summer job by Bill Hewlett (of Hewlett-Packard) after Jobs cold-called him to ask for parts for an electronics project.^{[26][page needed]}

Homestead High

The location of the Los Altos home meant that Jobs would be able to attend nearby Homestead High School, which had strong ties to Silicon Valley.^[20] He began his first year there in late 1968 along with Bill Fernandez,^{[26][page needed]} who introduced Jobs to Steve Wozniak, and would become Apple’s first employee. Neither Jobs nor Fernandez (whose father was a lawyer) came from engineering households and thus decided to enroll in John McCollum’s Electronics I class.^{[26][page needed]} Jobs had grown his hair long and become involved in the growing counterculture, and the rebellious youth eventually clashed with McCollum and lost interest in the class.^{[26][page needed]}

He underwent a change during mid-1970: «I got stoned for the first time; I discovered Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and all that classic stuff. I read Moby Dick and went back as a junior taking creative writing classes.»^{[26][page needed]} Jobs later noted to his official biographer that «I started to listen to music a whole lot, and I started to read more outside of just science and technology—Shakespeare, Plato. I loved King Lear … when I was a senior I had this phenomenal AP English class. The teacher was this guy who looked like Ernest Hemingway. He took a bunch of us snowshoeing in Yosemite.» During his last two years at Homestead High, Jobs developed two different interests: electronics and literature.^[33] These dual interests were particularly reflected during Jobs’s senior year as his best friends were Wozniak and his first girlfriend, the artistic Homestead junior Chrisann Brennan.^[34]

In 1971, after Wozniak began attending University of California, Berkeley, Jobs would visit him there a few times a week. This experience led him to study in nearby Stanford University’s student union. Instead of joining the electronics club, Jobs put on light shows with a friend for Homestead’s avant-garde jazz program. He was described by a Homestead classmate as «kind of brain and kind of hippie … but he never fit into either group. He was smart enough to be a nerd, but wasn’t nerdy. And he was too intellectual for the hippies, who just wanted to get wasted all the time. He was kind of an outsider. In high school everything revolved around what group you were in, and if you weren’t in a carefully defined group, you weren’t anybody. He was an individual, in a world where individuality was suspect.» By his senior year in late 1971, he was taking freshman English class at Stanford and working on a Homestead underground film project with Chrisann Brennan.^[35][36]

Around that time, Wozniak designed a low-cost digital «blue box» to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. He was inspired by an article titled «Secrets of the Little Blue Box» from the October 1971 issue of Esquire.^[37] Jobs decided then to sell them and split the profit with Wozniak. The clandestine sales of the illegal blue boxes went well and perhaps planted the seed in Jobs’s mind that electronics could be both fun and profitable.^[38] In a 1994 interview, he recalled that it took six months for him and Wozniak to design the blue boxes.^[39] Jobs later reflected that had it not been for Wozniak’s blue boxes, «there wouldn’t have been an Apple».^[40] He states it showed them that they could take on large companies and beat them.^[41][42]

By his senior year of high school, Jobs began using LSD.^[43] He later recalled that on one occasion he consumed it in a wheat field outside Sunnyvale, and experienced «the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point».^[44] In mid-1972, after graduation and before leaving for Reed College, Jobs and Brennan rented a house from their other roommate, Al.^[45]

Reed College

In September 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.^[46] He insisted on applying only to Reed, although it was an expensive school that Paul and Clara could ill afford.^[47] Jobs soon befriended Robert Friedland,^[48] who was Reed’s student body president at that time.^{[26][page needed]} Brennan remained involved with Jobs while he was at Reed. He later asked her to come and live with him in a house he rented near the Reed campus, but she refused.^{[citation needed]}

After just one semester, Jobs dropped out of Reed College without telling his parents.^[49] Jobs later explained this was because he did not want to spend his parents’ money on an education that seemed meaningless to him. He continued to attend by auditing his classes,^[50] including a course on calligraphy that was taught by Robert Palladino. In a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Jobs stated that during this period, he slept on the floor in friends’ dorm rooms, returned Coke bottles for food money, and got weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. In that same speech, Jobs said: “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”^[51]

1974–1985

Pre-Apple

In February 1974, Jobs returned to his parents’ home in Los Altos and began looking for a job.^[53] He was soon hired by Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California, as a technician.^[53][54] Back in 1973, Steve Wozniak designed his own version of the classic video game Pong and gave its electronics board to Jobs. According to Wozniak, Atari only hired Jobs because he took the board down to the company, and they thought that he had built it himself.^[55] Atari’s cofounder Nolan Bushnell later described him as «difficult but valuable», pointing out that «he was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that.»^[56]

During this period, Jobs and Brennan remained involved with each other while continuing to see other people. By early 1974, Jobs was living what Brennan describes as a “simple life” in a Los Gatos cabin, working at Atari, and saving money for his impending trip to India.^{[citation needed]}

Jobs traveled to India in mid-1974^[57] to visit Neem Karoli Baba^[58] at his Kainchi ashram with his Reed friend (and eventual Apple employee) Daniel Kottke, searching for spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted because Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973. Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Haidakhan Babaji.^[54]

After seven months, Jobs left India^[59] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke.^[54] Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved, and he wore traditional Indian clothing.^[60][61] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences «one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life».^[62][63] He spent a period at the All One Farm, a commune in Oregon that was owned by Robert Friedland. Brennan joined him there for a period.^{[citation needed]}

During this time period, Jobs and Brennan both became practitioners of Zen Buddhism through the Zen master Kōbun Chino Otogawa. Jobs was living in his parents’ backyard toolshed, which he had converted into a bedroom.^{[citation needed]} Jobs engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US.^[64] He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.^[65]

In mid-1975, after returning to Atari, Jobs was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout.^[66] According to Bushnell, Atari offered $100 (equivalent to about $500 in 2021) for each TTL chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the TTL count to 46, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.^[67] According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari paid them only $700 (instead of the actual $5,000), and that Wozniak’s share was thus $350.^[68] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and explained that he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.^[69]

Jobs and Wozniak attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975, which was a stepping stone to the development and marketing of the first Apple computer.^[15]

