Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs’ Death Anniversary 2014

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It has been three years since Steve passed.

As we today look at our iPhone 6es, our iPad Airs, our new Mac Pros and wait longingly for the Apple Watch, do we remember Apple as the behemoth that bought Beats, stepped repeatedly on tiny has-been Microsoft, and shows the finger to Google? Or is Apple still The Company that Steve Built?

Today Apple is moving at a pace that it has never done before, hiring superstar designers and ex-CEOs at breakneck speeds, and trying to “enter its next chapter” with new product categories – all while forgetting that software excellence can’t scale well.

iOS 7 and 8 looks great and comes with even greater power (to developers), but not a single version of either was as stable as any of the iOSes before it. Ditto OS X and iWork apps. iLife is not even in existence anymore, with iPhoto canned and iMovie and Garageband degraded in order to sell more Logic and FCX.

When former software chief (and arguably software genius) was fired in 2012, most of his software lieutenants eventually left Apple as well, and despite Hair Force One (Craig Federighi)being a great sport, a superb presenter, the quality of Apple’s software under him never did return to what it used to be.

Surrounding himself with superstar designers and ex-CEOs is probably a good thing for Tim Cook, but please do not forget about software. Apple’s software is the reason why Apple’s hardware can shine, remember Steve once saying “People who are serious about software should make their own hardware”(that’s from Alan Kay by the way) during the iPhone keynote? It is no use making your own hardware great if you are not serious about your software in the first place.

We are not looking at you to make Apple way greater than it already is, we just hope that you keep it afloat and working, and not turn it into another Microsoft, Tim.

Let us keep Steve’s legacy alive.

Remembering Steve Jobs 2013

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It has been two years since Steve passed away from cancer. His sudden departure to every single one of us devoted fans was just devastating, the news breaking the day after a lacklustre iPhone 4S Apple event. I could still remember the events of that day two years ago and how it affected me for the remainder of that year. Even today, I could not bring myself to read the badly written Steve Jobs biography.

Two years down, what has changed?

Analysts are still looking for excuses to pull down Apple in order to manipulate its stock price. Their recent excuse was “Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs!”. Three or more years ago, their excuse was “Apple is doomed BECAUSE OF Steve Jobs!”. No creativity there, it seems. Well business analysts (and generally business people) are idiots anyway, so it’s not hard to figure that out.

Jony Ive has used his influence to force out yet another thorn in his eye, this time round Scott Forstall, who is probably the last guy in Apple who will stand up to him. Ive totally has Tim wrapped around his finger, but it’s a situation that is mutually beneficial. He still goes about his whole English gentlemen speaking softly routine in PR videos thing.

Hair Force One Craig Federighi is now the third most important person in Apple. It’s cool, I like him and his ideas for OS X.

Tim? Tim is still running all the operations work at Apple, just like when Steve was still around. His job scope never changed in the last decade, despite what some silly analyst-people say.

So what is missing from Apple? Innovation?

Don’t be silly.

Apple has created way more interesting products in the last few years than say, from 2001-2006.

What is missing is simply, Steve’s presence.

The energy behind his presentations at Apple events/Macworlds, the fuck-you attitude he gives to anything he disapproves of, the whole “he sounds like an arsehole but millions look up to him” thing.

That “Steve” thing.

It is never coming back.

On the long Apple writing hiatus and my hatred for the world right now

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Since Steve passed away, I have not found much motivation to post anything here. Furthermore, changes to various aspects of my Apple-related connections locally just made things worse.

These days, I am really more depressed than anything else to have idiots berating me every time I point out factual mistakes in their Anti-Apple rants, all while the whole local Apple scene is becoming more generic and boring. The Mac no longer matters to most, and all everyone is about are just iPhones and iPads, and how Samsung Galaxys are better simply because they have styluses and bigger (but lousier) screens.

To tell you the truth, I do not give a damn. I hate Samsung because I am disgusted by how they operate (through deceitful ways), and I hate people who defend them without any factual knowledge to back up their anti-Apple rants, and somehow thinking that if they hate Apple, they must support Samsung.

Samsung the brand and company is made up of scumbags and more scumbags, and every single person in cahoots with them by being a fan should be ashamed. Either that or they are scumbags themselves as well.

