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Author Topic: Steve Jobs RIP
The Rabbit
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I read quite a few "who really wrote Shakespeare" theories, but never that one. Everyone knows Shakespeare based most of his plays on historical or literary sources -- that simply isn't equivalent to stealing. And the claim that he didn't even write the dialogue goes far beyond anything consistent with the evidence. If you are going to make that kind of outrageous claim, you better have some pretty serious data to back it up. Otherwise, its just one more crack pot conspiracy theory.
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The Rabbit
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Well said Orincoro.
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MrSquicky
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But with the PC and the GUI, Jobs was just one of the many people who were trying to bring them to market. He certainly doesn't stand alone in these things and Microsoft was really the one who brought them to the masses.
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Mucus
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There's also the question of what you consider "the masses."
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capaxinfiniti
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Jobs didn't invent the GUI.
I never said he did. I said he was to the GUI what Ford was to the assembly line and Ford did not invent the assembly line.
I gathered that much. But I think you were overstating his significance in the development of the GUI.
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The Rabbit
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How old are you cap and when was the first time you used a computer?
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Jeff C.
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I read quite a few "who really wrote Shakespeare" theories, but never that one. Everyone knows Shakespeare based most of his plays on historical or literary sources -- that simply isn't equivalent to stealing. And the claim that he didn't even write the dialogue goes far beyond anything consistent with the evidence. If you are going to make that kind of outrageous claim, you better have some pretty serious data to back it up. Otherwise, its just one more crack pot conspiracy theory.

Well this was something I was taught in a university Shakespeare class, so I kind of assumed it was pretty accurate.

But anyway, here's a quote about the quantos (early prints of the plays):

quote:
Why are the quartos important?
None of Shakespeare’s manuscripts survives, so the printed texts of his plays are our only source for what he originally wrote. The quarto editions are the texts closest to Shakespeare’s time. Some are thought to preserve either his working drafts (his foul papers) or his fair copies. Others are thought to record versions remembered by actors who performed the plays, providing information about staging practices in Shakespeare’s day.

The original prints we have of these quantos aren't exactly precise. Some are copies, written from memory by various people who saw the plays, including the actors, while a select few are thought to be written by Shakespeare. That's not saying that he didn't originally write them, back when he was coming up with the stories, but many of those early versions are not what we have in print today.

As for his stealing a great deal of what he wrote, I was talking more to the extent of his ideas, characters, and plots. For example, Hamlet was taken from a Danish story. His "histories" are obviously meant to dramatize real life events, copying names and plots that were actually happening or had already happened, but his comedies and dramas were also derrived from other sources as well. There's nothing wrong with that. There are no original stories. Saying Shakespeare stole his ideas is like saying Orson Scott Card got the idea for The Worthing Saga's Empire from Asimov's Foundation series. It's just something that happens in literature.

The thing is, everyone tries to prop Shakespeare up to be some kind of diety figure in literature, but at the time, while he was fairly well known to some people, he wasn't anything close to the level he is now. In fact, he was writing all of his material just trying to survive. He was literally a struggling actor/playwrite in his own time, so naturally he's going to steal some of his work. You can't blame him for that. But you also can't say he was perfect, either. It wasn't really until the 19th and 20th century that he started getting read so widely and his plays taught in schools, anyway.

Regardless, my point originally was simply that Shakespeare wasn't as groundbreakingly original as a lot of people seem to think.

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capaxinfiniti
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
How old are you cap and when was the first time you used a computer?

How is that relevant to the subject? Is this discussion age-restricted?
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AchillesHeel
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Most here is, I still have no idea what the requisite age is but I believe it to be over thirty.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by capaxinfiniti:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
How old are you cap and when was the first time you used a computer?

How is that relevant to the subject? Is this discussion age-restricted?
The discussion is certainly not age-restricted but age is unquestionably relevant to the discussion. Unless I'm mistaken, we are discussing whether or not Steve Job's (and GUIs) have had a significant impact on society. Whether or not you've personally experienced that change is relevant.
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MrSquicky
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I don't think anyone is denying that GUIs have had a significant impact on society.

