Steve Jobs resigned Apple CEO. People are writing everything, such that the Apple charisma gone, worry about coming products, stock, etc, etc..
But this has been expected if you have watched him these years. So settle down. It's a due course.
Apple is the world's best company. Steve came back to the almost dying Apple and resurrected it, and it's Market Capitalization exceeded Microsoft in 2010, and finally the Exxon (though only shortly).
World best. But it doesn't look like that. Why? Microsoft of course.
The company is tightly connected with the big companies and other business sectors, doing good at conforming with organizational workflow.
What Microsoft has produced is not the Personal computer. It's a business tool. The ugly Windows PC hardware and the ugly Windows GUI doesn't inspire my curiosity and creativeness. Many people use it as a personal tool because they are accustomed to it in their business life. The "market" and the 'install base' are all about it.
What Microsoft cares (if ever) is functionality. Or they never cares other than that. They will say: "That function is there under the push button icon. What else matters? Otherwise it's all up to you." Quite industrial and corporate-like.
Then what has Apple created? User Experience. They are particular about usability and stand for the users. And as a part of experience, they make beautiful products. You will understand it when you see MacBook Air or the Apple Wireless Keyboard. Those are ideals of the industrial design.
 |
| MacBook Air |
 |
| Apple Wireless Keyboard |
It's about aesthetic, and they never slight it. It's almost like a Japanese tea-service host who does everything to produce beauty at the tea ceremony. Beauty there should be modest and yet when you look at it close it's full of consideration and esprit.
Can you imagine a PC other than MB Air with Lion desktop that fits in a Japanese tea-ceremony room?
"Technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that makes our hearts sing." -Steve Jobs
And Apple leads innovation. They go first.
Apple never says like Microsoft and other companies: "For our royal customers we provide this function and that." Apple never says that way.
Apple says: "The world will change. The new era like this will come. So, Follow me."
And Steve shows something that heralds the new era. Innovative minds go for it, and conservative, frozen minds let it go past.
Am I weird? Maybe so. But in these situations I remember my pottery mentor Jissei Omine's saying: "Only those who can understand it, understand it."
Jobs has a strong face. Zen Buddhist like? And his attitude is somewhat different from typical American businessperson. He has something inside. Some truth.
What is it?
What is his secret truth?
Has Tim Cook and Apple inherited it from him?
That will reflect to coming products. So you have no reason to be upset now. Just watch Apple's coming products. We are buying not their thoughts, but the outcome of their thoughts, the products. When you see their products, you will know who has been creating those so far, and what will happen to them.
As long as their products are something like jewels or arts which you cherish and adore to possess, Apple will be safe and sound. Just watch the products coming. You will see the answer.
Of course it's a different matter who will present them to us so beautifully. It was Steve Jobs' most visible and valued role. And that also helped us grab the meaning of the coming innovation.
As a physician, I'm talking about him cool. However, if I had been the pathologist who diagnosed his pancreatic cancer as curable, as Steve says, I also had cried. Steve is just a CEO of a mass production company, and yet is connected to us thus tight and intimate.
Someone said "Steve made me". Now I recognize it surely and really. Steve made me. If it had not been for the tools Steve and Apple created, I have not been who I am now.
Thank you, and so long, Steve. You are a true miracle at this stage of digital era. And may your truth continue to thrive in Apple hereafter ever.
