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http://www.edibleapple.com/2010/03/03/steve-jobs-referenced-good-ar...

If you can't win it, spin it.

What Steve meant by this quote was already explained in 1999, probably earlier too. This is way before the Apple haters started focussing solely on the word "stealing".

So you don't only call Steve/Apple a thief, but also Pablo Picasso.

It beats me why you would link a tribute video about someone you call a thief and a company you hate.

Everybody is a thief, especially in the technology industry. Apple fans find that a bad thing (except when it comes to Apple, of course, when it's no longer stealing but "inspiration" or "doing it right"), while most others don't.

Edited 2012-10-05 13:11 UTC

No, it's something you made up (in a rather generalizing way) about Apple fans and then ridicule them for it.

ok, this becoming quite wrongfully.

you can not comment Steve Jobs quote about "stealing" by watching short clip of 40 sec.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

(Bob X Cringely made HUGE error by cutting this 40 seconds for his film Triumph of the Nerds)

you NEED to see WHOLE contents so you will understand why Steve Jobs mention stealing at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vippzJheyE#! (3:50)

---

btw Cringley make same SHIT again with this trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj6bL18ht3w
if you cut Steve's quotes like this - it looks and sound ridicules and clueless! You can not take them out of contest...

Edited 2012-10-07 09:43 UTC

Why was this voted down?

Most likely he told an unpopular truth.

He wasn't off-topic, trolling or inaccurate, yet one of these options was chosen when a couple of readers voted him down.

And what did he mean by 'We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas'?

A computer, the GUI, media player, phone, tablet. Nothing Apple invented, but ideas they took and put their own spin on it.

They don't copy, like for example Samsung, but they use an existing idea as a basis and then create something in their own vision.

When you copy you create something that's the same, when you steal, which isn't meant in a literal sense, you make it your own. This is was Pablo Picasso meant and what Steve Jobs was referring too.

People who hate Apple/Steve, like Thom, only focus on the world "steal", because nobody likes thieves and claim this as proof that Apple copies others, but they ignore the fact that the word "copy" was already used earlier in the quote.

So, to summarise your post:

Apple builds on others != stealing.

Others build on Apple = stealing.

No:

Apple, and probably a number others too, take existing ideas and create products the way they think they should be done.

Most, like Samsung, create me-too products. Less risky, but also more boring.

Edited 2012-10-05 13:49 UTC

You are rather poor at 'summarizing' in this instance. Try reading the dude's post again.....slowly this time.

Yeah, seriously.

The THEFT of ideas Picasso and Steve Jobs were talking about has NOTHING to do with the COPY of design, functions and appearance!
During his lead, Apple never copied a product of a competing Company the way Samsung (clearly) did.

we get it apple invents and everybody else are stealing from apple

that court was a farce and should never be used!

The quote you mention comes from comes from Steve Jobs 1995. The Lost Interview. It's often used and it is always used in a way that pretends it is about one thing when it is really about another.

In response to the question "But how do you know what's the right direction?" Steve Jobs said:

Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you are doing.

Picasso had a saying. He said good artists copy great artists steal. We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists, and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn't been for computer science these people would have all been doing amazing things in life in other fields. And they brought with them to this effort [the Macintosh project] a very liberal arts attitude that we wanted to pull in the best we saw in these other fields into this field. I don't think you get that if you are very narrow.

So the oft used quote is about about bringing parts of other disciplines, from literature, art and culture, into computer science and product design. It is not about copying other products in part or in total.

What would, to use Jobs term, being very narrow mean in practice? Well it could mean endlessly dredging up a sentence from a Steve Jobs interview in 1995, taking it out of context, fetishising it, implying it is about one thing when it is about another, and then using it to try to pretend that Apple are not innovative and by implication that it is OK for other companies to rip off Apple designs.

If you're not on Apple's payroll yet, do apply with them as you are certainly missing on monetizing on your emotional vestment on that company.

Now there was a guy with talent and vision, Jobs was a long way behind this guy and his buddy Ken Thompson. Without those two there would be no Apple success story, no Jobs success story. I'll let those who don't know do their own research and join the dots together.

Exactly. It bothered me a year ago and it bothers me now. How lots of people went (an still go) on about Steve Jobs and not a word about Dennis Ritchie.

You can make a huge list of important people, inventors, scientists, explorers, painters, etc... but most people will only recognize the likes of Brad Pitt, Rihanna (who has at least 10 US number one hits vs 0 for Depeche Mode, go figure) or the current boy band.