I don't see the relevance of how old people are either. I found that off putting and inappropriate, actually.

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The Rabbit
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Jeff C., If this is what was actually taught in your University Shakespeare course, your professor was considerably outside the mainstream of Shakespeare criticism.

Going from "many of his early versions aren't what we have in print today." to "His dialogue wasn't even written by him, but by the actors themselves." is an enormous leap. I don't think anyone is going to object to the former, but the latter is a very radical position.

I've took a course in the history of Shakespearean criticism and based on what I read, I don't believe that Shakespeare has only become revered in the last two centuries. There is a very extensive record of discussion and criticism of Shakespeare's work since the 17th century. Shakespeare was never noted for his innovative creative plots so pointing out that they weren't innovative doesn't detract a bit from his stature.

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Raymond Arnold
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Speaking as a young person, I think it's relevant whether you experienced change. I'm not old enough to have experienced the biggest changes, but the rise of smart phones, the internet and social media have been significant in my lifetime. (Not listing things Jobs did, just ways technology changed in the last 20 years.

In other news... aww. Seriously?

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by MrSquicky:
I don't think anyone is denying that GUIs have had a significant impact on society.

I don't see the relevance of how old people are either. I found that off putting and inappropriate, actually.

Meh!! Be put off if you choose to be. There are discussions where age and experience do matter. When discussing the impact of cars on daily life, I appreciate the opinions of my grandparents who actually lived through that period and experienced the change more than I do the opinion of a 20 year old history student.

If you were using computers back in the 70s and 80s, you are a lot less likely to point to the iPod and the iPhone as Steve Jobs biggest contributions than if you are 20 years old.

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MrSquicky
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quote:
If you were using computers back in the 70s and 80s, you are a lot less likely to point to the iPod and the iPhone as Steve Jobs biggest contributions than if you are 20 years old.
I was using computers in the 80s. I don't think anyone is disputing the personal computer revolution. What we're arguing is that Steve Jobs was not a lone visionary on par with Henry Ford, etc., nor was he the key force in bringing personal computing to most people.
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Aros
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quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:


So, that's my defense of the statement. I class Steve Jobs with Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, but not with Bach, Einstein, Newton, Mozart, Michaelangelo, or Shakespeare.

Okay, my initial problem (and thus the beginning of the dissent) was the inclusion of Tesla. Tesla should most certainly be in the second category, as a "pure" scientist. His science was practical (as opposed to Einstein), but that doesn't detract from his genius

Why would you classify Jobs with Ford and Edison? Is it that he led drastic, incremental changes to products that changed the human experience for common people? Along this line of thinking, I could agree to some extent, but there would be a few other names I'd put forward first. Jobs wouldn't be in the top 5. I might put him in the top 10 or 20.

As a business major, however, I'd certainly classify Jobs in the top 5 when it came to charismatic leadership. Heck, he was practically the poster-boy for it.

[ October 07, 2011, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: Aros ]

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Mucus
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Age is a double-sided thing though.

Let's go with the car example, a particular set of grandparents may very well have experienced the changes in, say, the US. But without any study or interest, they may not necessarily have experienced the changes in other areas of the world of the time. Formal study may fill in these gaps.

A younger person may also have experienced (or study) the impact of cars in a much more immediate and accelerated way in either recent India or China. Many grandparents wouldn't be able to or want to access the tools that would allow them to share these experiences either.

So it's hard to say.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
Age is a double-sided thing though.

Let's go with the car example, a particular set of grandparents may very well have experienced the changes in, say, the US. But without any study or interest, they may not necessarily have experienced the changes in other areas of the world of the time. Formal study may fill in these gaps.

A younger person may also have experienced (or study) the impact of cars in a much more immediate and accelerated way in either recent India or China. Many grandparents wouldn't be able to or want to access the tools that would allow them to share these experiences either.