Apple (1976–1985)

By March 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of the Apple I computer and showed it to Jobs, who suggested that they sell it; Wozniak was at first skeptical of the idea but later agreed.^[70] In April of that same year, Jobs, Wozniak, and administrative overseer Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer Company (now called Apple Inc.) as a business partnership in Jobs’s parents’ Crist Drive home on April 1, 1976. The operation originally started in Jobs’s bedroom and later moved to the garage.^[71][72] Wayne stayed briefly, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the active primary cofounders of the company.^[73] The two decided on the name «Apple» after Jobs returned from the All One Farm commune in Oregon and told Wozniak about his time in the farm’s apple orchard.^[74] Jobs originally planned to produce bare printed circuit boards of the Apple I and sell them to computer hobbyists for $50 (equivalent to about $240 in 2021) each. To fund the first batch, Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van.^[75][76] Later that year, computer retailer Paul Terrell purchased 50 fully assembled Apple I units for $500 each.^[77][78] Eventually about 200 Apple I computers were produced in total.^[79]

External image
Jobs and Steve Wozniak with an Apple I circuit board, c. 1976.

A neighbor on Crist Drive recalled Jobs as an odd individual who would greet his clients “with his underwear hanging out, barefoot and hippie-like”. Another neighbor, Larry Waterland, who had just earned his PhD in chemical engineering at Stanford, recalled dismissing Jobs’s budding business compared to the established industry of giant mainframe computers with big decks of punchcards: “Steve took me over to the garage. He had a circuit board with a chip on it, a DuMont TV set, a Panasonic cassette tape deck and a keyboard. He said, ‘This is an Apple computer.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ I dismissed the whole idea.” Jobs’s friend from Reed College and India, Daniel Kottke, recalled that as an early Apple employee, he “was the only person who worked in the garage … Woz would show up once a week with his latest code. Steve Jobs didn’t get his hands dirty in that sense.” Kottke also stated that much of the early work took place in Jobs’s kitchen, where he spent hours on the phone trying to find investors for the company.^[32]

They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product marketing manager and engineer Mike Markkula.^[80] Scott McNealy, one of the cofounders of Sun Microsystems, said that Jobs broke a «glass age ceiling» in Silicon Valley because he’d created a very successful company at a young age.^[42] Markkula brought Apple to the attention of Arthur Rock, which after looking at the crowded Apple booth at the Home Brew Computer Show, started with a $60,000 investment and went on the Apple board.^[81] Jobs was not pleased when Markkula recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor in February 1977 to serve as the first president and CEO of Apple.^[82][83]

After Brennan returned from her own journey to India, she and Jobs fell in love again, as Brennan noted changes in him that she attributes to Kobun (whom she was also still following). It was also at this time that Jobs displayed a prototype Apple I computer for Brennan and his parents in their living room. Brennan notes a shift in this time period, where the two main influences on Jobs were Apple Inc. and Kobun. By early 1977, she and Jobs would spend time together at her home at Duveneck Ranch in Los Altos, which served as a hostel and environmental education center.^{[citation needed]}

In April 1977, Jobs and Wozniak introduced the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire.^[84] It is the first consumer product to have been sold by Apple Computer. Primarily designed by Wozniak, Jobs oversaw the development of its unusual case and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply.^[85] During the design stage, Jobs argued that the Apple II should have two expansion slots, while Wozniak wanted eight. After a heated argument, Wozniak threatened that Jobs should «go get himself another computer». They later agreed on eight slots.^[86] The Apple II became one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products in the world.^[87]

As Jobs became more successful with his new company, his relationship with Brennan grew more complex. In 1977, the success of Apple was now a part of their relationship, and Brennan, Daniel Kottke, and Jobs moved into a house near the Apple office in Cupertino.^{[citation needed]} Brennan eventually took a position in the shipping department at Apple.^[88] Brennan’s relationship with Jobs deteriorated as his position with Apple grew, and she began to consider ending the relationship. In October 1977, Brennan was approached by Rod Holt, who asked her to take «a paid apprenticeship designing blueprints for the Apples».^{[citation needed]} Both Holt and Jobs believed that it would be a good position for her, given her artistic abilities. Holt was particularly eager that she take the position, and puzzled by her ambivalence toward it. Brennan’s decision, however, was overshadowed by the fact that she realized she was pregnant, and that Jobs was the father. It took her a few days to tell Jobs, whose face, according to Brennan, “turned ugly” at the news. At the same time, according to Brennan, at the beginning of her third trimester, Jobs said to her: «I never wanted to ask that you get an abortion. I just didn’t want to do that.»^{[citation needed]} He also refused to discuss the pregnancy with her.^[89] Brennan turned down the internship and decided to leave Apple. She stated that Jobs told her «If you give up this baby for adoption, you will be sorry» and «I am never going to help you.»^{[citation needed]} According to Brennan, Jobs «started to seed people with the notion that I slept around, and he was infertile, which meant that this could not be his child.» A few weeks before she was due to give birth, Brennan was invited to deliver her baby at the All One Farm. She accepted the offer.^{[citation needed]} When Jobs was 23 (the same age as his biological parents when they had him)^[89] Brennan gave birth to her baby, Lisa Brennan, on May 17, 1978.^[90] Jobs went there for the birth after he was contacted by Robert Friedland, their mutual friend and the farm owner. While distant, Jobs worked with her on a name for the baby, which they discussed while sitting in the fields on a blanket. Brennan suggested the name «Lisa» which Jobs also liked and notes that Jobs was very attached to the name “Lisa” while he «was also publicly denying paternity». She would discover later that during this time, Jobs was preparing to unveil a new kind of computer that he wanted to give a female name (his first choice was “Claire” after St. Clare). She stated that she never gave him permission to use the baby’s name for a computer and he hid the plans from her. Jobs worked with his team to come up with the phrase, «Local Integrated Software Architecture» as an alternative explanation for the Apple Lisa.^[91] Decades later, however, Jobs admitted to his biographer Walter Isaacson that «obviously, it was named for my daughter».^[92]

