Filed under: Cult of Mac
Steve Jobs: As American as Apple Pie
Steve Jobs just added Great American to his resume. But he's not the Greatest American...yet. With your help, he can be. In the category of "Heroes and Icons," Jobs is one of 100 nominees in line for the title of the Greatest American in a new 7-hour TV show brought to us by the Discovery Channel and America Online. The show airs on June 5th at 8pm ET when Americans nationwide will vote for their #1 choice for the person who has most embodied the American dream, having the biggest impact on the way we think, work and live. Steve gets my vote.
I just hope they don't make him eat a can of live bugs or dip himself into a vat of bodily fluids.
More info at aol.com/greatestamerican.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sagamiman said 8:13AM on 7-13-2005
Ok now you've really gone off the deep end. Steve Jobs...greatest American?? Look Apple is a great company but my vote goes to Abraham Lincoln....
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Small Paul said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Lincoln Schmincoln. Did Abe invent the iPod? No. Did Abe give us the 15" 1.67GHz PowerBook with Sudden Motion Sensor and shiny, oh-so-shiny case? No.
Case closed.
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Chris K said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I know you'll hate to admit it, but to be completely objective, Bill Gates has had a much bigger "impact on the way we think, work and live" than Steve Jobs. (Save the "yeah in a bad way!" snipes for another article, please.)
I'm not trolling, but look at things objectively. The Steves brought a great hobby computer and turned it into a great educational and home system. Apple then brought brought the GUI to people's attention with the IIgs and Mac. Much later, Jobs turned Apple around and put the Mac back at the front of interface design.
Gates/Microsoft brought MS-DOS to the market. HUGE in business, and HUGE at home. Then they released Windows to bring a GUI to the open market. MSOffice is basically The App that millions of office workers know... the biggest success story in the business world, possibly. Windows drove the processor wars as hardware lagged to catch up to every new version. Windows' position as the Cheap Home Computer drove the Linux movement with cheap hardware for hobbyists and a (suprisingly) stable x86 architecture mandated by the Windows benchmark.
You can't attribute all of that to Steve Jobs OR Bill Gates of course, but if you're saying who has had a bigger impact on the computing landscape, it IS Bill Gates.
Of course, in the past few years, Jobs has had a BETTER impact on the computing world, IMHO, and is certainly the current media darling.
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paul said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
So you think Jobs has had more impact than Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy? A little light in the head, aren't ya?
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Small Paul said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Did Martin Luther King produce a user-friendly, visually stunning GUI interface to a rock-solid Unix operating system? Did John F. Kennedy convince the world to pay $99 for a flash-based MP3 player with no screen?
Bring me some *real* contenders, please!
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Chris said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
First, I commend you on your Greatest American Hero reference.
Second, is this for modern peopl or just any American? In which case the choices actually narrow. FDR and Jefferson would lead the pack in my list of choices.
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Laurie said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Finally someone got my GAH reference!
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Jason Young said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I got the GAH reference.
And now I have Joey Scarbury's "Believe or Not" stuck in my head.
Thanks, I really appreciate that :-p
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