Remember how the media all turned negative on Steve Jobs so soon after his death? Me neither.
But don’t tell the New York Times. Today (11/03/11) the paper has a piece by Alex Williams pondering the speed with which the glowing tributes turned into something else–i.e., when “bloggers began their assault.”
That assault, by Williams’ account, consisted of things like this:
“Was Steve Jobs a Good Man, or an Evil Corporate CEO and Wall Street Shill?” asked a contributor on the Occupy Wall Street website.
Then, on the Forbes site, David Coursey, a technology writer, wrote an article called “Steve Jobs Was a Jerk, You Shouldn’t Be,” in which he suggested that Mr. Jobs might have been “a borderline sociopath.”
That OWS blog assault started with this: “As most of us know, Steve Jobs is a great man….” And that Forbes piece was pretty nasty; it called Jobs “a hugely successful genius who changed the world to be how he thought it should be. That is something only Steve could get away with and we are better off for it.” Ouch!
The Times adds that “thevelocity with whichSteve the Saintstories morphed into Steve the Sinner stories was striking.”
Evidence? Here we go:
As for the mainstream press, it cleared its throat, straightened its tie and dived into the fray with the rest of them.
Five days after Mr. Jobs’ death, the British news magazine the Week published a roundup of “anti-Jobs” stories. It included an essay titled “In Praise of Bad Steve” by a writer named D. B. Grady in the Atlantic (“Apple wasn’t built by a saint. It was built by an iron-fisted visionary”); a 2010 investigation in the Mail in England into the “Chinese suicide sweatshop” where iPods are made; and an Op-Ed article in the New York Times by Mike Daisey, a monologist, who pounded Apple for what he saw as Orwellian tactics (“There is no tech company that looks more like the Big Brother from Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial than Apple itself”).
So a British magazine’s roundup of “anti-Jobs” stories included one piece that was actually pro-Jobs, as its headline and the featured quote both indicate; an examination of Apple’s manufacturing that came out the year before Jobs died; and a single op-ed in the Times. Does that really qualify as the mainstream media piling on?
It bears mentioning that even people who admire Jobs’ achievements believe he was a fairly unpleasant person to work for–which is excused as another aspect of his genius.
I have a problem with people comparing Jobs to Davinci Tesla and other great inventors, WTF did Jobs invent? In reality he was a ver bitter man who was more of a snake oil salesman than great inventor.
@harry, Writing tip: The junior high school naughty word reference doesn’t really build your case because most people commenting here are adults. Oh, and Davinci Telsa could use a comma and very has a y. Also, as you rightly observe, Jobs wasn’t primarily an inventor, but . . . ah . . . er . . . So what?
Just incase someone from Apple reads this: I love my iPhone (except for the always breaking charge cords – yes plural, and yes Apple cords) BUT no iphone owner can play flash videos which are all over the Internet. Pull your head out or android wins.
For THIS blindman’s bluff, Jobs is soley responsible.
Damn I do hate that my I phone is made in China.I swear like a dumb ass I did not know it was manufactured there until I bought it(behind the times).Sad….that is part of his “last word”and legacy as well.
I always thought that Jobs was a bitter man, a self-obsessed egotist. As I live in China I am not surprised about the conditions under which iPhones are made and few Chinese seem very concerned about it– they lap up Apple, products, which is a pity. I am sure that given time they will produce better products of their own. Jobs calls Gates an ‘unimaginative thief’ but he stole as much from others as Gates did (remember the law suit against Apple by Creative who pioneered MP3 players, a small company from whom they stole ideas and drove almost out of business?). The whole iTunes phenomenon has set back an increase in sound quality in music by years, by getting gullible customers to pay through the nose for low quality music formats. iPods don’t even pay FLAC files, because they are not proprietary. The Apple OS is based on Unix, a debt Jobs would rather forget, which is why its more stable than Windows. Although Apple OSX is more stable than Windows and faster, its interface is not more intuitive and has many clumsy irritating features. The hardware is not very reliable, especially given the hefty price tag and expensive to repair. Their after sales service varies for abysmal to acceptable.
Jobs was more cars salesman than genius.
Bill Gates is no saint himself but at least he is eventually turned his skills to trying to contribute more than greed-driven profit to the word and is even willing support taxes on the 1%, including himself.
Jobs’ great achievement was to design products that are prisons
for their users, and make them succeed by convincing people
they are chic.
See http://DefectiveByDesign.org/apple.
Holy shit let the pigeons loose- but I loved Big Apples blog.Since you live in China I personally think your input is needed a hell of a lot more on this sight.Please contribute more
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