When Jobs denied paternity, a DNA test established him as Lisa’s father.^{[clarification needed]} It required him to pay Brennan $385 (equivalent to about $1,000 in 2021) monthly in addition to returning the welfare money she had received. Jobs paid her $500 (equivalent to about $1,400 in 2021) monthly at the time when Apple went public and made him a millionaire. Later, Brennan agreed to interview with Michael Moritz for Time magazine for its Time Person of the Year special, released on January 3, 1983, in which she discussed her relationship with Jobs. Rather than name Jobs the Person of the Year, the magazine named the generic personal computer the «Machine of the Year».^[93] In the issue, Jobs questioned the reliability of the paternity test, which stated that the «probability of paternity for Jobs, Steven… is 94.1%».^[94] He responded by arguing that «28% of the male population of the United States could be the father». Time also noted that «the baby girl and the machine on which Apple has placed so much hope for the future share the same name: Lisa».^[94]

In 1978, at age 23, Jobs was worth over $1 million (equivalent to $4.15 million in 2021). By age 25, his net worth grew to an estimated $250 million (equivalent to $745 million in 2021).^[95] He was also one of the youngest «people ever to make the Forbes list of the nation’s richest people—and one of only a handful to have done it themselves, without inherited wealth».^{[26][page needed]}

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment on the top two floors of The San Remo, a Manhattan building with a politically progressive reputation. Although he never lived there,^[96] he spent years renovating it thanks to I. M. Pei. In 2003, he sold it to U2 singer Bono.^{[citation needed]}

In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple’s CEO, asking, «Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?»^[97]

In 1984, Jobs bought the Jackling House and estate, and resided there for a decade. Thereafter, he leased it out for several years until 2000 when he stopped maintaining the house, allowing weathering to degrade it. In 2004, Jobs received permission from the town of Woodside to demolish the house to build a smaller, contemporary styled one. After a few years in court, the house was finally demolished in 2011, a few months before he died.^[98]

Jobs took over development of the Macintosh in 1981, from early Apple employee Jef Raskin, who had conceived the project. Wozniak and Raskin had heavily influenced the early program, and Wozniak was on leave during this time due to an airplane crash earlier that year.^{[99][100][101]} On January 22, 1984, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled «1984», which ended with the words: «On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.»^[102] On January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience at Apple’s annual shareholders meeting held in the Flint Auditorium at De Anza College.^[103][104] Macintosh engineer Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as «pandemonium».^[105] The Macintosh was inspired by the Lisa (in turn inspired by Xerox PARC’s mouse-driven graphical user interface),^[106][107] and it was widely acclaimed by the media with strong initial sales.^[108][109] However, its low performance and limited range of available software led to a rapid sales decline in the second half of 1984.^{[108][109][110]}

External video
The Machine That Changed The World, The Paperback Computer; Interview with Steve Jobs, 1990, 50:08, May 14, 1990, WGBH Media Library & Archives[111]

Sculley’s and Jobs’s respective visions for the company greatly differed. Sculley favored open architecture computers like the Apple II, targeting education, small business, and home markets less vulnerable to IBM. Jobs wanted the company to focus on the closed architecture Macintosh as a business alternative to the IBM PC. President and CEO Sculley had little control over chairman of the board Jobs’s Macintosh division; it and the Apple II division operated like separate companies, duplicating services.^[112] Although its products provided 85% of Apple’s sales in early 1985, the company’s January 1985 annual meeting did not mention the Apple II division or employees. Many left, including Wozniak, who stated that the company had «been going in the wrong direction for the last five years» and sold most of his stock.^[113] Though frustrated with the company’s and Jobs’s dismissal of the Apple II in favor of the Macintosh, Wozniak left amicably and remained an honorary employee of Apple, maintaining a lifelong friendship with Jobs.^{[114][115][116]}

By early 1985, the Macintosh’s failure to defeat the IBM PC became clear,^[108][109] and it strengthened Sculley’s position in the company. In May 1985, Sculley—encouraged by Arthur Rock—decided to reorganize Apple, and proposed a plan to the board that would remove Jobs from the Macintosh group and put him in charge of «New Product Development». This move would effectively render Jobs powerless within Apple.^{[26][page needed]} In response, Jobs then developed a plan to get rid of Sculley and take over Apple. However, Jobs was confronted after the plan was leaked, and he said that he would leave Apple. The Board declined his resignation and asked him to reconsider. Sculley also told Jobs that he had all of the votes needed to go ahead with the reorganization. A few months later, on September 17, 1985, Jobs submitted a letter of resignation to the Apple Board. Five additional senior Apple employees also resigned and joined Jobs in his new venture, NeXT.^{[26][page needed]}

The Macintosh’s struggle continued after Jobs left Apple. Though marketed and received in fanfare, the expensive Macintosh was hard to sell.^{[117]: 308–309} In 1985, Bill Gates’s then-developing company, Microsoft, threatened to stop developing Mac applications unless it was granted «a license for the Mac operating system software. Microsoft was developing its graphical user interface … for DOS, which it was calling Windows and didn’t want Apple to sue over the similarities between the Windows GUI and the Mac interface.»^[117]: 321 Sculley granted Microsoft the license which later led to problems for Apple.^[117]: 321 In addition, cheap IBM PC clones that ran Microsoft software and had a graphical user interface began to appear. Although the Macintosh preceded the clones, it was far more expensive, so «through the late 1980s, the Windows user interface was getting better and better and was thus taking increasingly more share from Apple».^[117]: 322 Windows-based IBM-PC clones also led to the development of additional GUIs such as IBM’s TopView or Digital Research’s GEM,^[117]: 322 and thus «the graphical user interface was beginning to be taken for granted, undermining the most apparent advantage of the Mac…it seemed clear as the 1980s wound down that Apple couldn’t go it alone indefinitely against the whole IBM-clone market.»^[117]: 322

