The Impact of Steve Jobs

Sunday, May 6, 2012

"Steve Jobs Stanford Speech"

The audio recording "Steve Jobs Stanford Speech" quoted Steve Jobs on his inspiration for his work. Jobs' inspiration, as he said, was from a quote about death. He said his acknowledge meant of his eventual death cleared clouding events and emotions of what he truly desired and needed to do. I think this is a great motivation because it wasn't something that pushed Jobs to work hard for a week, maybe two. The inspiring quote made Jobs hustle and to do his best for years and years. Anything that can motivate somebody like that is something special and rare. My question is whether or not Steve Jobs would have worked the same if he had never stumbled onto that quote.

Citation:

"STEVE JOBS STANFORD SPEECH." All Things Considered 6 Oct. 2011. General OneFile. Web. 6 May 2012.

Link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141183179

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Jobs and Marketing

I read a biography on Steve Jobs from the book "Science and Its Times." It talked about the rise of Apple and business partners, Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The two met at a Hewlett-Packard electronic firm. Years later, they partnered up to create Apple with Jobs in charge of marketing and Wozniak in charge of the development of products. It was Jobs' expertise in marketing that helped launch the company. He was able to envision what the consumers would want, and Wozniak was able to create the desired product. The book even stated Jobs' great marketing ability. "Jobs' constant innovations led Business 2.0 to name him the fifth most important leader in business in 2006. It called him 'easily the greatest marketer since P.T. Barnum' and a muse for innovators" (Schlager and Lauer). If Wozniak was able to begin Apple without Jobs' participation, would Apple be as successful as it is now?

Citation:

"Steven Paul Jobs." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Student Resources in Context. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.

Links:

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CK2643413103&v=2.1&u=west51213&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Jobs' Management

I read an article about an interview with Walter Isaacson, author of the Steve Job's biography. Isaacson described Jobs as focused, interesting, inspiring, and strong-willed. Jobs did not create any new technology; he merely set a new standard. When creating the iPod, Isaacson said "he (Jobs) insisted that you be able to get whatever you wanted with only three clicks. The engineers kept saying 'we can't do it,' and he would find ways to show them how it could be done" (O' Rourke, 2012). Apple's success from Jobs' management style that pushed the company to aspire to create possible and unthought of products. But with the death of Jobs, will the company be able to fill the void he has left and continue to perform well?
Citation:

O'Rourke, Morgan. "A conversation with Walter Isaacson." Risk Management Apr. 2012: 34. General OneFile. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.

Link:

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA285087612&v=2.1&u=west51213&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Apple's China Factories

Apple had been criticized for Chinese factories used for the production of the company's products. One article states "Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records" (Duhigg and Barboza, 2012). The article continues to further talk about negative facts and opinions on these factories. Although I myself do not agree ethically with the way the factories are conducted, I interestingly found another article that spoke of the positive side to Apple's Chinese factories with Foxconn. It talks about how Foxconn raised payments for all workers, has better-than-average work conditions than other local competitors at the different countries it is located, and how Foxconn is providing a "natural path to modernization" (Karlgaard, 2012). The article compared China to the same state as the U.S.A was in 1922 when it came to worker rights. Seeing as Foxconn seems to have better payment and work conditions than other local competitors and provides jobs for thousands of people, I have to agree that these Chinese factories are a benefit to both China and Apple. I would like to state that I do believe the conditions should be improved nevertheless, but would a powerful, high-earning company that is gaining quite the profit from this usage of such factories make a change to improve them?

MLA Citation:

Karlgaard, Rich. "In Defense of Apple's China Plants." Wall Street Journal. 02 Feb 2012: A.13. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 15 Apr 2012.
Duhigg, Charles, and David Barboza. "In China, the Human Costs Are Built Into an IPod." Editorial. New York Times 25 Jan. 2012. The New York Times. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.