Would anyone recognize Nikola Tesla? Or Isaac Newton? Or even heard of them or what they did?

Dennis Ritchie earned his place in history, but he wasn't in a boy band. Nor was Steve Jobs, but he got much more media attention during his live and lots of people use Apple products and while Steve was in charge Apple and Steve were basically the same thing.

Mention Ritchie and people don't know him. Mention C and it still doesn't ring a bell (pun intended), mention UNIX and some people may ask if that wasn't something like DOS where you had to type stuff.

More people know what Britney Spears had for breakfast than people know Dennis Ritchie.

I think most people would have a fair idea of what Isaac Newton did, and might even recognise his portrait. That distinctive barnet and sour expression ...

But your general point is valid. People's fame and adoration are not dependent of a fair measurement of their technical achievements.

One of Jobs' greatest achievements (besides the Apple II and the Mac and all that, you know, computery stuff) is the fabled Reality Distortion Field. An excessively long and hysterical period of mourning only adds to the RDF, increasing the total sum of his achievements and thereby validating the excessively long and hysterical period of mourning.

I think you give "most people" way too much credit.

Sure, I can see how it can be kinda the case in the UK and its culturally descendant places (the same way how in Poland most should have a basic idea and recognize the portrait of Copernicus, or have a very basic idea about Marie Skłodowska-Curie - but doubtful about her portrait, the most widespread ones aren't particularly iconic), but most of the 7 billion people? Not a chance, I'd say.

Edited 2012-10-10 15:00 UTC

And right here is why this excessive worship of all things Steve is ultimately ridiculous.

History remembers Tesla and Newton. They truly impacted culture and society. They advanced the human race.

In the future it will be Ritchie and Woz who are remembered. Jobs will be like Brittany Spears and Brad Pitt. No one will remember nor should they.

What do you call excessive worship of Steve? The video on the website of his own company, a year after his death, was more a trip-down-memory-lane than any kind of worshipping. Apart from that I don't know anyone who has a Steve tattoo or do I know of any Steve worshipping groups.

There are probably some that do worship Steve, but there are a number of strange people in this world. Had there been no Steve they would have picked someone else.

Dennis Ritchie will go down in computing history. Woz too, but only in a very small role. What did he do after the Apple I and II? Segway polo and a celebrity dancing show. He didn't come back to Apple (well, technically he never left as he's still on the payroll), saved it and made it in a huge profitable company.

If you talk about computer history from the 70's to the first decade of this century there is no way around Steve Jobs or Bill Gates with lesser roles, but important ones, for Jack Tramiel and Sir Clive Sinclair for example.

Whatever you think of Steve and Apple or Bill Gates and Microsoft, their products, their way of doing business, they played a mayor role the last couple of decades. They can not be forgotten unless you forget these decades, which is hard to do considering the enormous progress that has happened.

We're still talking about Steve. Do we ever talk about Michael Dell or any of the recent HP CEOs? And we only talk about Woz when he says something that the media spreads around.

Dennis Ritchie probably deserves more recognition, because of C and UNIX, two things that still play a mayor role in computing today which is quite a thing in the IT world where things move fast and become obsolete even faster sometimes.

But alas for Dennis C and UNIX and things that are hidden from the general public who do see iMacs, iPods, iPhones and iPads. You can't see that their inner workings can be traced back to Dennis, but you can see the Apple logo.

Now I like history and credit, so I think it would be very cool if Apple recognized people like Dennis, even if it's some tucked away about box.

How cool is it to know you're using a modern piece of hardware, running modern software, with roots all the way back to the late 60's? It's something you and I know, but also easy to forget.

Why does it bother you? That is a rather odd attitude to have to people celebrating the life of someone who was successful in his chosen field, and did a lot to push computing industry to where it is today.

The only reason this would bother you is if you have what is bordering on an irrational dislike of Steve Jobs to the point that other people praising him offends you, or rather your sense of "fairness".

Steve Jobs was more well known that Dennis Ritchie, more people knew him and what he was about. Dennis Ritchie chose a life away from the limelight, therefore he is less well known than Jobs. There is no inherent unfairness about this. It doesn't diminish his achievements the least bit.

This isn't about 'fairness', this is about the glorification of the sociopath.

Americans today 'worship' the sociopaths, the narcissists, and the 'bad guys & gals'.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/why-dont-the-psychopaths-on-...

