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Twelve years after the death of Steve Jobs, the cracks are starting to appear at Apple (www.notebookcheck.net)

submitted 7 months ago by boem@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 262 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

People need to stop holding Jobs up as some deity of tech. He was a marketing and hype man that was in the right place at the right time and knew how to take advantage of that luck. Nothing more, nothing less. It is equally possible his leadership style would have squandered the opportunities Apple has had since his death had it been him and not Cook in charge.

By any metric other than "line must always go up" Apple is doing just fine.

"Oh no, they haven't found another multi hundred billion dollar product to release since the iPhone, even though there are no signs that the iPhone won't continue to be a very profitable business for years and years to come...better go dig up Steve jobs, shove a stick up his back, magic his corpse back to life, and beg him to save the shareholders profit margins", the horror.

[–] DingoBilly@lemmy.world 67 points 7 months ago (1 children)

He was very much the Elon Musk of his times, and it's very possible he would have gone down the same route of extremist views and decisions that completely failed because of his egoism.

[–] machinin@lemmy.world 142 points 7 months ago (2 children)

He died because he didn't listen to his doctor's advice. That is somewhat extreme.

[–] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 101 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Had pancreatitis because of his diet. A diet in which he thought would magically avoid creating body odor.

It turned into cancer. He lucked out that it was a rare form of treatable pancreatic cancer with a 90% survival rate 5 years out. Which is abnormal as most forms of pancreatic are essentially a death sentence. Survival rate past 3 years is under 10% for the more common variants.

Stuck to his diet anyway. Ignored his doctors. Died to an illness he had a 90% chance of beating because he knew better.

[–] Kushan@lemmy.world 42 points 7 months ago (3 children)

And to top it all off, it didn't help his body odour at all. He stank.

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[–] jve@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago

He also jumped the line to get a liver transplant once he, presumably, decided maybe there’s a chance the diet thing wouldn’t work out.

Died shortly thereafter, wasting a perfectly good liver.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/business/23liver.html

[–] 14th_cylon@lemm.ee 23 points 7 months ago

And that 90% is average number, it's quite possible that with his money that number would be higher...

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[–] unphazed@lemmy.world 28 points 7 months ago

He believed in the teachings of a 20th century cultist who said you excreted mucus based on dietary choices, and therefore didn't have to worry about health or bathing unless you ate poorly. (Stinky dude who also made an 8 yr old cry for eating a cheeseburger).

Wish everyone health but guy was as extreme as it gets in regards to being an asshole. Denied his daughter, settled child support days before taking Apple into the public market, etc.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago (2 children)

To be fair, we saw formerly what Apple without jobs did, it was a failure. So one might wonder when the new Apple might run out. The catch being that the iPhone, app store, and iTunes are all indefinite money machines, except maybe iPhone one day. So they had a steak of ever increasingly wildly successful products that culminated in the iPhone and then no mind blowing follow-up, but they don't need one. Folks may like the narrative that Jobs death coincided with their last big product category though

We also saw Jobs without Apple, also pretty much a failure.

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[–] Skkorm@lemmy.world 215 points 7 months ago (13 children)

The amount of credit people give Steve Jobs is such a kick to the nuts to all the engineers that designed those products

[–] arc@lemm.ee 63 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Jobs basically had one job - be the screaming obnoxious asshole in charge who harangued the engineers until they came up with something to his liking. And then took the credit when they did. Basically just the Elon Musk of his day.

[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 26 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Crying smelly barefoot goblin man. Jobs was such an asshole.

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[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Except I can look at Jobs' history and see an actual progression in technology. With Musk there is literally nothing but nonsensical hyped up promises.

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[–] filister@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The same with Musk. People are seeing him as the sole engineer of Tesla and SpaceX while in reality anonymous engineers did all this possible.

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[–] lengau@midwest.social 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Quick plug for the Behind the Bastards series on Jobs

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[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

But did they wear jeans and black turtlenecks?

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[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 133 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

Steve Jobs was a piece of shit human being who contributed nothing to technology.

That said, he was a hell of a skilled bullshitter/marketer. Most people fucking looooove to be bullshitted, and Americans more than most.

It's why we elect virtually no wonks/technocrats, even though thats who we should elect almost exclusively. We'd rather some snake oil motherfucker sell us on magical lies while telling us we're pretty.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 64 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

I've never complimented, or defended Steve Jobs before, because he was a grade A piece of shit...but, Steve Jobs transformed technology precisely because he was a phenomenal salesman, with a great eye for technical talent.

Just because he wasn't an engineer, doesn't change the fact that he forged Apple into what it became, and that absolutely contributed to modern technology - for better, and worse.

[–] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 63 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Just because he wasn’t an engineer, doesn’t change the fact that he forged Apple into what it became,

I think the big complaint about Jobs is not the lack of engineering skills, but that he got where he did through deception, taking advantage of people, and often treating folks like garbage. Many of us view him as unworthy of celebrating, because the ends don't justify the means.

(There's also the fact that what Apple became was not all good, but perhaps that's a separate discussion.)

