Now he has turned his connoisseur's eye beyond the box, hoping that a fresh approach to system software and especially to the Internet will further fuel demand for Apple's products.Īnd, oh, there's a soap opera subtext to all this. He did it again upon returning toĪpple in 1997, when he coaxed engineers to come up with the sleek, colorful iMacs and iBooks, winsome machines that consumers are buying hand over fist. That's what he did when he rolled out the first Macintosh in 1984. Once again Steve Jobs is trying to win by design-to use aesthetics and finesse instead of brute force to change the rules of the computing game. Jobs' shrewd goal: to use the Internet to make Apple's computers show up Wintel PCs rather than merely stay even. These Web services, which Apple calls iTools, are designed to work exclusively with Macintosh computers, not PCs or any other kind of Internet device. (Some of the design elements he approved help illustrate these pages.) Just as provocative was a set of jazzy and useful free Internet services available immediately-online data-storage space, build-'em-yourself personal home pages and Websites, and a new kind of parental-control filter to keep kids from seeing the wrong kinds of Web content, to name just a few. "We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them," he says. Instead, Jobs showed off a flashy, completely redesigned Macintosh operating system called Mac OS X, which, when it's delivered this summer, will put a glossy new face-graphical user interface, that is-on the Mac. They would be his way of drawing a new line in the sand and daring Microsoft or Compaq or AOL or Sun or any other competitor to cross it.Įveryone expected him to unveil a new computer or two. These surprise announcements would prove more than the latest manifestations of Jobs' knack for high-tech showmanship. No detail was too trivial to escape his scrutiny as he passed final judgment on the look and feel-or what he calls the fit and finish-of a series of ambitious Apple software products and Internet initiatives that he would announce in early January at the annual MacWorld trade show in San Francisco. Jobs has been presiding over secret meetings like this several hours a day, three or four times a week, throughout most of November and December. I love it! You instantly know exactly what it means." But this old-fashioned highway sign for 'cars,' now that's cool. I can't tell if it's supposed to look like a dollar bill or a stock certificate. And I don't much like this 'investing' icon either. "That's not what a 'for sale' sign looks like. He points at a Web-link button on the mocked-up home page for iReviews, Apple's new Website-rating service. "The icon for 'real estate' doesn't do anything for me at all," announces Jobs, snapping out of his reverie and leaning forward. Twelve weary-looking men-programmers, marketers, graphic designers, and Web experts-stand in pensive poses, forming an arc behind him, some scribbling notes on Palm hand-held devices whenever the 44-year-old iCEO comments. Hands clasped behind his head, he stares pokerfaced at a couple of Web pages displayed side by side on an outsized 22-inch-wide Apple Cinema flat-panel monitor. Here in the boardroom at Apple Computer's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, he's the only person seated. (FORTUNE Magazine) – Steve Jobs, the personal-computer industry's chief aesthetic officer, is in his element.
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