Links:

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Jobs' Impact on Design

One of many things Jobs had changed was the aspect of design on a product. In the audio recording "Steve Jobs' Greatest Legacy may be Impact on Design," it is mentioned that Jobs had not invented the computer but had redesigned them to be more friendly to the public. In the recording, Laura Sydell says "The first Apple II computer, which came out in 1977, was designed to be more like a home appliance. Up until then, you had to know how to put them together yourself. But it was the design of the Macintosh that set the public on fire." She gives the design and idea of a product that can be used by the average person the credit for Jobs' success. Jobs even aimed to use the best materials for all his products as Sydell mentioned later on. In another recording named "How Steve Jobs Changed the World of Design," John Maeda says that Jobs' greatest design achievement is "the Apple organization, an organization that actually cares about design more than technology." Beforehand, he also says that was successful with the iPod because its design created an emotional experience that was unmatched by any other MP3 player already on the market. I must agree with these statements because I do believe product design plays a significant part on the products' sale and liking. Jobs' computer were affordable to average person, which reached out to a larger crowd than other computer companies, and already assembled, which further supported the product's aspect of being user-friendly. His MP3 player, the iPod, had a feature that allowed the buyer to become truly involved in his or her music by purchasing individual songs digitally and to create different playlists for different people sharing the same iPod, for different occasions, or for whatever means the owner wanted. I must wonder though; if Jobs had not been so focused on design, but more on the technology of his products, how would have the company's direction, products, and course change?

Citation:

"Steve Jobs' Greatest Legacy may be Impact on Design." All Things Considered 6 Oct. 2011. General OneFile. Web. 11 Mar. 2012
"How Steve Jobs Changed the World of Design." Morning Edition 7 Oct. 2011. General OneFile. Web. 11 Mar. 2012

Links:

Monday, March 5, 2012

"Personal Computers"

    I read this text from the "U*X*L Encyclopedia of U.S. History." It gave a description of the development of personal computers. The text talked about the people responsible revolutionizing a room-sized computer to the smaller, more convenient, modern computer. Among them were Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Steve Wozniak. Jobs and Wozniak had originally founded the Apple company to sell reasonably price computers. With Jobs' marketing skills and Wozniak's engineering expertise, the two were able to create the Apple I, II, a new disk drive, the Lisa, and the Macintosh before leaving Apple due to financial issues.
    Jobs returned to Apple years later to establish an alliance with Microsoft for the permission to use the Internet Explorer Web browser in the company's products. Apple soon released the iMac, and later on, Jobs sought to go after the digital music market and succeeded.
    It was Jobs' marketing skills that made it possible for Apple to prosper. He had built the company and led it to failure only to return, create new computers, and conquer the music industry. He did not begin alone though. Jobs worked with Steve Wozniak in the creation of Apple. Wozniak had not only designed a minicomputer that consisted of a keyboard, a central processing unit, and a display screen, but also a disk drive that opened the computers to more uses. Without Wozniak to help build the company, this new disk drive, and design Apple products, would have Steve Jobs still been able to become the man he is remembered as.

MLA Citation:
Benson, Sonia, Daniel E. Brannen, Rebecca Valentine, Lawrence W. Baker, and Sarah Herman. "Personal Computers." U*X*L Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Vol. 6. Detroit, 2009. 1222-228. Gale Cengage Learning. 2009. Web. 4 Mar. 2012.

Link:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GPS&userGroupName=west51213&tabID=T001&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=4&contentSet=GALE%7CCX3048900479&&docId=GALE|CX3048900479&docType=GALE&role=SUIC

Sunday, February 26, 2012

On my previous post, I talked about how Steve Jobs changed the music market, but his creations did not just affect this one area. In the journal "Imagination" from Internal Medicine News, the author talks about how Jobs' products had helped and even inspired his daughter to learn the alphabet and entered the medicine field. The author says "I see patients filling out forms and reading about their conditions on iPads. I see physicians and nurses looking up information on iPhones (Imagination)." Another journal, from the Pharmaceutical Technology Europe, suggests that there are companies that would like for scientist use the iPad in laboratories. Apple has clearly done more than just change the digital music business; it has changed how people learn and use equipment in their professions. My question is what are some of the beneficial changes that Apple has had on society?

MLA citations:

Patel. "Imagination." Internal Medicine News (2011). Gale Cengage Learning. 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
Whitworth, Rich. "Jobs and Innovations." Pharmaceutical Technology Europe (2011). Gale Cengage Learning. Nov. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Links to sites: