And one more memorable item of Jobsana from Craig Elliott: His autographed Apple II manual, dated on the ninth anniversary of Apple’s founding. (He still has the Apple II, too.)
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The Day Steve Gave Craig a Porsche
Craig Elliott, who shared the Steve Jobs thirtieth birthday video with us, also sent along this delightful photo of him with Jobs. Here’s why Steve is presenting Craig with a new Porsche:
In 1985 Apple had a promotion called “Test Drive” where you could borrow a Mac for the weekend from your local computer reseller. At the same time they had a sales contest for reseller sales people. I had just finished my undergraduate degree (Animal Science/Microbiology) and needed to make some money for grad school, so I went to work for a local computer reseller in Ames, Iowa (I was always the computer guy in the lab). At the end of the sales contest I got a letter from Apple (I knew it was legit because it was done on a yet to be shipped LaserWriter) saying that I’d won and was invited to Cupertino (my first trip to California). There were other winners from other regions (but I sold the most 🙂 ) and I got to have dinner with Steve and Mike Murray (VP of Marketing). As a guy that had been playing with Apple II’s since 1978, it was more than a dream come true. I was 24 years old, having dinner with Steve Jobs. I personally understand the term “reality distortion field”. I also spent the week with other sales and marketing execs at Apple in interviews, a tour of the factory and meetings. at headquarters. Steve gave me the keys to a Porsche 944 and then about 3 months later, Apple called back to see if I would consider moving to California and work at headquarters. I stayed for 10 years. After my second sabbatical, I helped found a new networking and communications company called Packeteer as CEO, took it public in 1999 and retired in 2002 at 41.
Lots of people can rightfully say that Steve Jobs changed their life.
Me, too.
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To Steven Jobs on His Thirtieth Birthday
On February 24th 1985, Steve Jobs turned thirty. His Apple coworkers helped him celebrate by creating a short film for him. They set it to the wonderful song “My Back Pages” by one of Steve’s idols, Bob Dylan, and filled it with images from Jobs’ first three decades. You know some of them, but only some. And they include many ones of a happy, relaxed, even silly Steve Jobs that most of us never got to see.
And here it is. The tribute must have been deeply moving for Steve and his colleagues at the time it was made, and if you can watch it today without getting at least very slightly emotional–particularly as you listen to Dylan’s lyrics–you’re reading the wrong blog.
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An Incredible Loss
What can be said that hasn’t been said already? Wednesday brought the news that we had all expected for some time now, but not this soon. Steve Jobs, arguably one of tech’s greatest visionaries, gone at the age of 56. As a journalist, you’re taught to separate yourself from the story, and I did in the initial minutes and hours after the news broke.
But now I’ve had some time to sit and reflect on the day’s events, and it floors me. I don’t think we yet grasp the true gravity of what has happened, and we very well may not for months if not years to come. In the simplest terms this is an incredible loss.
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Technology’s Great Reinventor
Some more thoughts about the life and legacy of Steve Jobs, in an obituary I wrote for TIME.com.
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Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
[UPDATE: I thought I took this picture, which I found on my hard drive — but it’s actually by Tim Moynihan, my former PCWorld colleague. My apologies to Tim for claiming it was mine.]
Lots more thoughts to come, but for now, a photo IÂ Tim Moynihan snapped at Macworld Expo in 2008. That’s Jobs with the original MacBook Air. And he’s wearing the smile I’ll think about when I think about the extraordinary impact he had on a company, an industry, and an era.
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Xbox 360 TV is a Proving Ground for Everyone
Microsoft isn’t disrupting the cable industry by bringing subscription TV to the Xbox 360. It’s hardly even disrupting the cable box industry. Still, this could be the start of something big.
Verizon, Comcast and other television providers around the world are partnering with Microsoft to put pay TV programming on the Xbox 360 this holiday season, but the content will be limited compared to what cable subscribers already get through their cable boxes. Verizon’s bringing a “selection of popular live TV channels,” and Comcast is only offering on-demand shows. A smattering of other individual channels and services, including Bravo, EPIX and HBO Go, are tagging along.
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India’s $35 Tablet Returns! (For $45)
The Indian government has succeeded where so many iPadversaries of 2010 failed: It actually delivered on its plans to launch a cheap tablet.
Sure, the Aakash tablet took longer than expected. And at a $45 unit price from U.K. manufacturer DataWind, it’s more expensive than the $35 prototype the Indian government showed off in July 2010. But according to the Times of India, it’s still the world’s cheapest tablet, and it’ll be commercially available for around $60 in November. (The $45 version is going to 100,000 students in India for free as part of a pilot program.)
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Pioneer Does Augmented Reality–in a Visor
I’m in Tokyo for CEATEC–the Consumer Electronics Show of Japan–and have been roaming the show floor and discovering nifty stuff. Some of it will show up in the U.S. eventually; some of it won’t.
Pioneer, which makes lots of aftermarket electronics for cars, is demoing a rather unusual visor. It’s an augmented reality heads-up display–Pioneer calls it an AR HUD–that uses lasers to overlay text and images on the road ahead. By doing so, it can do driving directions that use the world around you for imagery, not a digital recreation on a screen in the dashboard.
The technology should show up in commercial form in 2012, Pioneer says–in Japan at first, in a model that can be installed as an aftermarket accessory. It may be built into cars later, and should reach other countries. The price hasn’t been set yet.
(Full disclosure: I spoke at a CEATAC keynote and the show subsidized my travel costs.)
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Siri Brings Apple’s Vision Full Circle
In 1987, then CEO of Apple John Sculley described a device known as the “Knowledge Navigator” in his book Odyssey. Described in its simplest terms, it was a personal assistant that allowed the user to navigate information in an interactive way. The user would be able to speak in natural language, and the artificial intelligence would reason out the intention of the user. Watch it in action in this vintage Apple-produced video.
As you can see, the interaction is very human-like. The command-based method of interaction –which is so common in the voice recognition platforms of today — is nowhere to be found. This method is just not the way the average person thinks. While us techies may think in this manner, everyday consumerS would be more comfortable talking to the device because they don’t have to remember a set of commands.