So it's hard to say.

I never claimed that age was the only factor that mattered, just that it was "a" relevant factor in the discussion.

At this point in time, its pretty difficult for anyone (regardless of age) to divorce their opinion of Steve Jobs from their opinion of Apple in general, and Apple has been a pretty polarizing company for at least 25 years.

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advice for robots
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Also, whether you tend to be an early adopter of technology or not, and how wealthy and "into it" your parents were. With a few exceptions, I tend to be a late, late adopter, mainly because I can never justify dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on technology I can't yet see the need for. My parents are the same way. They've never had the money for those things and never fit in to pop culture enough to want them immediately, even just to keep up with the Jones. I lived the big sea changes of the 80s vicariously through my friends whose parents battled in line on Black Fridays for the latest and greatest for their kids. I wasn't even online until the mid-90s when I went to college. Technology has changed my life, and Steve Jobs influenced it for sure, but on a different timeline than that of many other more affluent gen-xers.
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scifibum
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quote:
What matters is that a person had an impact on the world around him, that we can measure very clearly, that would not have been there if he had never lived. I think we are on solid ground saying that were it not for Steve Jobs, more than any other person, our lives on a daily basis would be far different.
I don't really believe Jobs was particularly crucial to societal transformations related to personal computing and other technology. If Apple hadn't pushed the mouse and GUI with personal computers, it would have happened pretty soon anyway, I think. It was the power of the technology, not the company first pushing to market (or it's CEO), that was transformative.

The same thing applies to smartphones.

I credit him with being remarkably skilled at identifying and exploiting the market for such things. I think that's a worthy legacy. It's a rare and impressive thing.

However, I frankly think it's ridiculous to assume that had he never lived, modern life would be vastly different. Maybe (though not certainly) people would be somewhat less enamored of their gadgets, but substantially similar gadgets would still exist and still improve people's lives in the same way.

Not to mention saying he had MORE influence than any other person on the shape of our lives.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
His dialogue wasn't even written by him, but by the actors themselves.
How many people were "online" before the mid-nineties?

I was an engineering graduate student in the late 80s so I had e-mail access through bitnet but that only connected me to a few other people who were also scientists or engineers in academia. During that time period, there were bulletin boards through services like Genie and AOL but there were all closed networks and very small by today's standard. The world wide web didn't even exist until the early 90s and it didn't become public until 1996.

Outside University campuses, very few people were "online" before the mid-90s.

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fugu13
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quote:
Actually, Shakespeare stole almost everything he wrote. The only original play he actually penned was the last one he wrote: The Tempest. Everything else was stolen, either from other authors or from real events that were happening. His dialogue wasn't even written by him, but by the actors themselves. All Shakespeare did was explain what he wanted them to say, and over the years the actors started writing it all down. Eventually we gathered up the best versions of each script and compiled the plays ourselves. I suppose you could say his sonnets were original, but that's hardly what he's known for.
Yeah, that's just wrong. While he routinely ripped plots from other sources (like everybody), his dialogue was his. Not that actors had no input in the dialogue they said, but they definitely said the specific words he told them to say (unless they fumbled). The versions we have were in part cribbed from what actors and audience members remembered, but that isn't because the lines were decided by the actors on stage, it was because the final version of the plays frequently weren't available as performed -- even the "final draft" would have many lines edited as the play was being rehearsed, on the individual actor's copy, and not in a central place. There were probably also multiple versions performed of some of the plays, and the versions we have tend to synthesize across them. The reason for this? Jonson was in the middle of inventing the practice of publishing plays for general consumption as a matter of course.

