Letters to Steve: Inside the E-Mail Inbox of Apple's Steve Jobs by Mark Milian

Author:Mark Milian [Milian, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs
Amazon: B006B16JLQ
Goodreads: 13095409
Published: 2011-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

In Steve’s third act, Apple appeared less concerned with computers. The iPod quickly came to make up about half of Apple’s revenues, and the moneymakers later came from mobile phones and tablets. This refocusing was embodied in a corporate rebranding in January 2007 when Apple Computer Inc. changed its name to Apple Inc.

When Steve announced the iPad 2, he riffed on his “post-PC era” concept: “A lot of folks in this tablet market are rushing in, and they're looking at this as the next PC. The hardware and the software are done by different companies, and they’re talking about speeds and feeds just like they did with PCs. And our experience and every bone in our body says that that is not the right approach to this; that these are post-PC devices that need to be even easier to use than a PC; that need to be even more intuitive than a PC; and where the software and the hardware and the applications need to intertwine in an even more seamless way than they do on a PC.” Even in 1996, before returning to Apple, Steve told Forbes: “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth, and get busy on the next great thing. … The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”

Contrary to Apple’s actions and Steve’s sage-like monologues that concern the fervent followers of the company, executives publicly maintained that computers, too, were important to the company. Apple held an event at its headquarters in Cupertino called Back to the Mac in October 2010 where Steve introduced new MacBook Air laptops. Tim Cook, then the operating chief, prefaced by saying how important computers still are to Apple and how the Mac made up one-third of Apple’s revenues in 2009 and how if Apple had spun off a computer division, it would rank 110 on the Fortune 500 list. The presentation provided opportunities for some chest beating, but mostly, it felt like Apple was giving some attention to the long-neglected Mac cult.

These disciples are perhaps the most intimately familiar with Apple and were the most adept at staying on Steve Jobs’ radar. They constantly sent Steve e-mails. Readily, Steve put their minds at ease, but meanwhile, his focus clearly remained on other parts of the business that were more central to the future of Apple. “Not to worry,” Steve told one customer who prefaced his message about the bleak state of Apple’s pro hardware by saying, “This is a sad e-mail for me to compose.” Greg Walker, a computer technician, inquired in April 2010 about whether Apple planned to emphasize mobile software over Mac OS X. “No,” Steve said. Matthias Gansrigler, an independent software developer, fretted over whether the Mac’s absence from Apple’s annual design awards was a sign of things to come. Steve assured him: “We are focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on iPhone OS this year. Maybe next year we will focus primarily on the Mac. Just the normal cycle of things.

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