This is a fact – I do not hate Android. I just prefer iOS because Android is way too limiting for many things (yes, don’t give me all that crap about being “open” and whatever, because despite the sheer app ecosystem and raw numbers of devices out there in the world, Android and Android apps don’t do half of what iOS can do for me). I have Android phones all over my table right now, namely the Nexus S, the Nexus 4, the Xperia Z and the Sharp Zeta SH-09D (not everything is mine) and even a Windows Phone 7 phone (the Lumia 800) and I do not hate any of them.

Yet arseholes tell me that I am nothing but an Apple fanboy (including one of my old friends) everytime I point out how factually wrong their anti-Apple rants are, and either refused to give any facts to support their crap-attacks or simply do not have anything to back their shit up.

Just because I am a Steve Jobs fanboy does not mean I support Apple in every thing they do. There are more than a few things that I take issue with Apple in the past 20 months or so;

1. Firing of Scott Forstall – Just shows how ineffective Tim Cook is at managing those under him. Forstall was getting out of control and it seems that Cook had no choice but to get rid of him to keep the harmony within Apple’s executive team.

2. You think of Apple these days as AAPL and nothing else – Everything done in the past 12 months seems to be more than focused on the share price of AAPL. Is AAPL more important or is Apple Inc. more important? The board of directors seemed to be a bit confused. Almost every single comment Tim Cook makes publicly these days seems to be carefully calculated to affect the stock price positively. Whatever happened to “screwing” the stock price?

3. Wrong timing of product announcements – Seriously, what’s with the product announcements last October/Novemeber?

4. Don’t just give me iOS stuff. I want OS X and Macs.

There was a time when I relied on Apple to keep me entertained and feeling alive waiting for the next new annoucement, those days have since long passed. Every time I check RSS there’s nothing but stupid and baseless crap from analysts, or yet another report of Samsung doing something deceitful. Nothing, nothing at all from Apple.

Things may change with WWDC with iOS 7 and OS X 10.9, but until now I continue to be bored with the no-news situation from Apple that has been continuing since last October’s product announcements.

One more thing: Don’t listen to analysts. Those arseholes know nothing.

Remembering Steve

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Today is the day that Steve Jobs passed away, a year ago.

Steve was the only person I looked up to in this world, the one person driving the one company that made my life interesting while I wait for the next thing they dish up, every few months or so. For someone like me, that kept me going.

I love all the rumours, the stories about his personality, and while I was never trying to emulate any of that, I loved every part of it.

Can anyone imagine how I felt when he passed away last year?

To me, he was not the control-freak CEO of a powerful tech company that people loved to curse and make fun of even though he was dying.

To me, Steve Jobs was the only reason I found life interesting.

The Parities of Steve Jobs and Hyuuga Tooru in “Rich Man, Poor Woman”

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Those of you who know me personally know that in addition to being an Apple freak, I am also more Japanese than most other Singaporeans. This drama season (summer, running roughly from July to September), I am addicted to “Rich Man, Poor Woman” a “Getsuku”(Fuji TV’s most famous timeslot for Japanese dramas, Monday 9pm, also the time slot that usually garners the highest TV ratings, and dramas in this timeslot usually receive the biggest budget from Fuji TV every season) drama about a love story between Hyuuga Tooru (Oguri Shun), a young and famous entrepreneur, and Natsui Matoko (Ishihara Satomi) a college student from Tokyu University who is unable to find work as graduation approaches. It’s my favourite drama of the year so far.

Being an Apple freak and “Chief Steve Jobs Worshipper”, I can’t help but keep noticing the blatantly obvious parities between the lead character, Hyuga Tooru, and Steve Jobs.

It’s highly probably that the scriptwriter, Adachi Naoko, wrote this script as a tribute to Steve Jobs.

*SPOILER ALERT* Those who are interested to watch the drama please be warned that there are a lot of spoilers below.

The Parities of Steve Jobs and Hyuuga Tooru

1. Steve Jobs behaved like a tyrant in his original stint at Apple, which he co-founded. So did Hyuuga.

2. Steve Jobs’ second company is called NeXT, Hyuuga’s company is Next Innovation.

3. Steve Jobs fell in love with a college student from a top college, Stanford. Hyuuga fell in love with Natsui, from Tokyo University, the most prestigious school in Japan.

4. Steve Jobs was forced out of his original company by a man whom he then trusted to be his partner, John Sculley, and Hyuuga was forced out of Next Innovation by Asahina Kousuke, his co-founder and partner.

