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Jun 29, 09 - 09:35 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

Greetings, programs!

Didn't Disney pretty much die? It took Pixar (the other Steve Jobs company) to bring them back to life.

Jun 29, 09 - 09:40 am Comment from: Spark

C1, good morning. Glad to see you back.

Jun 29, 09 - 09:44 am Comment from: Spark

@ Michael
As a matter of fact Disney grew and prospered greatly after Walt's death. There is more to Disney than animated features.

Jun 29, 09 - 09:47 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

Did I miss anything?

Jun 29, 09 - 09:50 am Comment from: Spark

No, been pretty quiet.

Jun 29, 09 - 09:53 am Comment from: macaholic

@ChrissyOne: I think I heard something about a phone? Can anyone verify that for me?

Jun 29, 09 - 09:57 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

I have a great phone already. I'm waiting for something else.

Jun 29, 09 - 10:12 am Comment from: Jersey_Trader

Steve's hand prints are all over everything that is in the R and D pipeline. It is great to see someone realizing that Steve is not the programer, engineer, ... His vision and inspiration is the foundation of everything that Apple is building on today and tomorrow!

Imagine if Steve had some time to himself to imagine new products and services while relaxing with his family some where. He can iChat or e-mail his ideas from anywhere! Retire Steve. You deserve it!

The next two-decades?...

So long as Steve stays healthy, he's going to be around - and big-time running the show - for the next decade or more.

To think he's going to be frail or no longer driven is just purely contrived drivel.

Anytime an "analyst" starts off an article telling you how much experience they have, you can pretty much bet that they don't fully believe or don't fully understand as much as they claim to.

His other device, comparing Steve to Walt Disney, is also not particularly new (it's been discussed in one of SJ's biographies, just can't remember which one now).

If people had more than a random chance of guessing what SJ is going to do, SJ would not nearly be as successful as he is. He has consistently "out-thunk" his competitors for decades, each of which is much mote intelligent than any "analyst" I've ever read.

Other than a great conversation starter, these "my guess is as good as yours" articles really don't mean squat, no matter how much insight the author credits himself with upfront.

-AP

Jun 29, 09 - 10:30 am Comment from: KingMel

Tim Bajarin's thoughts make sense to me. I suspect that this was on SJ's mind even before his major health issues. SJ's vision for the technology future will, in some respects, represent a philanthropic legacy for future generations. That long range vision is more important than iPhone 4.0.

Jun 29, 09 - 10:35 am Comment from: McIntosh

Well! Quite the pleasant surprise to see ChrissyOne again after such a long absence. You've been missed.

Surely, though, you jest about waiting for something else. Unless it's some manner of tablet-ized phone thingy. What a crazy idea THAT would be.

@ Spark -

Actually, the other Michael has it right. After Walt's death, the Disney company found itself in a funk. The company's execs seemed paralyzed by Walt's legacy, and trying to guess what decisions he WOULD have made was a disastrous strategy. Their movies tanked, the parks stagnated and the company was a takeover target. That changed only 18 years later, with the hiring of a team of Paramount executives, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who along with President Frank Wells finally turned the company around, starting with a series of animated hits (Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Lion King).

Hopefully, Apple has enough talented executives to prosper long after Steve Jobs has gone. But, like Walt, he's got pretty huge shoes to fill...

Jun 29, 09 - 10:49 am Comment from: iWill

ChrissyOne has returned!

A good omen indeed.

Welcome back C1!

Hey, I've been gone for awhile, and no-one's welcomed me back like that.

As a matter of fact Disney grew and prospered greatly after Walt's death. There is more to Disney than animated features.

But, Walt's vision of EPOCT died with him, the purpose for him buying all that Florida property to begin with.

The real EPOCT

Jun 29, 09 - 11:32 am Comment from: alansky

I agree with Tim Bajarin. Steve's most crucial role at Apple is to serve as Visionary in Residence. It doesn't matter how good the crew is if they don't know where to sail the boat. It's easy to extrapolate from what's right in front of you today. But that's not what Steve Jobs does. He sees beyond the next hill, and the next. Very few people in his position can do that.

