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Insanely Doomed - New Book on Apple
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stevedan
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Mar 20, 2012, 03:05 PM
 
New book argues that Apple will not be the same company it was without Jobs in charge.

Apple keeps getting more and more valuable,

In the first two weeks of this month, Apple was adding nearly $9 billion a day to its market value. By itself, the company is worth more than the entire listed retail sector in the US. It is now by far the largest business in the world.

And yet, it is less than six months since Steve Jobs, the industrial genius who created Apple, and drove it forward relentless, sadly died.

When he passed away, there was a question nagging away at anyone who followed Apple.

Would this still be the same company without Jobs in charge?

In his new book, technology writer and entrepreneur Paul Tuner argues that it won’t be.

‘Insanely Doomed: Why Apple Will Crash Without Steve Jobs’ argues that there are two types of entrepreneur. A man such as Henry Ford creates an entirely new system for making things. Once he was gone, the system endured, and Ford could carry on a leader of the global auto industry for decades afterwards.

By contrast, there are men such as Dr An Wang who created a whole series of fantastic products – such as the calculator and the word processor – but whose companies faded away when they were no longer in charge.

“Jobs was brilliant, no one questions that,” says Turner. “From the early days of the personal computer revolution, and then with the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, he was so far ahead of the rest of his industry it was impossible for his competitors to keep up. But he also created a precarious business model.”

“When he was alive, Jobs used to describe his products as ‘insanely great’,” says Tuner. “But right now the only thing that is insane is the way everyone expects that Apple will be the same company without Jobs in charge.
( Last edited by Thorzdad; Mar 20, 2012 at 04:15 PM. )
     
Waragainstsleep
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Mar 20, 2012, 04:06 PM
 
Sounds like a flawed premise since Apple clearly has a different way of operating when compared to every other tech company ever. To my mind that makes them much more like Ford.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Tiresias
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Mar 21, 2012, 09:47 AM
 
It really depends on how much creative control Job's had over the Apple products.

If it was absolute, and there is no one who can fill the gap, then it's obvious the above thesis is plausible.

But it seems more likely to me that the design philosophy at Apple, though engineered by Job's, is sustained by a large number of creatively like-minded individuals.

In that case, just as obviously, his legacy will survive.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Mar 21, 2012, 10:19 AM
 
Jobs had final absolute approval/disapproval for sure but I don't think that lends any support to this theory. It will hinge on how much he guided the direction of a product at the start of the design process. I think he will have left a fair few years worth of this sort of information to keep Apple going. He will have had a bank of ideas that are just waiting for technology to catch up.
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ShortcutToMoncton
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Mar 21, 2012, 11:28 AM
 
Author's Bio

freudling has been writing on the internets for many years. He is heavily involved in online recruitment of start-up capital, believes non-white-people are the cause of various ills in Canadian society, regularly flip-flops between extreme confidence or extreme hate towards the Vancouver Canucks in the playoffs, simultaneously wants to move his company offshore to pay less Canadian taxes but also demands more and better government services, gets into vicious fights with all other persons on the internets, is often banned from online web sites...and thinks Apple is Insanely Doomed.
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The Final Dakar
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Mar 21, 2012, 11:29 AM
 
zing.
     
Big Mac
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Mar 21, 2012, 11:32 AM
 
Oh noes, Apple is Teh Doomed. Doomed. Doooooooommmmed.


"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Person Man
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Mar 21, 2012, 11:53 AM
 
Anyone notice that this guy apparently registered merely to post about this book? This sounds like spam to me.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Mar 21, 2012, 12:47 PM
 
Of course it's spam. But it's appropriate subject-wise, so...

Also, this is just one of many nimrods to enlighten us with their completely made-up hypotheses about how Apple *might* work internally. We'll be seeing hundreds more of this ilk over the next ten years.

I suppose most of them will just substitute "doomed" for "beleaguered" as they recycle their crap from fifteen years ago.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Mar 21, 2012, 02:04 PM
 
New life plan:

1: Get a job as a janitor at Apple HQ. Work a few days.
2: Write a best seller entitled "How to set your business up to work like Apple: Based on exclusive insider knowledge" or similar
3: Put feet up.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
The Godfather
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Mar 21, 2012, 02:25 PM
 
This book adds nothing to what we already know. Skip it and let it tank.

As long as the elites have money to burn (aka forever), they will buy up every available BMW and Apple*

*unless Windows and Google somehow manages to deliver something more humanistic and aesthetic than Apple's offerings'.
     
olePigeon
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Mar 21, 2012, 04:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
New life plan:

1: Get a job as a janitor at Apple HQ. Work a few days.
2. Solve exceptionally difficult equation on chalkboard.
3: Write a best seller entitled "How to set your business up to work like Apple: Based on exclusive insider knowledge" or similar
4: Put feet up.
5. Sell movie rights.
Fixed.
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Waragainstsleep
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Mar 21, 2012, 06:11 PM
 
Movie rights? That would be a dull movie, but if someone wants to buy them, I'd sell them in a heartbeat.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Tiresias
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Mar 22, 2012, 01:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton View Post

online web sites
How tautologically pleonastic!
     
Spheric Harlot
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Mar 22, 2012, 01:33 PM
 
Well, to be fair, web sites can be offline temporarily, too.
     
olePigeon
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Mar 22, 2012, 02:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Movie rights? That would be a dull movie, but if someone wants to buy them, I'd sell them in a heartbeat.
Worked for Matt Damon.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
Salty
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Mar 25, 2012, 02:07 AM
 
Given the fact that Dell, HP and Acer are still around despite being run by drunken monkeys I think Apple will survive. They've got a ton of cash they can blow on making mistakes, and they still have some of the most brilliant people in technology working for them. Are we more likely to see more products that Steve wouldn't have okayed? Yeah, though to be honest that just means that the masses on the internet will get the sort of things they've been begging for. My guess is that we're more likely to see a few extra ports on our otherwise clean sheets of aluminum, and we'll see a bit more openness than we have in the past. But quite frankly the people at Apple are fully aware of the stuff that Steve ranted about them at for years. So I'm sure they'll still keep making the best products for me for at least the next decade.
     
Doc HM
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Mar 25, 2012, 04:10 AM
 
If you want evidence of changes in a companies direction look at the advertising.

Why? Two reasons

1) Advertising has a much shorter cycle than product development so the influence of prior leaders is gone sooner.
2) The marketing department has a larger number of idiots in it than any other department. These idiots also have a more direct effect on the final output of their department than other departments idiots.

So, how's Apples post Jobs advertising looking?
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The Godfather
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Mar 25, 2012, 01:11 PM
 
Without Steve, Apple will be free to experiment with:

1. Apps, games and WWW in the Apple TV, aka the Pippin 2
2. xMac, with upgradable everything but the motherboard
3. iTunes redemption codes under the caps of Pepsi products, and other promotions
4. Netbooks, aka the iBook Air
5. Jeff Goldblum
( Last edited by The Godfather; Mar 25, 2012 at 02:17 PM. )
     
sdilley14
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Mar 27, 2012, 12:56 AM
 
Blah blah blah, there were also a number of "experts" that said the iPhone would be a wild failure and that the company would eventually tank as a result...how'd that turn out?
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