What men like Jobs did to the financial sector is happening in technology as well. Yes, Page & Gates also fit this psychological description, however, they are not 'popular'. Their companies do not hold the popular appeal that Apple now does. Apple has also now become another company too big to fail. If it does, it literally would impact the American economy. There may be hope with these lawsuits if Apple loses either on appeal or another patent suit. There may be hope if Cook continues to 'act' human like his recent apology about the map app. Jobs would NEVER have done that.

As part of my professional work, I deal with the effects of the human psychology on business and the effects of business on the human psychology.

So this is why I am concerned. It affects us all when men like Jobs are worshiped and men like Ritchie are forgotten. It is supremely rational to not like the unlikeable.

Still missing the point. Ritchie decided to live a life of obscurity, and therefore he is unknown. Steve Jobs was very well known, and he did cultivate a very specific public persona.

Yes, Steve Jobs was a hard task master, but one thing is obvious. No one who worked with him really said much bad about him. Not even Jon Rubinstein, or Tony Faddell.

Yes, he had a reputation for being a hard taskmaster, but Apple wasn't losing people. He wasn't a pushover, and he didn't employ pushovers either. He may have lacked social skills, but nowadays, we call that being a geek.

And comparing Steve Jobs to bankers is absurd. How many of those bankers founded their own banks, let alone two or three? How many didn't actually care for money like Steve Jobs? How many actually put their own wealth at risk as Steve Jobs did at least twice. Steve Jobs had the courage of his convictions, and wanted to shape the world in the way he saw fit. He did so, people loved his products, and he became extremely wealthy.

So only those who seek the limelight are worthy of 'fame'? As Ritchie didn't do so he is not worthy. But because Jobs was charismatic and worked it his adult life, he therefore is? Yeah, who is missing the point?

He didn't just have a reputation as being a hard taskmaster, he was an abusive boss, an asshole, a theif, a liar, and a borderline sociopath. A simple search bears out that truth from former employees op-eds when he died to Walter Issacson's biography. Jobs never put his own wealth at risk as at his death his personal wealth was predominantly in Disney who bought Pixar. For someone who 'didn't care about money', why did he lie to his friend Woz about the money Atari offered so that in the end, after Woz did the work, he got several hundred dollars and Steve kept several thousand dollars?

He is exactly like the sociopaths in the banking world. They did the same sorts of things - lied, cheated, manipulated, etc. They and their companies destroyed their industry. This is about the men not the particular 'industry' they are in, but hey you knew that didn't you?

Jobs didn't have the courage of his convictions. What a load of BS. He used people. He took ideas from others. He pushed people abusively. He had his vision and damn anyone who didn't agree with that vision. And Apple is the same. We don't want Google Maps so therefore you as our customer don't want it either even if we give you an inferior product.

Push where computing industry is today? Surely you must mean stifling progress by launching Patent World War?...

Or maybe the overall and quite overt goal of barring "lesser people" - vast majority of human population - from technology advancements? (Apple openly aims to target only the few most profitable % of human population; Apple also openly acts to block other manufacturers from using any supposed innovation brought by Apple; bringing those two to their logical synthesis...)

Yep. That man has my respect. BTW, I would've modded you up for that comment, but I already posted here...

It goes further - in the grand picture, when we see cars from the past, we generally think "oh, that's a car from the turn of XIX/XX century" or "that's a car from 20s-30s" or "that's a car from the ~50s" and so on. Being able to tell the difference between contemporary brands & models is a very temporary thing. Similar with TVs.

Oh, and we were to thoroughly follow that particular book of mythology, Eve was just a de-rated knock-off of Lilith. Adam also "in image"... (but, since our deities look like us only because... we thought of them, we created them - the same way how the gods of giraffes would look like giraffes - it's circular at this point)

Bravo Sierra! I use a Dell at work running Win 7 Enterprise...no Quicktime installed, and I was just up at Apple's site yesterday....cool it with your FUD.

There are Quicktime plugins for all OS that matter as desktop systems.

no one outside mac os x is interested in bloated quicktime for windows

True, but the plugin exists nonetheless.

totem plugin works with quicktime videos

Edited 2012-10-08 21:08 UTC

Thats funny, because I've just viewed it on a new installation of Linux Mint XFCE with Firefox. Works fine.

When did Steve Jobs sue The Beatles?

The quote has been explained quite a few times. I'm sure Thom and other Apple/Steve haters understand it, but they keep pretending they don't.

That's why Thom and others never discus it, instead replying with silly one liners or sidestepping it entirely.

It's sad that someone who claims to find it imporant we should know our history rewrites it simply because he hates a person and his company, although he did buy an iMac.