He was considered one of the period's greatest playwrights by the other great playwrights of the period. Jonson and Marlowe (and others) were constantly measuring themselves against Shakespeare, as Shakespeare was measuring himself against them. His plays were some of the most popular as well, and with people of all walks of life, from sovereigns to beggars.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
I don't really believe Jobs was particularly crucial to societal transformations related to personal computing and other technology. If Apple hadn't pushed the mouse and GUI with personal computers, it would have happened pretty soon anyway, I think. It was the power of the technology, not the company first pushing to market (or it's CEO), that was transformative.
I think the same thing can be said about just about any influential person. Assembly line manufacturing would almost certainly have happened even without Henry Ford. The airplane would have happened without the Wright Brothers (in fact it did, almost simultaneously in Japan).

There are good reasons that many things have been invented or discovered nearly simultaneously by different groups. Most progress is incremental and most inventors made incremental improvements over existing ideas which someone was bound to make at just about that time because the state of knowledge and technology had arrived.

There are very very few people in the world whose impact has been so revolutionary that without them, it would never have happened. That doesn't mean that the actual individual who did it, does not deserve credit.

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twinky
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quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
I don't really believe Jobs was particularly crucial to societal transformations related to personal computing and other technology. If Apple hadn't pushed the mouse and GUI with personal computers, it would have happened pretty soon anyway, I think. It was the power of the technology, not the company first pushing to market (or it's CEO), that was transformative.

The same thing applies to smartphones.

His attention to detail in user experience was fairly unique. Ever seen a screenshot of an early Android build, from before the iPhone launch? It looks like a contemporaneous BlackBerry. If not for the iPhone, I think smartphone users would still be stuck not too far from the original BlackBerry paradigm -- an utterly hideous user experience in comparison to what we have today. Symbian and Windows Mobile might still be going concerns. [Angst]
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MrSquicky
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
I don't really believe Jobs was particularly crucial to societal transformations related to personal computing and other technology. If Apple hadn't pushed the mouse and GUI with personal computers, it would have happened pretty soon anyway, I think. It was the power of the technology, not the company first pushing to market (or it's CEO), that was transformative.
I think the same thing can be said about just about any influential person. Assembly line manufacturing would almost certainly have happened even without Henry Ford. The airplane would have happened without the Wright Brothers (in fact it did, almost simultaneously in Japan).

There are good reasons that many things have been invented or discovered nearly simultaneously by different groups. Most progress is incremental and most inventors made incremental improvements over existing ideas which someone was bound to make at just about that time because the state of knowledge and technology had arrived.

There are very very few people in the world whose impact has been so revolutionary that without them, it would never have happened. That doesn't mean that the actual individual who did it, does not deserve credit.

Right, but what we're talking about is Steve Jobs seeing a bunch of stuff at SPARC, realizing that they would work really well in a home market, and deciding to hire people to build computers that incorporated them, just like several other people did at around the same time.

Removing him from the situation would take out one of the biggest players, but other people were doing almost the same thing he was doing and, in the grand scheme of things, Microsoft was really the company that succeeded in finally really getting the PC and GUI based operating systems to the average consumer.

As has been acknowledged, he had a very large impact on the personal computing revolution, but trying to cast him as a Ford or whomever is overstating both what he actually did and his impact.

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MrSquicky
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quote:
Originally posted by twinky:
quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
I don't really believe Jobs was particularly crucial to societal transformations related to personal computing and other technology. If Apple hadn't pushed the mouse and GUI with personal computers, it would have happened pretty soon anyway, I think. It was the power of the technology, not the company first pushing to market (or it's CEO), that was transformative.

The same thing applies to smartphones.

