Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.
Judging by this trailer, Apple and its bloggers are not going to like this film. It doesn’t exactly paint Jobs in a pretty light.
I told myself enough of the Steve Job biopics, but given it’s Danny Boyle I think I’m going to have to see this one…he usually always has a good soundtrack too.
Of course they won’t. Studies have shown that virtually all CEO’s of major corps are sociopaths who don’t give a damn about anybody but themselves. Any “realistic” biopic about ANY major CEO will probably come off as negative.
Steve was only half the story of Apple.
How about my part of the story, as a Mac fanatic, 18 years old in 1998, MacOS was better in so many ways than windows98. All apps worked together, with consistency, predictability, and snappy, interfaces. But adults would just assume “IBM compatible” made a computer better. Meanwhile grandmas PC was dog slow, malware ridden, inconstant and confusing to her. On game nights a friend would bring a pc to play warcraft/starcraft and we would spend the first hour installing missing sound and NIC drivers so they could play.
But the thrill of Apple in that era was the hoping… that one day people would understand what they were missing, that apple would release the ‘next big thing’ that would not just keep Macs in the lead but start turning enough heads for Apple to make a comeback. Right at this time, Steve becomes that head-turner, and while I didn’t care about bondieblue and hello kitty purses, They seamed to sell, and I was happy people were using MacOS. It was the era of Mac rumor sites.
The third chapter of Apples story was around 2000-2004. A period where Apple took a big risk. The underpinings of MacOS were falling too far behind, and Apple had to replace it with OSX. We saw the promise but for awhile we were just happy to get spring loaded folders back. At the same time, it was no longer about G3s being twice as fast as Pentiums, it was about G4s being stuck at 500mhz when Intel was releasing 1ghz processors.
By this point I didn’t care about iPods much, And I was playing with FreeBSD and Linux. Most of the reasons why I preferred macs, OSX had not live up to yet, but It had a new set of advantages, I could both use the power of the open source software world while also running photoshop “in a consistent environment,” This is all while Linux interfaces were so inconsistent and fragmented, and WindowsXP’s was at the peak of its legendary Virus scares.
So what now? Im still a MacOS user, I like the multiple platform options we now have on computers and phones. My cause has been vindicated and I realize that Im an idiot for not taking my own advice and buying Apple stock in 1998.
Your part of the story is long and boring; we had to leave it on the cutting-room floor.
The MacOS I used in 1998 was very different from what you’re describing. It was a crashy mess of bailing wire and duct tape. It was crap precisely because apps DIDN’T work together yet they needed to because the OS couldn’t force it. Your fanaticism has perhaps dulled your memory.
Mac OS 8.6 worked well with the Carbon applications, the older Applications especially things like After Dark did nothing but display Bomb Messages…also Netscape and IE often showed me the Bomb (Restart) message…A lot of Older Applications would “execute”, since Mac OS 8.6 was just a continuation of Macintosh System Software from 1984 but the quality of that execution left a lot to be desired. Running System 7.1 on a 68k Nubus Mac was pretty fine-tuned, running System 7.x / Mac OS 8/9 on a PowerPC PCI Mac mileage varied, depending on what you were running.
I worked on Macs extensively back then, and I always advised Mac folks that 7.5.2 was the “best” version of the “classic” OS. It was the fastest, least buggy, and smallest footprint of the time. OS8 and 9 were much slower and far more resource intensive. They also tended to be more buggy, which is usually the case when an OS bloats for no apparent reason.
8.6 was rock solid. Never crashed ever. OS9 was a lot more buggy though. 7.5 was also very good.
Apropos of nothing, I still have a working disc of Mac OS 4.0 (an arabic version at that) that still runs on an SE.
You contradict yourself saying in 1998 was so much better compared with Windows 98 and only a couple of years later it was falling too far behind. Remember, the competition was Windows ME, which people were avoiding in favor to 98.
I think it’s grossly unfair that you’re being modded down. What you’re describing is the Mac fan on the height of its delusion. Windows 95 was a decade ahead of MacOS, and 98 was a huge improvement while MacOS hadn’t evolved at all.
Well half a decade to be precise, let’s not exagerate when 5 years is already a long time in IT and especially in the 90s.
A decade ahead in the sense that it was a current operating system, whereas MacOS hadn’t evolved properly. But in another sense, Win9x never really was current, but a technological anachronism meant to keep alive ancient DOS while serving as a bridge to the modern NT platform.
What I’m trying to say is that yes, I know it was wrong to say Windows 95 was a decade ahead, but I’m not sure it’s right to say it belongs to any other age, either. Except, of course, history. Let’s just all be glad that it’s dead.
What malware was there in 1998 apart from viruses, it’s not like Macs didn’t have viruses back then either.
That was another myth; Apple CEO from the time of 68k->PowerPC transition said that not going with Intel was his biggest mistake.
How many have there been, exactly? Seems like a new one every 6 months or so. Either that or tech sites just can’t seem to stop talking about them.
How about a biopic on Dennis Ritchie, for a change?