1985–1997

NeXT computer

Following his resignation from Apple in 1985, Jobs founded NeXT Inc.^[118] with $7 million. A year later he was running out of money, and he sought venture capital with no product on the horizon. Eventually, Jobs attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot, who invested heavily in the company.^[119] The NeXT computer was shown to the world in what was considered Jobs’s comeback event,^[120] a lavish invitation-only gala launch event^[121] that was described as a multimedia extravaganza.^[122] The celebration was held at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, October 12, 1988. Steve Wozniak said in a 2013 interview that while Jobs was at NeXT he was «really getting his head together».^[99]

NeXT workstations were first released in 1990 and priced at $9,999 (equivalent to about $21,000 in 2021). Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced and designed for the education sector, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive.^[123] The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. Making use of a NeXT computer, English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990 at CERN in Switzerland.^[124]

The revised, second generation NeXTcube was released in 1990. Jobs touted it as the first «interpersonal» computer that would replace the personal computer. With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. «Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionize human communications and groupwork», Jobs told reporters.^[125] Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube’s magnesium case.^[126] This put considerable strain on NeXT’s hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.^[127] The company reported its first yearly profit of $1.03 million in 1994.^[128] In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for Web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store,^[127] MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

Pixar and Disney

External video
Presentation by Jobs on the future of computer-animated films, March 31, 1998, C-SPAN

In 1986, Jobs funded the spinout of The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital and $5 million of which was paid to Lucasfilm for technology rights.^[129]

The first film produced by Pixar with its Disney partnership, Toy Story (1995), with Jobs credited as executive producer,^[130] brought financial success and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released. Over the course of Jobs’s life, under Pixar’s creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits A Bug’s Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); The Incredibles (2004); Cars (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up (2009); Toy Story 3 (2010); and Cars 2 (2011). Brave (2012), Pixar’s first film to be produced since Jobs’s death, honored him with a tribute for his contributions to the studio.^[131] Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3 and Brave each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.^[132][133]

In 2003 and 2004, as Pixar’s contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership,^[134] and in January 2004, Jobs announced that he would never deal with Disney again.^[135] Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to mend relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company’s largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company’s stock.^[136] Jobs’s holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about 1% of the company’s stock and whose criticisms of Eisner—especially that he soured Disney’s relationship with Pixar—accelerated Eisner’s ousting. Upon completion of the merger, Jobs received 7% of Disney shares, and joined the board of directors as the largest individual shareholder.^{[136][137][138]} Upon Jobs’s death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.^[139]

After Jobs’s death, Iger recalled in 2019 that many warned him about Jobs, “that he would bully me and everyone else”. Iger wrote, “Who wouldn’t want Steve Jobs to have influence over how a company is run?», and that as an active Disney board member “he rarely created trouble for me. Not but rarely”. He speculated that they would have seriously considered merging Disney and Apple had Jobs lived.^[135] Floyd Norman, of Pixar, described Jobs as a «mature, mellow individual” who never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.^[140] In early June 2014, Pixar cofounder and Walt Disney Animation Studios President Ed Catmull revealed that Jobs once advised him to «just explain it to them until they understand” in disagreements. Catmull released the book Creativity, Inc. in 2014, in which he recounts numerous experiences of working with Jobs. Regarding his own manner of dealing with Jobs, Catmull writes:^{[141][page needed]}

In all the 26 years with Steve, Steve and I never had one of these loud verbal arguments, and it’s not my nature to do that. … but we did disagree fairly frequently about things. … I would say something to him and he would immediately shoot it down because he could think faster than I could. … I would then wait a week … I’d call him up, and I give my counterargument to what he had said, and he’d immediately shoot it down. So I had to wait another week, and occasionally this went on for months. But ultimately one of three things happened. About a third of the time he said, «Oh, I get it, you’re right.» And that was the end of it. And it was another third of the time in which [I’d] say, «Actually I think he is right.» The other third of the time, where we didn’t reach consensus, he just let me do it my way, never said anything more about it.^[142]

1997–2011

Return to Apple

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $400 million. The deal was finalized in February 1997, bringing Jobs back to the company he had cofounded.^[143] Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive on September 16.^[144] In March 1998, to concentrate Apple’s efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated several projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, “afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs’s summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company.»^[145] Jobs changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company’s technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs’s guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the «interim» modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.^[146] Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title «iCEO».^[147]

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While nurturing open-ended innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that «real artists ship».^[148]

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987, when Jobs first criticized Dell for making «un-innovative beige boxes».^[149] On October 6, 1997, at a Gartner Symposium, when Dell was asked what he would do if he ran the then-troubled Apple Computer company, he said: «I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”^[150] Then, in 2006, Jobs emailed all employees when Apple’s market capitalization rose above Dell’s. It read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.^[151]

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the «reality distortion field» and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as «Stevenotes») at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences.^[152]

Jobs usually went to work wearing a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by Issey Miyake, Levi’s 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers.^[153][154] Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson «…he came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style.»^[153]

Jobs was a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.^[155]

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,^[156] though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.^[157]

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple’s poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple’s annual meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read «Steve, don’t be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste.»

In 2006, he further expanded Apple’s recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and «environmentally friendly disposal» of their old systems.^[158] The success of Apple’s unique products and services provided several years of stable financial returns, propelling Apple to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.^[159]

Jobs was perceived as a demanding perfectionist^[160][161] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting innovation and style trends. He summed up this self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky:

There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. «I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.» And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.^[162]

On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple board of directors for revenue lost because of alleged securities fraud.^[163][164]

In a 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed that he had met with US President Barack Obama, complained about the nation’s shortage of software engineers, and told Obama that he was «headed for a one-term presidency».^[165] Jobs proposed that any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a US university should automatically be offered a green card. After the meeting, Jobs commented, «The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done . . . . It infuriates me.»^[165]

Health problems

In October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer. In mid-2004, he announced to his employees that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.^[166] The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor;^[167] Jobs stated that he had a rare, much less aggressive type, known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.^[166]