His attention to detail in user experience was fairly unique. Ever seen a screenshot of an early Android build, from before the iPhone launch? It looks like a contemporaneous BlackBerry. If not for the iPhone, I think smartphone users would still be stuck not too far from the original BlackBerry paradigm -- an utterly hideous user experience in comparison to what we have today. Symbian and Windows Mobile might still be going concerns. [Angst]
I completely agree with this. Without Steve Jobs, I think we be quite a bit behind where we are now in terms of hand held computing. The great focus put into user experience coupled with the genius of marketing it that he brought to Apple products were singular accomplishments.
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shadowland
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Another major impact he had relating to the interface of phones is with touchscreens. There was quite a bit of criticism regarding the idea of a phone without a physical keyboard. Without the iPhone's success, I'm not sure there would be so many smart phones without keyboards today, which means that the concept and implementation of the touch interface may very possibly have been nowhere near where it is at today.
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twinky
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Yep.
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Jeff C.
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quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
quote:
Actually, Shakespeare stole almost everything he wrote. The only original play he actually penned was the last one he wrote: The Tempest. Everything else was stolen, either from other authors or from real events that were happening. His dialogue wasn't even written by him, but by the actors themselves. All Shakespeare did was explain what he wanted them to say, and over the years the actors started writing it all down. Eventually we gathered up the best versions of each script and compiled the plays ourselves. I suppose you could say his sonnets were original, but that's hardly what he's known for.
Yeah, that's just wrong. While he routinely ripped plots from other sources (like everybody), his dialogue was his. Not that actors had no input in the dialogue they said, but they definitely said the specific words he told them to say (unless they fumbled). The versions we have were in part cribbed from what actors and audience members remembered, but that isn't because the lines were decided by the actors on stage, it was because the final version of the plays frequently weren't available as performed -- even the "final draft" would have many lines edited as the play was being rehearsed, on the individual actor's copy, and not in a central place. There were probably also multiple versions performed of some of the plays, and the versions we have tend to synthesize across them. The reason for this? Jonson was in the middle of inventing the practice of publishing plays for general consumption as a matter of course.

He was considered one of the period's greatest playwrights by the other great playwrights of the period. Jonson and Marlowe (and others) were constantly measuring themselves against Shakespeare, as Shakespeare was measuring himself against them. His plays were some of the most popular as well, and with people of all walks of life, from sovereigns to beggars.

Well regardless, my main point was that he wasn't as original as he seemed (like Tesla, Bach, and the other examples previously used), which is what this entire discussion is mostly about (regarding Steve Jobs). It was why I pointed Shakespeare out in the first place. My professor may or may not have been correct in her assertion about the dialogue (it doesn't really matter in the long run), but I agree with what she said about the plots being ripped from other sources. And like I said before, stealing isn't a big deal. Everyone does it. But Shakespeare being innovative, that's the problem.
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advice for robots
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quote:
Originally posted by shadowland:
Another major impact he had relating to the interface of phones is with touchscreens. There was quite a bit of criticism regarding the idea of a phone without a physical keyboard. Without the iPhone's success, I'm not sure there would be so many smart phones without keyboards today, which means that the concept and implementation of the touch interface may very possibly have been nowhere near where it is at today.

I agree. My feeling before 2007 was that touch screens were still years away. I believe they still would be without Jobs' push to get the iPhone developed. For that alone, Steve Jobs is totally awesome. [Hail]
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fugu13
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quote:
Well regardless, my main point was that he wasn't as original as he seemed (like Tesla, Bach, and the other examples previously used), which is what this entire discussion is mostly about (regarding Steve Jobs). It was why I pointed Shakespeare out in the first place. My professor may or may not have been correct in her assertion about the dialogue (it doesn't really matter in the long run), but I agree with what she said about the plots being ripped from other sources. And like I said before, stealing isn't a big deal. Everyone does it. But Shakespeare being innovative, that's the problem.
Methinks the word innovative does not mean what you think it means. Shakespeare coined numerous words and phrases that are in use today, I suspect more than any other single person contributed to the English language. And, as is noted, innovation has always involved building on what came before. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:
I class Steve Jobs with Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, but not with Bach, Einstein, Newton, Mozart, Michaelangelo, or Shakespeare.
Actually, Shakespeare stole almost everything he wrote. The only original play he actually penned was the last one he wrote: The Tempest. Everything else was stolen, either from other authors or from real events that were happening. His dialogue wasn't even written by him, but by the actors themselves. All Shakespeare did was explain what he wanted them to say, and over the years the actors started writing it all down. Eventually we gathered up the best versions of each script and compiled the plays ourselves. I suppose you could say his sonnets were original, but that's hardly what he's known for.
You have been misinformed. I'm not even going to get into this.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Removing him from the situation would take out one of the biggest players, but other people were doing almost the same thing he was doing and, in the grand scheme of things, Microsoft was really the company that succeeded in finally really getting the PC and GUI based operating systems to the average consumer.
I think its highly doubtful that Microsoft would ever have developed windows if it had not been for the Mac. It took Microsoft 6.5 years (an eternity in the computer industry) after the Mac to produce an actually usable version of Windows.