Except, Picasso never bloody well said that! That is revisionism and worship of Jobs at its best. It was T.S. Elliot who said something along those lines. Then Jobs uttered that it was Picasso, warped it to fit his need, and here we are today arguing over the content that he couldn't even get right.

Look, Jobs was a brilliant narcissist. He could say exactly what someone, anyone wanted to hear. He always had a justification for his behavior, good or bad, and said and did the opposite with regards to others. He 'copied' and 'innovated' on the shoulders of others. But god damned if any body else can do that with Apple.

The Reality Distortion Field is a part of the charm of a narcissist. Apple & Jobs said never would they produce a 7" iPad, yet here we are a month away from the production of one. It will be over-priced, shiny, and with the Apple logo something that all 'people' just have got to have. That is the legacy of Jobs, and what history will remember is not what Apple & Jobs gave but rather what a sociopathic CEO & his company took from the computing industry.

Picasso did say that and Elliot said "Immature poets imitate. Mature poets steal". So Picasso probably got inspired by Elliot and Steve quoted Picasso.

But it doesn't really matter who said what, but rather what it means. What it means is explained here a few times and can be found on a number of sites.

Repeating a meme doesn't make it true. It is a rumor, and it was T.S. Elliot (who didn't even use those words!) and many before him including Shakespeare.

The point is that Jobs used that quote to justify his 'way' but is it ok now for others to 'steal' from Apple and innovate the future of mobile computing as well?

http://gizmodo.com/5483914/steve-jobs-1996-good-artists-copy-great-...

For the current crop of Apple supporters, the answer is no. For those of us neutral to corporate love but following the tech industry closely because it is either our work or influences greatly our work & culture, if the answer is no, the consequences are not good for all us.

Steve didn't justify, he explained how he and Apple worked.

How business is conducted by Apple and others these days is something you can discuss in great lengths, but it doesn't have any influence on what Steve meant with that quote which a number of people are unable to understand or simple refuse to understand.

I understand perfectly well what he meant and why he said it. I can also look at how he and Apple acted prior to that and after that including now with companies like Samsung.

It is pointless to get you or any Apple supporter to actually look at facts within context.

The dumbing down of western culture indeed and the rise of the superstar sociopath CEO's.

Edited 2012-10-07 14:41 UTC

You may understand it, or at least say you do, but many others don't.

Wether Apple is hypocritical about it doesn't matter and another discussion, although I don't doubt you can make a good case about that they are.

The only thing I tried to do was explain the quote which so many Apple/Steve haters misuse.

It's okay to not like some person or some company, but when wrong arguments are presented I simply try to correct them.

In each Apple related discussion, which is about almost every topic on this site, I see people say or claim "facts" about Apple, Steve Jobs or their hard- and software that aren't true. And it's sad that when someone explains why it's not true they get modded down and people who write childish, wrong or illogical stuff get modded up and cheered on.

When I was full-time in to Linux the same thing happened with Microsoft and Bill Gates. I didn't like Windows or Microsoft, but in the end I spend time more defending them than I did promoting Linux.

Well..

What happened to Samsung was totally deserved.
It's not round corners and dumb lawyers or jury.

Samsung copied iPhone almost to the last milimeter.

They did a clone of the iPhone, a little better in quality when compared to Chinese clones, but in essence - they copied.

Apple is totally right when it goes after iPhone cloners and tells them to make their own phones.

Samsung's Galaxy S3 is a step to the right direction.
But Apple made them do it.

I hope we'll see more original phones, creative competition, and therefore, less litigation.


FYI, I am not an (exclusive) Apple fan. I own both an (older) iPhone and a (more modern) Android phone (2.2). I like iOS better because it has more unix in it, and can be used as a very portable unix machine with terminal etc. I cannot say that about Android.

heh... RDF.

please check: Jobs never said that!

it looks like that you are in RDF and you wish that Jobs said that

yours (and all Apple haters) problem is that you NEVER listen what Steve have to say really - all you do is just looking for something that you could turn around and make him look like a boozo or bad person... it is a shame.

I don't know if Steve did or didn't say that, but he did say a number of things only to change his mind later on.

At the time the were designing the iPad they thought they had the right size. Times and technology change, making it possible to make a smaller tablet that doesn't suck. Had the released a much smaller iPad in 2010 it would indeed have been "just a big iPod touch". Now they can do more pixels.

There is also some marketing involved sometimes. For example Steve said they wouldn't do a video iPod and then they did. Had Steve admitted they were going to do one the sales of the current models would have plummeted.

