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Steve Jobs

What Was Steve Jobs’ Actual Contribution to Apple?

Steve Jobs is widely known as the brain behind Apple. Jobs is an American business magnate, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple, and also the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. But what was his actual contribution to Apple? 

Steve Jobs didn’t do any of the original design, he also never coded for Apple. This was according to his co-founder Steve Wozniak. The pioneer employees also said that Woz was the inventor while Jobs was responsible for marketing.

How Did Apple Start? 

In March 1976, Steve Wozniak met with Steve Jobs to present the completion of his basic design for the Apple I computer. Woz was skeptical about Jobs’ suggestion of selling it, but he agreed to it later on. By April of that year, they founded Apple Computer Company, which is now called Apple Inc.

The firm initially started in Jobs’ bedroom and later moved into his garage. The team earned their first fortune a year after with the Apple II. Which was one of the first admiringly booming mass-produced microcomputers in the market. Jobs also got a glimpse of the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto in 1979, which was mouse-driven and contained a graphical user interface (GUI). 

Steve Jobs and His Other Ventures

Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985 behind prolonged management disagreements with the institution representatives and its then-CEO John Sculley. That same year, Jobs carried a few Apple workers to establish NeXT, a computer platform development firm specializing in computers for higher education and business markets. 

He also assisted in generating the visual effects industry when he sponsored the computer graphics division of George Lucas’s Lucasfilm in 1986. The new corporation was Pixar, which created the first 3D computer-animated quality film Toy Story which was released in 1995, and evolved into a prominent animation studio, making over 20 films since.

Jobs eventually returned to Apple and became CEO in 1997, following the company’s accession to NeXT. He was primarily liable for aiding and restoring Apple, which stood on the brink of bankruptcy. He performed closely with English designer Jony Ive to generate a sequence of by-products with more extensive artistic ramifications. Commencing in 1997 with the Think different marketing campaign and ushering to the Apple Store, App Store, iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iTunes Store. 

The original Mac OS was substituted with the completely new Mac OS X. It is based on NeXT’s NeXTSTEP platform, giving the OS a modern Unix-based foundation for the first time in 2001. (Source: PC Magazine)

Jobs’ design aesthetic was heavily influenced by the philosophies of Zen and Buddhism. But he didn’t really do any of the designing.

Steve didn’t ever code. He wasn’t an engineer and he didn’t do any original design.

Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder

Even Apple Employees can attest for this fact. 

Between Woz and Jobs, Woz was the innovator, the inventor. Steve Jobs was the marketing person.

Daniel Kottke, Apple Employee

(Source: Boing Boing)

Steve Jobs’ Death 

Jobs died at his California home on October 5, 2011. This was due to complications from his formerly treated islet-cell pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He suffered a respiratory arrest and had lost consciousness the day before and died with his wife, children, and sisters at his side.

(Source: VOA News)

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