Steve Jobs — to be revered or abhorred?

Mark Waddington considers how we should remember the co-founder of Apple

ON 9th January 2007, Steve Jobs took to the stage at Macworld Conference in San Francisco to announce the future. “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone”. The Apple logo has become ingrained in our minds, emblazoned upon our preconceptions and understandings of technology. However, behind the logo and behind every laptop carried around by preppy blonde girls on campus, was Steve Jobs. It has been 11 years since his passing and yet Jobs remains a somewhat mythical figure — a larger than life, bespecta cled, turtleneck wearing entrepre neur. While his influence on the development and progression of technology cannot be understated, is his legacy an untarnished story of genius and innovation or was he rather more controversial than we perhaps remember?

THE APPLE LOGO HAS BECOME INGRAINED IN OUR MINDS

In 1976, in Jobs’ parents’ garage, Jobs cofounded Apple with school friend, Steve Wozniak. While Wozniak is largely credited with the technology behind the original Apple I and II computers, Jobs was responsible for these devices hitting the consumer market. Apple II, which was Apple’s first mass-produced computer, sold

4.8 million units, making Apple a force to be reckoned with in the early era of personal computing. It was around this time that Jobs’ relationship with another schoolmate, Chrisann Brennan, was rekindled.

As Apple continued to grow, Brennan fell pregnant with Jobs as the father, a fact he would refute continuously for years to come. Despite this, Brennan and Jobs worked on a name for the baby, settling on Lisa. While Jobs would continue to deny that Lisa was his, he was obviously very taken with her and in 1983, Apple would release the first personal computer with a graphical user interface (in layman’s terms, where the user could interact with the computer using symbols and images, not just typing in commands); this machine would be called the Apple Lisa.

Jobs eventually could no longer deny paternity with a DNA test concluding he was Lisa’s father. Jobs would pay only $500 per month in child support, despite being a multi-millionaire from Apple’s continually increas ing commercial success. Jobs’ shortcomings as a father would lead him to miss out on being named Time’s Per son of the Year, when Brennan gave an interview for Time Magazine, detailing her relationship with Steve. The Personal Computer would instead be named ‘Machine of the Year’ in 1983 in place of Jobs.

Following disagree ments with senior Apple board members about company restructuring, Jobs resigned from Apple in 1985, starting NeXT as a rival computing company.

Susan Wojcicki steps down

JOBS RESIGNED FROM APPLE IN 1985, STARTING NEXT AS A RIVAL COMPUTING COMPANY

While NeXT wasn’t as successful as Jobs’ previous endeavour, Apple would purchase NeXT for $400 million in 1997, bringing Jobs back to Apple. It was in this era of Jobs’ time at NeXT that he also funded the emergence of the Graphics Group, later known as Pixar. Jobs was instrumental to the early success of Pixar, for instance being named as Executive Producer on Pixar’s Toy Story (1995). As we all know, Pixar has gone on to redefine animation as a creative artform and medium and it is remarkable to realise Jobs recognised Pixar’s potential as early as 1986, given it is now up there with the most recognisable brands in the world.