I guess we can speculate on the issue until we turn blue since no one will ever know what would have happened with out Steve Jobs, but that really doesn't distinguish him from other innovators -- particularly Ford. There were over 400 automobile manufacturers in the US alone in 1920. The automobile would have taken over with or without Ford. It would likely have taken longer for the car to become affordable to the common man in the US, but its pretty hard to imagine that it would not have happened. In fact, it (innovative production of an inexpensive car for the masses) has happened nearly independently numerous times in different parts of the world -- most recently with Tata motors in India.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
You have been misinformed. I'm not even going to get into this.
Too late. You just did.
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Orincoro
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Haha, touché. I meant, not going to countenance the idea with a detailed response. "get into" as in, "delve."
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capaxinfiniti
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I think its highly doubtful that Microsoft would ever have developed windows if it had not been for the Mac.

What gives you that impression? Both Mac OS and Windows 1.0 were being developed simultaneously, meaning that even if Jobs/Apple/Macs never existed, Windows would have still made it to market. The competition was very healthy back. MS was, for example, continuing contratual negotiations with IBM. IBM had no interest in continuing to ship systems with command line interface operating systems. They too saw the future in a GUI.

quote:
It took Microsoft 6.5 years (an eternity in the computer industry) after the Mac to produce an actually usable version of Windows.

I'm not sure what dates you're using so I don't know how you've arrived at the 6.5 figure but much of what was going on, development wise, at Apple and Microsoft (and a dozen other places like IBM, Atari..) was contemporaneous. I don't think Apple marketed a GUI OS much more that a year or so before Microsoft.
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jebus202
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Steve Jobs will be remembered as he's currently represented. The truth of it will matter little in the Zeitgeist's impression.
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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by capaxinfiniti:
quote:
It took Microsoft 6.5 years (an eternity in the computer industry) after the Mac to produce an actually usable version of Windows.

I'm not sure what dates you're using so I don't know how you've arrived at the 6.5 figure ...
Well, because of the "usable" stuck in there, you can play around with which version of Windows is considered usable. Which is reminiscent of the issue of what you consider "masses" in the debate on whether Jobs "brought X to the masses." Are we talking about who brought X from early adopters in the computer industry to early adopters in the upper classes? Are talking about who brought it to the middle class or who brought it to the poor?

I personally value developments like the rise of IBM clones and the ability (and indeed, under the table encouragement in some cases) to pirate Windows both in those early days and when it came to the Chinese market.

But without pinning down definitions and metrics, the argument is like fighting on quicksand.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
What gives you that impression? Both Mac OS and Windows 1.0 were being developed simultaneously, meaning that even if Jobs/Apple/Macs never existed, Windows would have still made it to market.
This is not strictly accurate. The development of the GUI used in the Mac started with the Apple Lisa, in 1978, three years before windows development started at Microsoft. The pre-release version of windows that was demonstrated in 1983, was so obviously ripped-off from the Mac OS that it had to be nearly completed redone before its release in 1985. Even then, Windows 1.0 was such a terrible program that it couldn't even compete with MS DOS, which remained the preferred operating system for IBM clones until the release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 (which is where I get my 6 years after the Mac).

Honestly, Microsoft has never been an innovative visionary company. They are very aggressive and know how make good business decisions, but they haven't introduced a truly innovative or visionary product in decades.

