Graham Barlow: the Apple view
The first time 1 ever saw
Steve Jobs was also the first time I ever saw a Wi-Fi connection in operation,
as Steve walked from one side of the stage to the other carrying his iBook
while the computer remained connected to the internet. “Wow!” I thought,
“that’s really something.” I had no idea what I was in for over the next few
years.
Although I never met Steve
Jobs personall3 I did spend what felt like a considerable part of the noughties
flying around the world to listen to him speak. Back then we had marvellous
things called trade shows that the Apple faithful would flock to, and where the
company made all its key product announcements. There was a regular pattern to
these events -the day started with the Apple keynote, where Steve would
announce the hot new technology, then the gates to the show would be thrown
open and the eager crowds would pour onto the show floor in a mad scramble to
get their hands on the latest gadget on the Apple stand. But once glass-fronted
Apple Stores started to spring up like weeds in high streets throughout the
world, the company realised it didn’t need to tie its major product releases
into the punishing trade show schedule, and it didn’t need the shows to reach
its customers anymore thanks to all the new stores. Apple pulled out of the
shows, most of which folded in response, and I stopped getting on planes.
For me, seeing Steve Jobs
in the flesh was always the highlight of any Apple event. My British
sensibilities prevented me from hollering and whooping like my American
counterparts when he took to the stage, but I could appreciate what made people
react like that. In person, it was hard to deny his charisma.
Apart from walking past
him while he was surrounded by a gaggle of security men on the show floor a
couple of times, the closest I got to Steve was when he made a surprise
appearance in the Regent Street Apple Store at the UK launch of the original
iPhone in 2007. It was a small room packed with the UK technology press and he
just popped out of a side door, sat down on a stool at the front and started to
talk. He was at his peak then - looking healthy and relaxed in his trademark
black turtleneck and blue jeans. Being accustomed to seeing him in a huge
theatre on a faraway stage, this was something of a shock, especially because
it hadn’t been announced that he would be at the event in person.
What I remember most from
the day was that he had this unshakable belief that what he was telling you was
true. Listening to Steve, it made complete sense not to include 3G in the
original iPhone because EDGE was a great platform for email and Wi-Fi was
better for browsing the internet, and the trade off for battery life wasn’t
worth it (although when Apple went on to release the iPhone 3G, it obviously
made sense to include the technology. It was right to lock the iPhone into just
one partner on launch (02), and not make the handset available unlocked
(although, of course, Apple eventually started to sell unlocked iPhones. And it
made absolute sense to have a paltry GB as the largest memory size (even though
Apple released a 16GB model just a few months later).
People famously named this
strange effect the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field, but were his critics
right? Was Steve just a snake oil salesman capable of pulling the wool over our
collective eyes? I don’t think so. He was obsessed with the details, with
elegance and style - how things worked, why the’ worked the way they did, and
how that could be improved, lie was also extremely good at framing an argument
in a way that made his view seem like the only reasonable option. He was quite
comfortable taking difficult questions from the gathered technology press, and
he had a great sense of humour - a lot of his replies ended in funny stories or
jokes. He clearly loved what he did and was doing what he loved.
Jobs has left big shoes
for Tim Cook to fill, and Tim’s first outing at the launch of the iPhone 4S
didn’t impress the markets. But how could it? Few people could follow Steve
Jobs, and I doubt we’ll see his like again. Apple will still be Apple without
him, but perhaps the saddest thing is that despite all the great products he’d
launched it still felt like he was just getting started. Who knows what Apple
has got lined up for us next, but whatever it is, I bet we’ll still he feeling
Steve’s influence for many years to come.