Jobs resisted his doctors’ recommendations for medical intervention for nine months,^[168] in favor of alternative medicine. According to Harvard researcher Ramzi Amri, this «led to an unnecessarily early death». Other doctors agree that Jobs’s diet was insufficient to address his disease. However, cancer researcher and alternative medicine critic David Gorski wrote that «it’s impossible to know whether and by how much he might have decreased his chances of surviving his cancer through his flirtation with woo. My best guess was that Jobs probably only modestly decreased his chances of survival, if that.»^[169][170] Barrie R. Cassileth, the chief of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s integrative medicine department,^[171] on the other hand, said, «Jobs’s faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his life … He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer that is treatable and curable … He essentially committed suicide.»^[172] According to biographer Walter Isaacson, «for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined».^[173] «Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies, and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He was also influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004».^[174][175] He underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or «Whipple procedure») that appeared to remove the tumor successfully.^[176][177] Jobs did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.^[166][178] During Jobs’s absence, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.^[166]

In January 2006, only Jobs’s wife, his doctors, and Iger and his wife knew that his cancer had returned. Jobs told Iger privately that he hoped to live to see his son Reed’s high school graduation in 2010.^[135] In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His «thin, almost gaunt» appearance and unusually «listless» delivery,^[179][180] together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about the state of his health.^[181] In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) attendees who saw Jobs in person said he «looked fine».^[182] Following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that «Steve’s health is robust.»^[183]

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs’s 2008 WWDC keynote address.^[184] Apple officials stated that Jobs was victim to a «common bug» and was taking antibiotics,^[185] while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure.^[178] During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Jobs’s health by insisting that it was a «private matter». Others said that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs’s hands-on approach to running his company.^[186][187] Based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, The New York Times reported, «While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug’, they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer.»^[188]

On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure’s death. Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it,^[189] intensifying rumors concerning Jobs’s health.^[190] Jobs responded at Apple’s September 2008 Let’s Rock keynote by paraphrasing Mark Twain: «Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.»^[191][192] At a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading «110/70», referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.^[193]

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company’s final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs’s health.^[194][195] In a statement given on January 5, 2009, on Apple.com, Jobs said that he had been suffering from a «hormone imbalance» for several months.^[196][197]

On January 14, 2009, Jobs wrote in an internal Apple memo that in the previous week he had «learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought».^[198] He announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009, to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who previously acted as CEO in Jobs’s 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple, with Jobs still involved with «major strategic decisions».^[198]

In 2009, Tim Cook offered a portion of his liver to Jobs, since both share a rare blood type and the donor liver can regenerate tissue after such an operation. Jobs yelled, «I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that.»^[199]

In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.^{[200][201][202]} Jobs’s prognosis was described as «excellent».^[200]

Resignation

On January 17, 2011, a year and a half after Jobs returned to work following the liver transplant, Apple announced that he had been granted a medical leave of absence. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees, stating his decision was made «so he could focus on his health». As it did at the time of his 2009 medical leave, Apple announced that Tim Cook would run day-to-day operations and that Jobs would continue to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company.^[203][204] While on leave, Jobs appeared at the iPad 2 launch event on March 2, the WWDC keynote introducing iCloud on June 6, and before the Cupertino City Council on June 7.^[205]

On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation as Apple’s CEO, writing to the board, «I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.»^[206] Jobs became chairman of the board and named Tim Cook as his successor as CEO.^[207][208] Jobs continued to work for Apple until the day before his death six weeks later.^{[209][210][211]}

Death

Jobs died at his Palo Alto, California, home around 3 p.m. (PDT) on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor,^{[15][212][213]} which resulted in respiratory arrest.^[214] He had lost consciousness the day before and died with his wife, children, and sisters at his side.^[215] His sister, Mona Simpson, described his death thus: «Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'» He then lost consciousness and died several hours later.^[215] A small private funeral was held on October 7, 2011, the details of which, out of respect for Jobs’s family, were not made public.^[216]

Apple^[217] and Pixar each issued announcements of his death.^[218] Apple announced on the same day that they had no plans for a public service, but were encouraging «well-wishers» to send their remembrance messages to an email address created to receive such messages.^[219] Apple and Microsoft both flew their flags at half-staff throughout their respective headquarters and campuses.^[220][221]

Bob Iger ordered all Disney properties, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland, to fly their flags at half-staff from October 6 to 12, 2011.^[222] For two weeks following his death, Apple displayed on its corporate Web site a simple page that showed Jobs’s name and lifespan next to his grayscale portrait.^{[223][224][225]} On October 19, 2011, Apple employees held a private memorial service for Jobs on the Apple campus in Cupertino. It was attended by Jobs’s widow, Laurene, and by Tim Cook, Bill Campbell, Norah Jones, Al Gore, and Coldplay. Some of Apple’s retail stores closed briefly so employees could attend the memorial. A video of the service was uploaded to Apple’s website.^[226]

California Governor Jerry Brown declared Sunday, October 16, 2011, to be «Steve Jobs Day».^[227] On that day, an invitation-only memorial was held at Stanford University. Those in attendance included Apple and other tech company executives, members of the media, celebrities, politicians, and family and close friends of Jobs. Bono, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joan Baez performed at the service, which lasted longer than an hour. The service was highly secured, with guards at all of the university’s gates, and a helicopter overhead from an area news station.^[228][229] Each attendee was given a small brown box as a «farewell gift» from Jobs, containing a copy of the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.^[230]

Childhood friend and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,^[231] former owner of what would become Pixar, George Lucas,^[232] former rival, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,^[233] and President Barack Obama^[234] all offered statements in response to his death.