When was the last time you thought "Wow, this is really good!" about a Microsoft product? Was there ever a time?

Actually there was one for me. MS Word for Mac 5.1. That was 20 years ago and its been pretty steadily downhill since then.

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Jon Boy
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I really like Windows 7, and I can't say I've ever really liked Mac OS. (and I've used 9 through 10.7). I mean, it's fine and certainly has some nice features (though I think 10.7 is a step backwards in terms of the GUI), but sometimes I get frustrated with Mac OS because it feels limiting to me. But it could just be that I've been raised on Windows machines and thus am more comfortable with them.
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MrSquicky
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quote:
The development of the GUI used in the Mac started with the Apple Lisa, in 1978
That's not true. The Lisa was started in 1978. The GUI development started in 1980, after the demonstration by Xerox of their GUI in 1979.
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TomDavidson
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quote:
When was the last time you thought "Wow, this is really good!" about a Microsoft product? Was there ever a time?
Most recently, Microsoft Lync impressed me, especially once we finished connecting it to our PBX.
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scifibum
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quote:
Honestly, Microsoft has never been an innovative visionary company. They are very aggressive and know how make good business decisions, but they haven't introduced a truly innovative or visionary product in decades.

When was the last time you thought "Wow, this is really good!" about a Microsoft product? Was there ever a time?

To answer your question, pretty recently, and pretty often. They have some really excellent products. Some of them markedly outshine the closest competition.

I suspect that the things you are thinking of as "visionary" and "innovative" are probably a lot sexier than MS products. I'm not sure that consumer appeal is a fair standard by which to judge the amount of innovation happening, though.

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Mucus
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A few months ago, the Kinect wowed and spread really rapidly through the office.
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MrSquicky
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quote:
In fact, he was writing all of his material just trying to survive. He was literally a struggling actor/playwrite in his own time, so naturally he's going to steal some of his work.
Shakespeare wasn't anything close to a struggling actor/playwright. He was very successful both on the stage and as a businessman. He owned a 10% interest in The Globe, for one thing. He was able to buy and later expand a very desirable estate in Stratford. He was not desperate for cash.
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twinky
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
When was the last time you thought "Wow, this is really good!" about a Microsoft product? Was there ever a time?

Surface.

Windows Phone 7, which presents a legitimate alternative to iOS-style app-grid interfaces.

Kinect is pretty cool, although I have no plans to buy one myself.

*

I like Windows 7, and for basic computing I like it as much as OS X, if not more. But the minute I need to get under the hood to change anything, it's back to Windows 95 nested property dialogs or obscure system services programs. Sometimes there are three or four ways to change something, with no clear indication of which one should be used or which ones are global. On the whole, I think the Control Panel is a mess compared to System Preferences.

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Jake
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
When was the last time you thought "Wow, this is really good!" about a Microsoft product? Was there ever a time?

The last time? Probably when the Kinect came out a little more than a year ago. I was also impressed by Microsoft Surface when it came out in 2008.

[Edit - Beaten to the punch by multiple people!]

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Nighthawk
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quote:
Originally posted by twinky:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
When was the last time you thought "Wow, this is really good!" about a Microsoft product? Was there ever a time?

Surface.

Windows Phone 7, which presents a legitimate alternative to iOS-style app-grid interfaces.

Kinect is pretty cool, although I have no plans to buy one myself.

And the two million Microsoft Surface, Windows Phone 7 and Kinect users would probably agree with you... [Wink]
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twinky
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Actually, Kinect hit 10 million way back in March -- doubling Microsoft's sales expectations within 5 months of its launch. Selling that many Kinects to an installed base of 55 million Xbox 360s is pretty impressive.

Actually, here's a great example of an amazing Microsoft product: Xbox Live. Six years after its launch, it's still unmatched by its competitors.

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Nighthawk
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I added Kinect to that list after the fact. I should have known that would hit such a number.
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