Filed under: Steve Jobs, iPhone
Steve Jobs profile in New York magazine
Never the advocate of subtle promotion, New York magazine's cover story this week bears a simple headline over a psychedelic picture of Steve Jobs: iGod. John Heilemann's story takes a humorous and surprisingly intimate look at the nigh-mythological arc of Jobs' career, including the most common epithet applied to him by colleagues and friends alike (hint: it's anatomical), and quotes like this one from Jean-Louis Gassée describing Jobs' RDF as almost a physical force: "[Jobs is] the most powerful person I've ever met. The word charisma-in the true, Greek sense-applies. He has the power to open up your chest and put his fingers inside you." Um, okay, Jean-Louis, does 'blech' translate to French?Naturally, with two weeks to go before some minor product launch, the story's focus is on the iPhone's potential success or downfall and the implications for Apple. On this point, the money quote is from a CEO of an unnamed but very large communications company:
"The entire [bleeping] Western world hopes that it's a case of imperial overstretch... But everybody is quietly saying, er, what if people want to buy a $500 phone? What if, er, people have been waiting for a device that does all these things? What if this thing works as advertised? I mean, my God, what then?"What then, indeed.
Thanks, Henry.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom said 10:49AM on 6-18-2007
What then?
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/06/backlash-begins.html
That's what.
Reply
Allan said 10:56AM on 6-18-2007
Can anyone scan in frontpage of nytimes mag and email it to me? Thanks:)
Reply
Allan said 10:59AM on 6-18-2007
sorry, New York
Reply
Scottie said 11:26AM on 6-18-2007
Could the unnamed CEO be one who reads from note cards at huge important conventions? Perhaps...
Reply
Sabon said 12:16PM on 6-18-2007
Lots of things went through my mind when reading this. Part of the things were the untold Why's of why Steve Jobs did things certain ways. It would take another 8 page article to go more in depth but he has limited space so I understand.
One of them is Next and why Steve Jobs picked the market he did. Or better yet, the ONLY market he had available to him.
Not mentioned in the law suit that was going to happen between Apple and Next until Steve Jobs signed something saying he would not compete directly with the Macintosh. That right there eliminated the home computer market. When that is gone he only had two other options. Business and Education.
The business option he learned early on was a hard nut to crack. IBM (and by then Microsoft) were too entrenched --politically-- in companies and they wouldn't easily change to another companies product. The addage that nobody got fired for buying IBM and later Microsoft couldn't be denied.
What then? Education and Scientists (which is basically the same market). He would take on UNIX by using BSD-UNIX (I --KNOW-- I am over simplying exactly what was used) as the core OS with the Steve Jobs interface on top. Other than the price of Next computers everyone said they were great machines to use and develop for. Too bad about the price though. They were great machines with a great OS, a great GUI, and a great developer environment.
It was only when Steve Jobs broke back into Apple and became the CEO that he got to go after the market he has always loved. The rest, is history.
Reply
FrankMcBilboWinker said 1:14PM on 6-18-2007
That piece left me with nothing new. So the guy is driven, what else is new. Clearly Sky Dayton was loving what little press he was getting. That article was a nice way to start the morning though, because it woke me up a bit.
Reply
Fritz Laurel said 2:06PM on 6-18-2007
"Mediocrity will attack success at every opportunity." - Michael Beckwith
Cheers,
FL
Reply
Sneu said 2:55PM on 6-18-2007
Well, clearly this is more of an opinion piece than a serious journalistic endeavor. Hellemann is quite upfront about the fact that's he's interjection opinion, but I don't see this article as anything more than an attempt by the writer to halo-effect the iPhone hype - and that worked because I read it.
I'm also a bit bemused by Hellemann's own admission that he was totally wrong in a previous doubting-Thomas story on Apple that he wrote years back. There are lots of pitfalls to the iPhone, but it seems like this guy really wants to say "I told you so" for the long-shot and he may find himself eating crow yet again.
Reply
Catt said 12:34AM on 6-19-2007
I appreciated the lil trip down memory lane but lets face it this is just another article to hype up the iPhone even more than it already is. This is getting nuts... most folks haven't gotten their hands on the device yet and they are postulating and pontificating Steve's demise already. Of course all this Apple hype will eventually simmer off like any other company they will fade into being a good company and Steve Jobs will eventually retire and the company will change with new leadership and who knows what will happen then but does all this have to rest on one product that is not even released yet? I say hold the reviews until after Jan 29th when folks have had a chance to grab one of the devices and play with it a little.
As for Steve being God of any sort give it a rest.
Reply
Mac Diva said 2:32AM on 6-20-2007
I gather that most people here aren't familiar with John Heilemann's long history of articles critical of Steve Jobs. They are invariably short on facts and long on innuendo. The fellow's dubious achievement is to get what little attention he does as a journalist who chronically trashes an important public figure who would not give him the time of day, not to mention an interview. His act is getting old and his predictions are less likely to come true than John Dvorak's. As Sabon demonstrated, anyone familiar with Jobs' and Apple's history reads Hellemman's pieces filling in the blanks, therefore knowing that much, usually explanatory, is being left out. For example, CEOs being pursued by the SEC over backdating differ from Jobs in that their involvement was hands-on, sometimes doing both the backdating and the cover-up themselves.
I do congratulate Hellemann on finding a publication desperate enough for attention that it gave him several pages to natter. The Wall Street Journal usually just tosses him a small bone. Unfortunately, said publication is so third tier it will not have paid him much.
It is amusing that Michael Rose thinks Hellemann's intent is comic. He couldn't have missed the mark more.
Reply
Jon H. said 9:28PM on 6-25-2007
Basically, the foundations the author uses to point to Apple's possibly-imminent fall are either things we've heard before--subscription music services, uncertainty over the iPhone's quirks--or relatively implausible--the MP3-player market becoming commodified like the portable CD-player market, their iPod stronghold breaking up as DRM-free becomes mainstream. In either case, his arguments don't hold much water. He also cites the possibility of Apple stretching itself too thin, and there is indeed concern among us Mac fans about losing that focus, but still, Apple's had much worse before Steve returned.
Granted, the author does have a point that a company's downfall comes when they least expect it (he points to Sony and even Microsoft itself (;-))
Reply
Morgaine Swann said 5:52PM on 7-02-2007
I've read this guy's articles on Steve before and he's obviously so green he can't stand it. People like Jobs are intimidating to people with no vision of their own. This was basically a collection of sour grapes from everyone who has to compete with Apple. The only thing worse than a guy with a messiah complex is one that lives up his own opinion.
Steve Jobs is not going anywhere any time soon.
NOTE @ Allan - the cover you needed a scan of is on Flickr. Just search for iGod.
Reply