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Ten Apple products Jobs had nothing to do with

by Mike Schramm Dec 31st 2008 at 4:00PM

This is very interesting -- while investors and consumers alike are panicking every time someone says "Jobs" and "sick" in the same sentence, MacLife has decided to take a more optimistic view of the prospect of His Steveness leaving the company, by compiling a nice list of ten Apple products they say Jobs had nothing at all to do with. As you probably already know, Steve left the company once before, from 1985 to 1996, and during that time, while Steve was working on NeXTstep (which would eventually become OS X), Apple didn't exactly sit on its laurels.

The Newton is first and foremost, and while some may laugh at the handwriting recognition, let's not forget that it can still do things the iPhone can't. And while many of Apple's products were finalized under Jobs' watch, their beginnings come from before his return: the Powerbook, Macintosh TV (which could definitely be seen as a precursor for the AppleTV), and the Power Macintosh were all released without Jobs. Even among the most faithful Apple fans, you have to agree that Apple is willing to get wacky without Jobs to squelch some really crazy ideas: the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, the eMate, and the adjustable keyboard are all examples of that.

Of course, you could definitely argue that Apple's most popular products (iPods, the iPhone, the MacBook lines) wouldn't have happened without Jobs. But there's something to be said for Apple sans Jobs, too. "The Power to Be Your Best" might not be quite as memorable as "Think Different," but it's got its own charm.

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This is very interesting -- while investors and consumers alike are panicking every time someone says "Jobs" and "sick" in the same...
 

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vandil

Let us not forget the iPod hi-fi ghetto blaster. Even Steve's reality distortion field couldn't sell that stinker.

January 02 2009 at 3:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan

Screw stupid investors. Take the company private and run it as a company should be run - without the stupid, idiotic, don't- know-what-is-going-on feedback from lame investors.

January 01 2009 at 1:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Luqven

@ Ahmed YOU ARE SOOOOO WRONG. Mark my words, the day he dies apple WILL go with him. Maybe not a day, month, year, 5 years after but it wont last long. In any case i'm pretty sure jobs was in on newton just got fired before he could finish it. Also i agree the iphone should be able to do some of the things the newton does.

January 01 2009 at 1:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tintinto

Apple will be fine with or without steve jobs. Having said that, steve will live forever and screw anyone who says otherwise.

January 01 2009 at 1:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gar

And Next was such a winning success. Well, right after Steve got back on board with Apple and bought it for the OS. All that Steve touches is not Gold. He has done a great job bringing Apple back around - thanks. But, that has a lot to do with him motivating a group of talent, not his personal talent. Guy does a good interview in the movie 'Welcome to Macintosh' on the Steve factor - worth a watch.

December 31 2008 at 9:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ashwin

While its scary that these are the only examples they can think of I think Apple will do fine without Steve Jobs. The fanatics that are a small minority of Apple's business might be heartbroken, and the stock will suffer in the short term. Apple's management has learned its lessons from the mistakes that were made without Steve. I'm sure there are enough people at Apple that understand all of Steve Job's philosophies.

December 31 2008 at 9:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
BJ Nemeth

The Macintosh TV was *nothing* like Apple TV. The one distinguishing feature of the Macintosh TV was a built-in TV tuner -- which the Apple TV lacks.

Seriously, the Apple TV is a closer relative to the iPod than the Macintosh TV.

December 31 2008 at 9:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JiN

While the Newton was sans-Jobs it's downfall was sans-Jobs as well. Apple lacked a leader with a pair b*lls that would tell the Powerbook division to quit crying about the Newton and innovate. A lot of these products were better than most of their PC counterparts (if available) but they all were missing polish. Mac TV is far removed from Apple TV what they share is the two letters at the end of their name.

December 31 2008 at 6:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
diode

There's no doubt that things wouldn't be different. The question is: am I still going to have a transparent os that turns my phone, desktop, laptop, media server and remote desktops into a personal grid appliances that give me an uninterrupted experience regardless of what I'm sitting in front of?

Can Apple get there without Steve? I doubt too many have the vision within that company. It's 10 years away, but this fork in time may never lead us to that future. Sad. I hope someone holds the torch.

December 31 2008 at 6:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dib

It's exactly these types of product examples that make investors panic. I love Apple but those years without Jobs were terrible. Nobody even wanted to buy Apple because they thought it was worthless.

December 31 2008 at 5:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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