Apple Analyst Explains Significance of Mac on its 30th Anniversary & How to Find Next Steve Jobs

Jan. 29, 2014 - PRLog -- On the Apple Macintosh's 30th Anniversary, here's my take on what the Mac is really all about - and why that matters.

• Step one was about proviiding easy to use platform and tools tovisualze the world - and marketing the "packaged product."
• Step two......?

TEXT OF ALAN BRODY'S ANALYSIS
Can Apple reinvent the future or is it still imprisoned by its past?
(And how do they find the next Jobs? Seriously.)

That’s the big question and the 30th Anniversary of the Mac because everything Apple has accomplished stems from the introduction of that cute little computer. The one the business world laughed at. The one that got Jobs fired.

Full article at:

http://ibreakfast.blogspot.com/2014/01/remembering-mac-after-30-years-so-whats.html

More:The Mac launched 30 Superbowl's ago. On the eve of this one, here is what happened with the Mac and what it has accomplished since.

In the same way that people laughingly thought 2012 would somehow end the world, in 1984, people thought some type of Orwellian mind control conspiracy would blanket the planet. Then along came that ad as a breath of fresh air. The computer was no longer just about IBM mainframe technopriests and hobbyist wonks – it was about something creative and tangible, something a generation that was nervous about being left behind by technology could embrace. Something they actually loved – visualizing thoughts on a computer.

 The core of this breakthrough was the visual analogy of a desktop. Just as important was the way you navigated it - with a mouse – and for the first time, computing became a tactile experience and all those mind-numbing text commands were gone.  Now you could you see what you were actually doing instead of waiting for the computer to compile your commands and render out results. The watchword was WYSIG – What you See is What You Get. Idea visualization and mind augmentation -fancy names for things we take for granted today - were still years away but every Mac owner could imagine a whole newkind of visual world.

Steve Jobs went from being a young hero of the personal computer revolution to its head visionary. Suddenly, young urban professionals and creative types were part of the dronish computer world. What was once fearsomely dull was all cool now. Jobs bought an apartment in Manhattan and even dated Madonna.

Then it began to unravel.

............


So what’s next? That depends on what you make of Jobs’ Mac legacy. Apple managers have tended to drive the product down, creating improvements but lacking the imagination to hit a home run. Newton is one of the few breakaway products during Jobs’ missing, wilderness years. It failed because the power wasn’t there and the software was just too limited to be really useful.  Under Jobs the “Apple Way” was all about something the original Apple Evangelist, Guy Kawasaki called DICEE: Deep, Indulgent, Complete, Elegant, Emotive. All good to know but it took more than that. You had to know where to find the fire - one that relates to the Mac DNA and the suits rarely get that..

So what really made the Mac so special? Technically, they had developed a semiotics machine - something that enabled you to deconstruct knowledge and display it in simple visuals. You only have to look at TV footage and newspapers from the 70's to see how everything has changed. The underlying technology of object oriented software embodied in SmallTalk  enabled all functions on the Mac to be expressed via a library of essential shapes and functions which could be combined, scaled and otherwise manipulated. You could label any functions or expression with intuitive images – icons – acting as an analogy of the real work. The desktop, workflow, spreadsheet ledgers, database files and so on. Today, it how you child can operate the most sophisticate computer or smartphone wihout ever having opened a manual. (Remember manuals?)

What Jobs did well, was to go after a complex, fractured and hard-to-envision worlds and make it understandable to anyone. That is why he defaulted to education and flourished in the disruptive early days of digital music and overcomplicated smartphones.

So what's next for Apple?

My rule of thumb isL if Apple goes after an emerging, highly diruputive and massively appealing but complicated marketplace, they can win. If it is wearable computing or watches that really have to use it in a way that enable a new paradigm of activity. Incremental moves won't work here.

The problem is, to make a breakthough, then we need to know they have a great leader otherwise all bets are off the table. Tim Cook is a great caretaker but he is not the visionary – and Wall Street is discounting Apple because of that.

Who is the next Jobs, everyone asks?

My advice is, don’t collect resumes, Apple HR. Do what the Tibetan Monks do and ago out looking for his reincarnation. You'll know him when you see him - or her. And they probably won’t be a nice guy. It is only their products we will love.

Full article at:
http://ibreakfast.blogspot.com/2014/01/remembering-mac-af...

© 2014 Alan Brody