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[–] parachaye@sh.itjust.works 35 points 7 months ago (4 children)

After listening to the recent Behind the Bastards episode on him, yeah absolutely. It's amazing his legacy isn't judged more harshly.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 31 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

He's one of those people who died at the right time to preserve their own legacies, before public reckonings for non illegal bad behavior became common.

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[–] stoly@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

I work in tech and specialize in Apple hardware. I get really sick of industry folks talking about Jobs as being inspiring and other nonsense. No, he was an asshole and we should not celebrate him.

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[–] thejml@lemm.ee 23 points 7 months ago

It’s also partially because any decent engineer/technocrat both lacks sufficient charisma and cash flow, and more importantly looks at public service and says “there’s no reliable way I can keep my morals and make a difference there.” As an engineer myself, I can’t imagine dealing with the general public. Choosing the correct, logical path will never win over people who put opinions and faith/feelings over reasoning and science. We’ve seen it time and time again and I’m not going to bang my head against that wall.

Instead I help friends and family, contribute to open source and projects I believe in and be the change I want to see in the world. Trying to do that as an elected official would foster insanity and pushback from those who don’t care and only want their side to win, regardless of the overall outcome.

Also: yes SJ was a POS, but he was a POS with charisma, a plan, and smart enough to surround himself with people who could make his ideas happen… and then micromanage them.

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[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 89 points 7 months ago (13 children)

Jobs was the fucking cracks. The reason why zoomers have no fucking idea where their files are on their computer are because of the shitty attitude instilled into iphones/ipods.

He started the entire fucking enshittification trend and everyone ate his asshole like peaches.

[–] EndHD@lemm.ee 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I agree. I had to explain to a younger family member today that when I say "open notepad", I meant the application that's been on every Windows version since they were born, not to Google "notepad"

Gave me a crisis that people know so little of what would have been considered basic computer usage a while back.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If it makes you feel better I gave my 16 year old daughter a laptop with a fresh Debian install and she's figuring out things on her own without asking for help. Customizing it and making it do what she wants.

I just thought she would watch YouTube videos on it and be content. Instead she's talking about the nuance of installing programs on it, and how different it is from Windows.

Not all hope is lost.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

https://xkcd.com/456/

There's an xkcd for everything

Careful, or she'll be running nixOS in a month or two

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[–] esc27@lemmy.world 87 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (9 children)

Apple managed to capture lightning in a bottle, twice. First by making a better Walkman, and then again by making that device a phone with internet access. They were able to leverage that success to revitalize their computer hardware business and act as a platform for selling accessories, and all of that made them very successful.

But the stock market doesn’t care about past success, it cares about growth, and without a major new, or buzz worthy product, investors might start to turn against Apple. Problem is, they have ridden the iPod horse about as far as it can go. They tried putting wheels on it, but that failed, and the jury is still out on whether tying one to your face will work out or not.

[–] Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 64 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

It's almost like... endless growth is unsustainable.

Edit: Downvoted by a shareholder lol

[–] Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

"What if we just doubled the price?" - some genius executive that never created a damn thing in their life

That only works for housing and healthcare.

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[–] mlg@lemmy.world 50 points 7 months ago

Not like it matters because they're a silicon valley giant so even the next zero change iphone will sell morbillion units.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 49 points 7 months ago (5 children)

The Apple Car was the hint the wheels fell off, because it was out of scope for Apple's focus. And the Vision Pro is the next biggest one, because Steve haaaaaaated wearable computing.

[–] headroom@lemmy.ml 23 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Meh, when you have a chip that powerful and that energy efficient, trying something in wearable computing is a no brainer imo.

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[–] Vaggumon@lemm.ee 39 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The cracks have been visible for a very long time, most fanboys don't want to see them though.

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[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 32 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Take a look at Apple stock over the last 12 years the company is worth literally 10x what it was worth when Jobs died. What a dumb framing.

[–] sardaukar@lemmy.world 38 points 7 months ago

Boeing's stock kept rising in the last 10 years, because they were sacrificing what they should be doing for shareholder value. Stock price alone is not a good metric for companies.

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[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 7 months ago

Yeah, like that lie they told for decades about how "mac can't get viruses!" they got sued in a class action lawsuit over that claim, which is why they don't EXPLICITLY say it anymore.

Or how apple can yoink anything you install off your apple devices whenever they want?

[–] TubeTalkerX@kbin.social 31 points 7 months ago (4 children)

His notebook finally empty?

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[–] anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 7 months ago

Yeah but in a person meetings are at an all time high and anonymous sticks of deoderant being left on peoples' desks is at an all time low.

[–] topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

Lol, the crack appeared as soon after his death. Steve Jobs : no ipad air, no dividend for the share holders.

Guess what been announced in the months following his death.

[–] RavuAlHemio@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (12 children)

Great choice of website:

Independent journalism is made possible by advertising.

That is the polar opposite of the truth.

[–] AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml 33 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (13 children)

NoteBookCheck is a legit website, what issue do you have with them? I always found their reviews and information and testing to be high quality

This is like shitting on GamersNexus because they removed some shitty product in every video to make money

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[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago

Yeah bruh Tim Apple seems to be holding his own.

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