Apple tends to deny doing anything until they have already done it. They don't announce products before they are ready to be shipped. If they want to let the public know in advance they prefer to leak stuff to the WSJ for example.

If one reads the Steve Jobs biography you'd know he tends to say no to a lot of things until he's really convinced and his no turns in to a big yes.

Seriously? What an idiot most of you Apple fans have become. This is a PERFECT example of the RDF!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57486828-37/steve-jobs-7-inch-tab...

In this article you get the exact verbatim transcript from 2010 of Jobs dissing the 7" tablets and obviously stating that Apple had no interest in apps for the 7" nor a 7" iPad as 10" was perfect according to their research and development.

So, was it a bait and switch? Maybe Cook is smart enough to realize Apple needs to look to that market as well?

Facts are facts even if you think they aren't.

He said "These are among the reasons we think the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival."

The reasons are 6 in total, 3 related to the screen size, 3 aren't. It's about the "current crop", this was in October 2010. How well did those 7" tablets do? I can't even name any.

I can only conclude that he was right at that moment in time. Now Apple can put more pixels on the screen, meaning a smaller iPad can still display everything a normal iPad can. They couldn't do that in 2010, meaning a 7" iPad would have sucked.

Many of us predicted that eventually Apple would do a 7" and the faithful followers were respond exactly as you have.

Humans are sadly predictable when they refuse to think critically.

I won't try debate with you further. Enjoy your morning.

It's afternoon here, but never mind that.

I gave no opinion on whether Apple would/should do a smaller iPad. The only thing I did was put Steve's words in to context.

At the time, October 2010, he was right. Right now there is no 7" iPad. The only thing that is here is a rumor that they might announce once this month, 2 years later compared to 2010.

What a lot of anti-Apple folks predicted was that the large iPod touch would fail, this didn't happen.

You seem like a smart person, which makes it disappointing you continue to ignore arguments and use quotes out of context. If that what it takes to be "right" it almost always means you're not.

@TM99 can you diluted mind (thank you for calling me "idiot") process this informations?

it is unbelievable how easy you mark someone as fanboy and dismiss his opinion and continue to live in RDF where Steve Jobs apparently said: "never would they produce a 7"...

this is something that all fandroids do: take out of context Steve words and make him look like idiot.


btw I did buy 7" Android tablet two yours ago... and use it for one month before I sold it.

Edited 2012-10-09 08:11 UTC

Do you know the origin of the word "idiot"? It is from the Greek meaning to lack expertise or knowledge. I would say that perfectly describe you even though my post never once directly called you one.

Sorry, I am not a 'fandroid'. Never have been. Sorry, I have used Apple products since they began. I have also used Sun, Microsoft, HP, NeXT, etc. Sorry, I didn't take Jobs statements out of context.

Read this link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57486733-37/heres-apples-e-mail-t...

It is quite representative of what the industry and media were led to believe by Jobs comments on the 7" tablets. Here is the relevant sentence: "Jobs was known to flip-flop on major ideas, and misdirect about potential business avenues, though his comments about smaller tablets suggested the company would never go that direction."

Look, enjoy your choice of computing platform. I would never want to deny you that choice. But, if you and others try to deny my choices, then I will call you out. And Apple's ridiculous patent 'victories' are going to continue to have a chilling effect on the future of choice in the computing industry.

It is always fascinating to watch the human mind go through defenses and projections in order to align its choices with the opposing reality of what is. That is delusion.

Appletroll calling everybody who doesn't bow down to steve jobs image an apple and steve jobs hater

Ah, the Fin who hates Finland. Could you show me where I ever asked someone to bow for Steve Jobs or for that matter any one else?

so you hate finland troll idiot go and ride your ibrator!

No, I don't hate Finland.

Most Dutch like the northern countries and people, but most Dutch don't know you I guess. Still, I don't think a single person would be able to change the opinion of a large mass regarding an entire country, even if he's totally weird.

Hitler? (Godwin hammer strikes down!)

Though I guess you can't say he did it alone... but OTOH, not even strictly to his own country (and nobody seems to hate Austria, even)

Cleveland seems to be not so popular, although it isn't a country despite the name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YpXTTPlqcM

This in no way changes that SJ was, say, a total hypocrite and lacking integrity when he accused Android of being a "stolen product" - and launched Patent World War based on that...
Overall it's probably safe to say that he presented the past simply as was convenient to him.

(yes, past tenses; you write in present tenses, it almost seems like you think that SJ has anything to say at all: http://www.osnews.com/permalink?537794 - you have... issues, if you think that)