Last night I watched Steve Jobs, the movie. It was okay -- I wished the story expanded beyond the earlier days and was left wanting for more detail around how Apple the company came to life.
Also, the movie stopped short of the come back in 1997 -- take for example this excellent Q&A Steve Jobs did at the WWDC that year. In that respect, I enjoyed much more Pirates of Silicon Valley, an earlier movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
I'll be curious to see how Alan Sorkin brings the story to life -- especially if Christian Bale ends up playing Jobs#, as early rumors indicate. Jobs continues to draw interest.
One of the quotes that stands out in the short video with Steve Jobs' funniest moments I embedded in this post is the bit about customers:
"They pay us to make a lot of those choices. That's what customers pay us to do. To try the best products we can. If we succeed, they'll buy them."
The part where he talks about the direct to the people who buy end of business vs. enterprise where the user is not the person who makes the purchase, this duality and the way technology is changing how we use it should be internalized by anyone working to sell product to people. End users are making more and more decisions, even in organizations, and voting with their wallets.
Like I did in years past, I have been following the announcements coming out of the annual Apple WWDC conference. Overall, Joshua Topolski at the Verge# nails it by commenting this is an Apple with its game on:
the big announcements of the day also reflect that new vibe from Apple. It wasn't just the wholehearted embracing and praising of its developer community (though that most certainly happened in a big way). It was the core of Apple's new message: how can we help you?
You need only look at something like iOS 8's new extensibility, which opens up first- and third-party apps to additive features from any developer, or the loosening of boundaries on things like third-party keyboards and widgets, or the open access to Touch ID. It's obvious that Apple is ready to break down some of its long-standing barriers and let people inside.
They literally and figuratively said, "We hear you, we want to give you the things you're asking for, and this is the first step." The introduction of iCloud Drive and iCloud's new photo-management scheme show this very well — a simplification around a basic idea that makes a user's work much easier (and also proves that Apple is starting to get the web after years of lagging behind competitors).
The announcements (via Dan Frommer#):
- vastly larger cloud storage library for photos;
- a Dropbox-like storage service called iCloud Drive;
- the ability to start writing an email on one device and finish on another;
- family sharing for iTunes accounts;
- the ability to sync text messages—not just Apple’s proprietary iMessages—between devices; and the ability to use a Mac or iPad to conduct phone calls via a connected iPhone.
- You’ll also more easily be able to beam photos between an iPhone and Mac using Apple’s AirDrop feature.
- Apple also introduced a handful of new cloud-centered features for software developers. These range from a service called CloudKit, which inexpensively powers cloud features for apps, to new dashboards for managing health and home automation apps, devices, and services, and a cloud-based app testing service.
It does sound like the "Apple doesn't get the cloud era" is officially over#.
In closing, I will leave you to a pivotal moment in the Jobs biopic I watched last night: the birth of the Apple Macintosh. Watch it below.
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Valeria is an experienced listener. She designs service and product experiences to help businesses rediscover the value of promises and its effect on relationships and culture. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. Book her to speak here.