At his request, Jobs was buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only nonsectarian cemetery in Palo Alto.^[235][236]

Innovations and designs

Jobs’s design aesthetic was influenced by philosophies of Zen and Buddhism. In India, he experienced Buddhism while on his seven-month spiritual journey,^[237] and his sense of intuition was influenced by the spiritual people with whom he studied.^[237] He also learned from many references and sources, such as modernist architectural style of Joseph Eichler,^{[citation needed]} and the industrial designs of Richard Sapper^[238] and Dieter Rams.^{[citation needed]}

According to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, «Steve didn’t ever code. He wasn’t an engineer and he didn’t do any original design…»^[239][240] Daniel Kottke, one of Apple’s earliest employees and a college friend of Jobs, stated: «Between Woz and Jobs, Woz was the innovator, the inventor. Steve Jobs was the marketing person.»^[241]

He is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 346 United States patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards, and packages. His contributions to most of his patents were to «the look and feel of the product». He and his industrial design chief Jonathan Ive are named for 200 of the patents.^[242] Most of these are design patents as opposed to utility patents or inventions; they are specific product designs such as both original and lamp-style iMacs, and PowerBook G4 Titanium.^[243][244] He holds 43 issued US patents on inventions.^[243] The patent on the Mac OS X Dock user interface with «magnification» feature was issued the day before he died.^[245] Although Jobs had little involvement in the engineering and technical side of the original Apple computers,^[240] Jobs later used his CEO position to directly involve himself with product design.^[246]

Involved in many projects throughout his career was his long-time marketing executive and confidant Joanna Hoffman, known as one of the few employees at Apple and NeXT who could successfully stand up to Jobs while also engaging with him.^[247]

Even while terminally ill in the hospital, Jobs sketched new devices that would hold the iPad in a hospital bed.^[215] He despised the oxygen monitor on his finger, and suggested ways to revise the design for simplicity.^[248]

Since his death, he has won 141 patents, more than most inventors during their lifetimes. He holds over 450 patents in total.^[249]

Apple I

Although entirely designed by Steve Wozniak, Jobs had the idea of selling the desktop computer, which led to the formation of Apple Computer in 1976. Both Jobs and Wozniak constructed several of the Apple I prototypes by hand, funded by selling some of their belongings. Eventually, 200 units were produced.^[79]

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the world’s first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products,^[87] designed primarily by Wozniak, and Jobs oversaw the development of the Apple II’s unusual case^[250] and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply.^[85] It was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire by Jobs and Wozniak as the first consumer product sold by Apple.

Apple Lisa

The Lisa is a personal computer developed by Apple from 1978 and sold in the early 1980s. It is the first personal computer with a graphical user interface for business users.^[251] The Lisa sold poorly, at 100,000 units.^[252]

In 1982, after Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project,^[253] he took over the Macintosh project, adding inspiration from Lisa. The final Lisa 2/10 was modified and sold as the Macintosh XL.^[254]

Macintosh

Once he joined the Macintosh team, Jobs took over the project after Wozniak had experienced a traumatic airplane accident and temporarily left the company.^[99] Jobs launched the Macintosh on January 24, 1984, as the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse.^[255] This first model was later renamed to Macintosh 128k among the prolific series. Since 1998, Apple has phased out the Macintosh name in favor of «Mac», though the product family has been nicknamed «Mac» or «the Mac» since inception. The Macintosh was introduced by a US$1.5 million Ridley Scott television commercial, «1984».^[256] It aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, received as a «watershed event»^[257] and a «masterpiece».^[258] Regis McKenna called the ad «more successful than the Mac itself».^[259] It uses an unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by a Picasso-style picture of the computer on her white tank top) to save humanity from the conformity of IBM’s domination of the computer industry. The ad alludes to George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which describes a dystopian future ruled by a televised «Big Brother.»^[260][261]

The Macintosh, however, was expensive, which hindered its ability to be competitive in a market already dominated by the Commodore 64 for consumers, and the IBM Personal Computer and its accompanying clone market for businesses.^[262] Macintosh systems still found success in education and desktop publishing and kept Apple as the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade.

NeXT Computer

After Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985, he started NeXT, a workstation computer company. The NeXT Computer was introduced in 1988 at a lavish launch event. Using the NeXT Computer, Tim Berners-Lee created the world’s first web browser, the WorldWideWeb. The NeXT Computer’s operating system, named NeXTSTEP, begat Darwin, which is now the foundation of most of Apple’s products such as Macintosh’s macOS and iPhone’s iOS.^[263][264]

iMac

Main article: iMac

Apple iMac G3 was introduced in 1998 and its innovative design was directly the result of Jobs’s return to Apple. Apple boasted «the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else’s.»^[265] Described as «cartoonlike», the first iMac, clad in Bondi Blue plastic, was unlike any personal computer that came before. In 1999, Apple introduced the Graphite gray Apple iMac and since has varied the shape, color and size considerably while maintaining the all-in-one design. Design ideas were intended to create a connection with the user such as the handle and a «breathing» light effect when the computer went to sleep.^[266] The Apple iMac sold for $1,299 at that time. The iMac also featured forward-thinking changes, such as eschewing the floppy disk drive and moving exclusively to USB for connecting peripherals. This latter change resulted, through the iMac’s success, in the interface being popularized among third-party peripheral makers—as evidenced by the fact that many early USB peripherals were made of translucent plastic (to match the iMac design).^[267]

iTunes

iTunes is a media player, media library, online radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple. It is used to play, download, and organize digital audio and video (as well as other types of media available on the iTunes Store) on personal computers running the macOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The iTunes Store is also available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.

Through the iTunes Store, users can purchase and download music, music videos, television shows, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, and movie rentals in some countries, and ringtones, available on the iPhone and iPod Touch (fourth generation onward). Application software for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch can be downloaded from the App Store.

iPod

Main article: iPod

The first generation of iPod was released October 23, 2001. The major innovation of the iPod was its small size achieved by using a 1.8″ hard drive compared to the 2.5″ drives common to players at that time. The capacity of the first generation iPod ranged from 5 GB to 10 GB.^[268] The iPod sold for US$399 and more than 100,000 iPods were sold before the end of 2001. The introduction of the iPod resulted in Apple becoming a major player in the music industry.^[269] Also, the iPod’s success prepared the way for the iTunes music store and the iPhone.^[270] After the first few generations of iPod, Apple released the touchscreen iPod Touch, the reduced-size iPod Mini and iPod Nano, and the screenless iPod Shuffle in the following years.^[269]

iPhone

Apple began work on the first iPhone in 2005 and the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. The iPhone created such a sensation that a survey indicated six out of ten Americans were aware of its release. Time declared it «Invention of the Year» for 2007 and included it in the All-TIME 100 Gadgets list in 2010, in the category of Communication.^[271] The completed iPhone had multimedia capabilities and functioned as a quad-band touch screen smartphone. A year later, the iPhone 3G was released in July 2008 with three key features: support for GPS, 3G data and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA. In June 2009, the iPhone 3GS, whose improvements included voice control, a better camera, and a faster processor, was introduced by Phil Schiller.^[272] The iPhone 4 was thinner than previous models, had a five megapixel camera capable of recording video in 720p HD, and added a secondary front-facing camera for video calls.^[273] A major feature of the iPhone 4S, introduced in October 2011, was Siri, a virtual assistant capable of voice recognition.^[274]

iPad

Main article: iPad

The iPad is an iOS-based line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple. The first iPad was released on April 3, 2010. The user interface is built around the device’s multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPad includes built-in Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity on select models. As of April 2015, more than 250 million iPads have been sold.^[275]