5. Apple went downhill after Steve left, and so did Next Innovation.

6. Steve Jobs is all about Simplicity in all his products and UI(User Interface), and Hyuuga’s Personal File data system’s strongest point is the super simple User Interface that can be understood and used by everyone from young to old.

7. Steve Jobs’ crazy attention to product details and admiration for well built products (including the story about him spending a lot of time studying the construction, design and details of mercedes cars in the carpark) is matched by Hyuuga’s crazy attention to details about his furniture, and how he spent two years looking and thinking about the table that he wanted to buy.

8. Steve Jobs, in his younger days, stayed in a big house with very little furniture. So did Hyuuga.

9. Steve Jobs looked like a hippie in his early days before he founded Apple. After he cleaned up, he was a very charming and handsome guy who looked great in a suit. Hyuuga looked like crap before he started Next Innovation as well, and he too look great in a suit.

10. Steve Jobs loved Japan, especially Kyoto and its old temples (even though he did proclaimed that he will never visit Japan again after airport officials at Kansai International Airport ill-treated him). Hyuuga’s “place of peace” is in a Zen temple.

11. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption when he was young. So was Hyuuga. Steve eventually searched for his real parents but kept a distance, and so did Hyuuga, having found his real mother in episode 10 but not telling her that he is her son.

12. Steve Jobs founded Pixar during his exile, which became very successful, and Hyuuga founded Wonder Wall, which became quite successful during episode 10. Why do I call Wonder Wall the equivalent of Pixar in the drama? There is one very obvious fact;

John Lasseter, who is an important member of the Pixar team, looks like this with his usual dressing style:

and here is Hosoki, an important member of the Wonder Wall team, with his usual dress style:

The parity is so obvious that any REAL Apple historian can’t help but notice.

13. After his stint at NeXT and Pixar, Steve Jobs became an even better leader than before, and do did Hyuga after starting Wonder Wall.

14. Steve Jobs returned to Apple to save it from bankruptcy and turned it into the greatest company ever in tech history, and Hyuga is seemingly going to do the same to Next Innovation from the preview of episode 11, the last episode, at the end of episode 10.

These are just some parities that I can remember from the top of my head, and I’m sure there are even more. Will update as I remember.

While obviously the main story here is the crazily cute puppy love between the two leads and almost everything is fictionalised, I can’t help but feel consoled that Apple supporters are all doing their own tribute to Steve Jobs in their own ways.

Those who have yet to catch Rich Man, Poor Woman, please do! It’s my favourite Japanese drama of the year. The theme song by Miwa is crazily nice too. Though it sucks that Samsung paid their way into the product advertising for this show. It does serve as a reminder that this is all a parody of the real world.

“Best Cases for the iPhone 4S in Singapore” review series – Fabrix Cases’ Fifth October (Steve Jobs Tribute) Sleeve for the iPhone 4S

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Fabrix Cases sent me one of their latest sleeves, the special edition Fifth October sleeve.

The Fifth October sleeve is a special edition sleeve designed and made as a tribute to Steve Jobs, the greatest among us who have ever lived, who gave meaning to many people’s lives, including my own.

Fifth October, the name of the sleeve, is the day he left us. A day that I, and many others, will remember for the rest of our lives.

The Fifth October sleeve’s design is pretty self explanatory to those of us in the know. Black Top with Denim Bottoms, Steve’s choice of wardrobe most of the time.

Each sleeve comes in a nice box, and inside every box is a small card printed with one of Steve’s many memorable quotes. Mine says;

The sleeve itself, like other Fabrix Cases’ sleeves, is top notch in quality and made to last. I have reviewed one of their sleeves before here and everything in that review still stands true today.

The Fifth October special edition Steve Jobs Tribute sleeve retails for only 10USD, because Fabrix Cases “believe that every and anyone who would like to own it should be able to do so without a pinch” and is available here.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is Out in Stores!

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In other related news, Steve Jobs’ bio by Walter Isaacson has reached stores everywhere in Singapore. Kinokuniya Singapore is selling all three versions, the original US version with a glossy jacket, a UK version with a matte jacket, and a chinese version that I don’t give a damn about, at 20% off the listed prices. The english versions are at around 45 Singapore dollars each before discount.

Grab yours if you haven’t. This is one book that is worth keeping.

For your info, I have the iBooks version on my iPad and iPhone, the US version being shipped here from the States, and planned to buy the UK version this weekend.