Kinda reminds me of the year both Mother Teresa and Diana died. The former gave her entire life for the good of humanity and is only given footnotes. The latter gets multi-page spreads every other year because she dressed up in designer clothing.
Can’t say I am big fan of Mother Theresa either, I don’t like people who help other people in exchange for their soul.
Georg Solti died the same week, he would be the person I will remember.
No, she didn’t. She helped no one – at best. She took money from dictators and other people who exploited the poor. None of the money she received went into any sort of care for anyone. It was all used to further her own obsession with the cult of suffering within her brand of Catholicism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position
The little amount of work Diana did about land mines easily dwarfs anything Teresa had done, which was nothing.
Edited 2015-07-02 01:08 UTC
I don’t know how to judge your post: either the one of a mad or the one of an idiot… Mother Teresa is recognized as a saint by almost one half billions of people (who ARE NOT ROMAN CATHOLICS, I mean Indians!). The book you cite is maybe recognized as true just by the author (very important and famous journalist, isn’t he? Has anybody heard about this Hitchens, except for his scandalistic books???) and 4-500 other poor men like you… I find your post very offensive for one half billion people, at least!!! For that, I couldn’t refrain from replying…
But the second part of your post is even worse: Diana was a true saint, passing by all beds of rich and powerful men she met in parties and stupid celebrations for very rich people… No doubt she was unfortunate, to die so young, but surely if there is a giant and a dwarf those are Mother Teresa and Lady Diana, in that order…
I’m sorry for you, if you are so stupid to believe to any writer of scandalistic books, whose only aim in life is to asperse exceptional persons with the unique intent of getting money from some idiot…
Of course, my reply was directed to kwen_e…
Unfortunately for you, we don’t recognise “I’m offended” as a convincing argument. Either address the points he made or sod off.
Unfortunately for you, we don’t recognise “I’m offended” as a convincing argument
You must have some serious troubles in reading… By the way, that was evident from your reply to mattsaved, from which one must infer that reading is for you a difficult and boring activity…
Nowhere in my post I said “I’m offended”: personal offenses are not important when writing on blogs, where you can find any kind of people, from the well educated to the most boorish… I was talking of
offending beliefs or faith or persons who have a special value (religious, ethical or whatever else) for other people. That’s comparable to blasphemy. Note that my reply was not directed to Wondercool, for example, who also didn’t like mother Teresa, but he expressed a personal opinion, that’s very different…
“kwan_e” simply reported some idiocies written in a scandalistic book by this notorious alchoolist Christopher Hitchkens, who wrote a lot of lies about many political, religious and famous people just in order to sell his books for idiots. By the way, the same author did indeed have his personal beliefs about Diana Spencer and he didn’t consider her just like a saint… Probably “kwan_e” read only the book concerning Mother Teresa, if he did, even!!!
The point, in “kwen_e” arguments is that… there is no argument at all! Just repetition of what a notorious idiot wrote on some books for people with no brain… Just to be back to the main topic of the
discussion, as an example: I don’t like at all Steve Jobs, his way of cheating people by making them believe Apple was better than other companies in
respecting users’ rights; in making money by obliging people to use what HE believed was right for them, and many other things. However, that’s my personal opinion: I have used several Apple products in the
past and now I will never buy anything from Apple, I use only linux or bsd unices, but I would never say that Steve Jobs was some kind of devil only because there is a movie which depicts him like that! That
was what “kwen_e” was doing, and I find it disgusting…
we don’t recognise “I’m offended” as a convincing argument.
WE??? Also in the reply to “mattsaved” you address yourself with “WE”! Do you use the “plural nous”??? Are you maybe a king, or have noble rights? Or did anybody elect you as the spokesman of the blog???
Either address the points he made or sod off.
I did! Now, probably you’d better to SOD OFF!!!
You might be a gibbering lunatic, but this:
is one hell of a malapropism. Please post more often.
oh, yes I agree. The Apple disciples won’t like it.
But yes, he has been a lunatic. But he brought us usable MP3 players, easy-to-use smart phones. A graphical user interface.
Of course it was not him, to invent it. But every innovator and engineer needs a manager to believe in you and your ideas. That’s what he made. And besides, he was a charismatic guy (to the public).
But also I agree with others: Oh, no. Not again a Steve Jobs biography. But “Jobs sells”.
That’s _the truth_.
REALLY? The MP3 player was basically invented by Creative, including the wheel interface which Apple STOLE. They would later pay Creative $4 Million for the right to use the wheel interface.
As for smart phones, they are still crap. How about one that doesn’t spy on me?
Apple borrowed as many features for the GUI as the developed them selves. But so did everyone else.
Think what you want about Apple, but I remember the pre-iPod MP3 players. They were terrible. The original iPod was a game-changing product.
Which Creative mp3 player had a scroll wheel pre-ipod?
Why is there a need for another Jobs-movie?
If you haven’t done so yet, see “Pirates of silicon valley”.
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
How people tend to forget Pixar.
iPod’s are not MP3 players, they play a different file-format.