Personal life

Marriage

In 1989, Jobs first met his future wife, Laurene Powell, when he gave a lecture at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was a student. Soon after the event, he stated that Laurene «was right there in the front row in the lecture hall, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her … kept losing my train of thought, and started feeling a little giddy.»^{[19][page needed]} After the lecture, he met her in the parking lot and invited her out to dinner. From that point forward, they were together, with a few minor exceptions, for the rest of his life.^{[19][page needed]}

Jobs proposed on New Year’s Day 1990 with «a fistful of freshly picked wildflowers».^{[19][page needed]} They married on March 18, 1991, in a Buddhist ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.^{[19][page needed]} Fifty people, including Jobs’s father, Paul, and his sister Mona, attended. The ceremony was conducted by Jobs’s guru, Kobun Chino Otogawa. The vegan wedding cake was in the shape of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and the wedding ended with a hike and Laurene’s brothers’ snowball fight. Jobs reportedly said to Mona: «You see, Mona […], Laurene is descended from Joe Namath, and we’re descended from John Muir.»^[276]

Jobs’s and Powell’s first child was born in 1991.^[277] Jobs’s father, Paul, died a year and a half later, on March 5, 1993. Jobs’s childhood home remains a tourist attraction and is currently owned by his stepmother (Paul’s second wife), Marilyn Jobs.^[278]

Jobs and Powell had two more children; Eve Jobs, born in 1998, is a fashion model.^[277] The family lived in Palo Alto, California.^[279]

Although a billionaire, Jobs made it known that, like Bill Gates, he had stipulated that most of his monetary fortune would not be left to his children.^[280][281] Both men had limited their children’s access, age appropriate, to social media, computer games, and the Internet.^[282][283]

Family

Chrisann Brennan notes that after Jobs was forced out of Apple, «he apologized many times over for his behavior» towards her and Lisa. She said Jobs «said that he never took responsibility when he should have, and that he was sorry».^[284] By this time, Jobs had developed a strong relationship with Lisa and when she was nine, Jobs had her name on her birth certificate changed from «Lisa Brennan» to «Lisa Brennan-Jobs».^{[14][page needed]} Jobs and Brennan developed a working relationship to co-parent Lisa, a change which Brennan credits to the influence of his newly found biological sister, Mona Simpson, who worked to repair the relationship between Lisa and Jobs.^{[14][page needed]} Jobs had found Mona after first finding his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, shortly after he left Apple.^[285]

Jobs did not contact his birth family during his adoptive mother Clara’s lifetime, however. He would later tell his official biographer Walter Isaacson: «I never wanted [Paul and Clara] to feel like I didn’t consider them my parents, because they were totally my parents […] I loved them so much that I never wanted them to know of my search, and I even had reporters keep it quiet when any of them found out.»^[285] However, in 1986, when Jobs was 31, Clara was diagnosed with lung cancer. He began to spend a great deal of time with her and learned more details about her background and his adoption, information that motivated him to find his biological mother. Jobs found on his birth certificate the name of the San Francisco doctor to whom Schieble had turned when she was pregnant. Although the doctor did not help Jobs while he was alive, he left a letter for Jobs to be opened upon his death. As he died soon afterwards, Jobs was given the letter which stated that «his mother had been an unmarried graduate student from Wisconsin named Joanne Schieble.»^[285]

Jobs only contacted Schieble after Clara died in early 1986 and after he received permission from his father, Paul. In addition, out of respect for Paul, he asked the media not to report on his search.^[286] Jobs stated that he was motivated to find his birth mother out of both curiosity and a need «to see if she was okay and to thank her, because I’m glad I didn’t end up as an abortion. She was twenty-three and she went through a lot to have me.»^[287] Schieble was emotional during their first meeting (though she wasn’t familiar with the history of Apple or Jobs’s role in it) and told him that she had been pressured into signing the adoption papers. She said that she regretted giving him up and repeatedly apologized to him for it. Jobs and Schieble would develop a friendly relationship throughout the rest of his life and would spend Christmas together.^[288]

During this first visit, Schieble told Jobs that he had a sister, Mona, who was not aware that she had a brother.^[287] Schieble then arranged for them to meet in New York where Mona worked. Her first impression of Jobs was that «he was totally straightforward and lovely, just a normal and sweet guy.»^[289] Simpson and Jobs then went for a long walk to get to know each other.^[289] Jobs later told his biographer that «Mona was not completely thrilled at first to have me in her life and have her mother so emotionally affectionate toward me … As we got to know each other, we became really good friends, and she is my family. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I can’t imagine a better sister. My adopted sister, Patty, and I were never close.»^[289]

Jobs then learned his family history. Six months after he was given up for adoption, Schieble’s father died, she wed Jandali, and they had a daughter, Mona.^[4][290] Jandali states that after finishing his PhD he returned to Syria to work, and then Schieble left him.^[4] They divorced in 1962^[20] and he said then he lost contact with Mona for a time:

I also bear the responsibility for being away from my daughter when she was four years old, as her mother divorced me when I went to Syria, but we got back in touch after 10 years. We lost touch again when her mother moved and I didn’t know where she was, but since 10 years ago we’ve been in constant contact, and I see her three times a year. I organized a trip for her last year to visit Syria and Lebanon and she went with a relative from Florida.^[4]