@ChrissyOne

Who are you calling a program... program!!

Jun 29, 09 - 11:49 am Comment from: tom

"I joined Creative Strategies in 1981 when the only personal computer on the market was the Apple II."

Something's very wrong here. In 1981, there were a gazillion personal computers on the market: TRS-80, VIC-20, Atari 800, Osborne 1, you name it. And the IBM PC was introduced in August 1981.

It's not clear how you can be a competent analyst from that era and make a statement so patently false.

Jun 29, 09 - 12:24 pm Comment from: Gordon Horne

"I joined Creative Strategies in 1981 when the only personal computer on the market was the Apple II."

Sounds dramatic, but it is not true. Apple, Commodore, and Tandy all started selling personal computers in 1977. Atari joined them with the 1979 release of the 400 and 800. IBM joined the party in August 1981. There were also various CP/M machines, some super-extended calculators, programmable game consoles, and some one-offs.

When I started high school in September, 1981, the school computer lab had six personal computers of five models, representing four manufacturers. If I remember correctly, the only computer we had two of was the Apple II Plus. There were two models of Commodore, and one each of Tandy and Atari. I grew up in a university town, and I think most of the local schools' early computers were donated by professors who had moved on to the latest and greatest. There certainly wasn't a provision for computers in the school budget.

The very first "personal computer" I saw was before 1977. My genius friends down the block (they both work in Silicon Valley these days) had this massive block of plastic they slotted their big old red eyed TI calculator onto. The base included a cash register type paper roll printer. The calculator served as sole input and first stage brain for whatever was lurking inside the box. The whole thing was programmed in Assembly. The only outputs were the calculator display and the printer tape. Not a true personal computer by any stretch, but programmable and within the reach of a middle-class family that wanted to encourage their precocious children.

Jun 29, 09 - 12:25 pm Comment from: Gordon Horne

Tom types faster than me, and I often don't see posts until 20-30 minutes after their post time stamps.

Bajarin is one of the (few) Good Guys. However, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle- Jobs is aware of his legacy, he also treasures the moment. He's not going to stifle himself if he has the energy to do more- of course, he'll have one sharp eye to the more distant future, but to be truly alive means to Be Here Now- and I believe that's how Steve operates. The fact that he is a visionary doesn't mean he doesn't live One Day at a Time, like most of us. The mistake too many make in technology is to try to predict the future. The present moves too quickly for that.

@ChrissyOne- These aren't the droids your looking for...

Oh wait... wrong movie...

System's got more bugs than a bait store...

Jun 29, 09 - 01:10 pm Comment from: silverhawk

Welcome back C1! Did you get in line in Seattle for the new iPhone?

Jun 29, 09 - 01:31 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

Naw, my Day 1 iPhone still performs well enough for me. I'll probably use it until it dies.

I'm missing my lappy though. I've been without a MBP since my last stint at the mud hut ended, and funds are too tight these days to buy one of my own. A tablet would sure be nice... <sigh>

Anyway, I thought I'd stop by and see how ya'll were getting along. I didn't see any grossly inappropriate political threads going, so I hope you're still having fun. I've turned my energy to other pursuits lately so I haven't been following Steve & Co. like I used to.

Nice see some friendly screen names!

-c

Jun 29, 09 - 02:02 pm Comment from: loloontheair

I bought a TI-99/4A in 1981. And in school we had Micral 8020 working under CP/M. It seems that we have suh a short memory analyst

The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first microcomputer to sell one million units.

I was there too, Tim. I wrote game software for the Commodores. Too bad the business types felt all warm and fuzzy about an inferior box that said "IBM" on the front, even though it had no color and no sound.

Jun 29, 09 - 03:07 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

Trivia: The VIC-20 was my first computer.