Tag: Apple

Focus and causality: two lingering lessons from Steve Jobs biography

Two themes run across the dense and well-timed Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson that came out last fall.

The unfaltering focus and dependable insensitivity of Jobs, so, having just finished it myself, I’ve been left trying to find causality: did those two qualities make him a better CEO and Apple a better company?

For focus, I believe it’s unquestionable: make fewer products and make them better. It’s the complete opposite of the market share angle of, say, spaghetti sauces. The second has me more uncertain, particularly when the success of Jobs is seen as motivation to drive employees to the edge.

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iPhone: my first personal smartphone and the first 15 predictable free apps I downloaded

My first smartphone arrived at my door yesterday.

Considering it’s late 2011 and I report for a technology news site, you can be sure that I got a lot of crap for it being only my first. Of course, as I explained, in 2009 I was a struggling freelance writer so I had trouble enough affording my prepaid burner phone. Late that year, I joined a family plan with my sister to cut costs even more and took the basic level phone: a sturdy Samsung texting phone.

Only now, two years later, was my contract ready for an update. Considering I had already made my jump into the Apple world, I bought into the hype, and spent more than $300 on the iPhone 4s. Of course, because I cover technology, I already had a clear idea of what I would be doing with the device and had played with them for years — though that made my awe no less substantial as I played with mine.

Still, I quickly added a slew of free apps that seem to me to be the staples. Below, a list of the free apps I first added to my phone, and expectations for getting more crap:

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Macbook Pro: why this general consumer went the Apple route

After years of catching heat from colleagues, friends and sources in the technology world for tapping on my Dell laptop, I jumped in and bought a Macbook Pro, after reading, seeking advice and asking a lot of questions. Suddenly, the passing of Steve Jobs had a more timely, personal meaning.

Like most, I grew up a Windows user. I was comfortable with it. I liked it, even. So, when I bought laptops — three since 2004 — I stuck with what I knew: Dell, following their college media blitz from that time (remember that timely ad campaign, video below or here).

That ended up changing, and I have some thoughts on why.
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“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it:” Simon Sinek

Just came across this September 2009 TED presentation in which Leadership theorist Simon Sinek talks about what makes Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders different than their competitors: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

He also spoke of its relevance to the diffusion of innovation.”