Steve Jobs: Passed Away

Discussion in 'The Thunderdome' started by WM, Oct 5, 2011.

  1. justingroves

    justingroves supermod

    I'm with you IP. He sold toys to grown adults.
     
  2. droski

    droski Traffic Criminal

    one of the wall street protestors said something like "why does steve jobs die and wall street ceo's live?" kind of hilarious considering apple's 40% profit margins and billions of revenues. wall street can't imagine gouging the customer like apple does.
     
  3. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    Agreed, Droski. If Microsoft tried to be as proprietary as Apple is, they'd be demonized like they were Hitler. Oh wait, they already are even though Apple is worse.
     
  4. fl0at_

    fl0at_ Humorless, asinine, joyless pr*ck

    Microsoft wishes they could be as tightly controlled as Apple. iTunes, the restrictions on software on iPod Touches, iPads and the like are ridiculous. Apple doesn't like your app? Off iTunes, and thus off your device.

    Apple makes very good gadgets, but really nothing more. iPhone is cool, iPod touch is a shoddy mp3 player at best, but the features beyond its purpose are cool. iPad is... terrible. It has no use, in my mind, other than being highly portable and fun to play with, but it is so closed market that I doubt I'll ever break down and buy one.

    They make really neat devices, but beyond that, I don't see the craze.
     
  5. volinbham

    volinbham Member

    With all do respect the market says otherwise. The number of uses of the iPad (and other tablets) is staggering and growing rapidly. This is business genius of Apple - they see what the market needs prior to the market articulating that need.
     
  6. IP

    IP Super Moderator

  7. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    I think there is a "chicken or the egg" facet to this. The iPad was sold on "cool," and it became a platform to meet "needs" that developed partly in response to it's existence.
     
  8. justingroves

    justingroves supermod

    I call horseshit.

    They market toys to adults and make a demand for it.

    No one needs an Ipad.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2011
  9. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    Yes, you said it more clearly.
     
  10. volfanjo

    volfanjo Chieftain

    He didn't say the consumer needed it. The "market" needed it, i.e. to supply it. People don't need Coca-Cola, McDonald's, XBOX, Jack Daniels, Nikes or any other numerous products we consume. But people buy them and it makes some people rich and others happy with their "toy" as you say. How is the i Pad any more unreasonable than a bunch of grown men arguing about football played by teenagers on a message board? Both idiotic, but we love it and the market supplies it.

    Additionally, the genius of any business is to make people want things they didn't know before they needed. Jobs comes from a long line of folks that do just that.
     
  11. justingroves

    justingroves supermod

    You got me. Jobs did an excellent job marketing products to people, but he's not some American hero like some (not volinbham but the media coverage of this made me sick) are making him out to be.
     
  12. volinbham

    volinbham Member

    Yep. People get hung up on the word "need" and think only of things essential to survival as "needs". People have a very wide range of needs and put most simply, various products are purchased/consumed to meet those needs. They may do it with one product or another - that "another" is competition. For me the business genius of Jobs was that he saw potential. He saw where existing solutions were weak and how technological and sociological change pointed towards new solutions in the future. He transformed markets and solutions. If you don't think the iPad fits that description I don't know what to tell you. The market has emphatically said this is the solution it was seeking (until the Next Big Thing) comes along.

    I've never said he was a hero. I do say he's one of the greatest innovators of our time. If his skill was common we would see more Apples. There's a reason it is the largest (market cap) company in the world.

    I like the message board analogy - none of us "need" it but it sure does address many of our needs (community, communication, expressing opinion, entertainment, learning, etc.)
     
  13. IP

    IP Super Moderator

  14. kptvol

    kptvol Super Moderator

    Wants generally sell better than needs anyway.
     
  15. droski

    droski Traffic Criminal

    have a friend whose father did this. went the alternative medicine route until the cancer spread so much regular doctors couldn't do anything about it. really sad.
     
  16. VolDad

    VolDad Super Moderator

    I don't know if it is true but I heard that everything has an "i" in its name (iphone, ipad, etc) because he was originally returned as interim CEO.
     
  17. volfanjo

    volfanjo Chieftain

  18. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    hero, my ass.
     
  19. droski

    droski Traffic Criminal

    guy was well known to be a huge asshole to anyone that worked for him.
     

Share This Page