A few years later, Schieble married an ice skating teacher, George Simpson. Mona Jandali took her stepfather’s last name, as Mona Simpson. In 1970, after divorcing her second husband, Schieble took Mona to Los Angeles and raised her alone.^[290]

When Simpson found that their father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was living in Sacramento, California, Jobs had no interest in meeting him as he believed Jandali didn’t treat his children well^[291] and allegedly because of finding a Seattle Times article about Jandali’s abandonment of his students on a trip to Egypt in 1974.^[5] Simpson went to Sacramento alone and met Jandali, who worked in a small restaurant. They spoke for several hours, and he told her that he had left teaching for the restaurant business. He said he and Schieble had given another child away for adoption but that «we’ll never see that baby again. That baby’s gone.» He said he once managed a Mediterranean restaurant near San Jose and that «all of the successful technology people used to come there. Even Steve Jobs … oh yeah, he used to come in, and he was a sweet guy and a big tipper.» At the request of Jobs, Simpson did not tell Jandali that she had met his son.^[292]

After hearing about the visit, Jobs recalled that «it was amazing … I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands.» However, Jobs still did not want to meet Jandali because «I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn’t trust him not to try to blackmail me or go to the press about it … I asked Mona not to tell him about me.»^[292] Jandali later discovered his relationship to Jobs through an online blog. He then contacted Simpson and asked «what is this thing about Steve Jobs?» Simpson told him that it was true and later commented, «My father is thoughtful and a beautiful storyteller, but he is very, very passive … He never contacted Steve.» Because Simpson herself researched her Syrian roots and began to meet the family, she assumed that Jobs would eventually want to meet their father, but he never did. Jobs also never showed an interest in his Syrian heritage or the Middle East. Simpson fictionalized the search for their father in her 1992 novel The Lost Father.^[288] Malek Jandali is their cousin.^[293]

Philanthropy

Jobs’s views and actions on philanthropy and charity are a public mystery.^[294] He maintained privacy over his occasional few such actions which were publicly known. He has been a key figure in public discussions about societal obligations of the wealthy and powerful. Through his career, the media investigated and criticized him and Apple as unusually and inexplicably mysterious or absent among powerful leaders and especially billionaires. His name is absent from the Million Dollar List of all large global philanthropy.^[295] Some have speculated about his possible secret role in large anonymous donations.^[294]

Mark Vermilion, former charitable leader for Joan Baez, Apple, and Jobs, attributed Jobs’s lifelong minimization of direct charity to his perfectionism and limited time. Jobs, Vermilion, and supporters said over the years that corporate products were Jobs’s superior contributions to culture and society instead of direct charity.^[295] In 1985, Jobs said, «You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.»^[294]

Shortly after leaving Apple, he formed the charitable Steven P. Jobs Foundation, led by Mark Vermilion, hired away from Apple’s community leadership. Jobs wanted a focus on nutrition and vegetarianism but Vermilion wanted social entrepreneurship. That year, Jobs soon launched NeXT and closed the foundation with no results. Upon his 1997 return to Apple, Jobs optimized the failing company to the core, such as eliminating all philanthropic programs, never to be restored. In 2007, Stanford Social Innovation Review magazine listed Apple among «America’s least philanthropic companies». A few months after another unflattering news report, Apple started a program to match employees’ charitable gifts.^[295] Jobs has declined to sign The Giving Pledge, launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for fellow billionaires.^[295][294] He donated $50 million to Stanford hospital and contributed to efforts to cure AIDS.^[296] Bono reported «tens of millions of dollars» given by Apple while Jobs was CEO, to AIDS and HIV relief programs in Africa, which inspired other companies to join.^[295]

Honors and awards

• 1985: National Medal of Technology (with Steve Wozniak), awarded by US President Ronald Reagan^[298]
• 1987: Jefferson Award for Public Service^[299]
• 1989: Entrepreneur of the Decade by Inc.^[300]
• 1991: Howard Vollum Award from Reed College^[301]
• 2004–2010: Listed among the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World on five separate occasions^[302]
• 2007: Named the most powerful person in business by Fortune magazine^[303]
• 2007: Inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts^[304]
• 2012: Grammy Trustees Award, an award for those who have influenced the music industry in areas unrelated to performance^[305]
• 2012: Posthumously honored with an Edison Achievement Award for his commitment to innovation throughout his career^[306]
• 2013: Posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend^[307]
• 2017: Steve Jobs Theatre opens at Apple Park^[308]
• 2022: Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President Joe Biden, the country’s highest civilian honor^[309]

In popular culture

See also

• Seva Foundation
• Timeline of Steve Jobs media

References

Bibliography

• Isaacson, Walter (2011). Steve Jobs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781451648546.
• Isaacson, Walter (2015). Steve Jobs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781501127625.
• Linzmayer, Owen W. (2004). Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company. No Starch Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-59327-010-0. Retrieved April 15, 2014.

External links

• Steve Jobs official memorial page at Apple
• Steve Jobs discography at Discogs
• Steve Jobs at IMDb
• Steve Jobs profile at Forbes
• Steven Paul Jobs The Vault at FBI Records
• Steve Jobs at Andy Hertzfeld’s The Original Macintosh (folklore.org)
• Steve Jobs at Steve Wozniak’s woz.org
• 2011: «Steve Jobs: From Garage to World’s Most Valuable Company.» Computer History Museum
• 2005: Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford University
• 1995: Steve Jobs, Founder, NeXT Computer, excerpts from an Oral History Interview at Smithsonian Institution, April 20, 1995
• 1994: Steve Jobs in 1994: The Rolling Stone Interview in Rolling Stone
• 1990: Steve Jobs Archived December 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine – memory and imagination
• 1983: The «Lost» Steve Jobs Speech from 1983; Foreshadowing Wireless Networking, the iPad, and the App Store (audio clip)

Business positions
Preceded by Gil Amelio	CEO of Apple 1997–2011	Succeeded by Tim Cook
Preceded by	Apple Chairman 1985	Succeeded by Mike Markkula
Preceded by	Apple Chairman 2011	Succeeded by Arthur D. Levinson