• Steve Jobs to Nike CEO: ‘Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff’

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Featured, iPad, iPhone, Rants & Raves, Steve Jobs, Tech. No Responses

    Carmine Gallo shares this interesting story on Forbes, shortly after becoming CEO, Mark Parker talked to Steve Jobs on the phone asking for some tips:

    “Do you have any advice?” Parker asked Jobs. “Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world.  Products that you lust after.  But you also make a lot of crap.  Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”

    Jobs was “absolutely right,” Parker admitted, adding that Nike “had to edit” when making business decisions:

    Parker said Jobs paused and Parker filled the quiet with a chuckle.  But Jobs didn’t laugh.  He was serious. “He was absolutely right,” said Parker.  “We had to edit.”

    Parker used the word ‘edit’ not in a design sense but in the context of making business decisions.  Editing also leads to great product designs and effective communications. According to Steve Jobs, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on.  But that’s not what it means at all.  It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.  I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.  Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.”

    But “Can anyone innovate like Apple?”

    The simple answer: While anyone can learn the principles that drive Apple’s innovation, few businesses have the courage to do so.  It takes courage to reduce the number of products a company offers from 350 to 10, as Jobs did in 1998.  It takes courage to remove a keyboard from the face of a smartphone and replace those buttons with a giant screen, as Jobs did with the iPhone.  It takes courage to eliminate code from an operating system to make it more stable and reliable, as Apple did with Snow Leopard.  It takes courage to feature just one product on the home page of a Web site as Apple does with each new major product launch.  It takes courage to make a product like the iPad that is so simple a child can use it.  And it takes courage to eliminate all of the words on a PowerPoint slide except one, as Steve Jobs often does in a presentation.

  • South Park Takes on Apple’s Location Tracking Fiasco

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Funny, Humor, iPhone, Parody, Steve Jobs, TV Shows No Responses

    For 14 years, South Park has taken the news and given it a unique and timely twist with a no-holds-barred candor that often leaves viewers in stitches. Tonight’s Season 15 premiere—which took on the issue of Apple’s secret tracking of iPhone and iPad users and added a disgustingly sinister twist courtesy of Steve Jobs—continued that tradition in truly stellar form. Watch out the humorous video below:

    [via: gawker]

  • iSteve: ‘The Book of Jobs’ First Authorized Biography of Steve Jobs Coming Early 2012

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Books, News, Rants & Raves, Steve Jobs No Responses

    The first authorized biography of Steve Jobs which dubbed iSteve: The Book of Jobs by Walter Isaacson will be published in early 2012 by Simon and Shuster as announced sunday by ABCNews. Here is what Fortune had to say about the man who won Jobs’ trust:

    The Jobs book will be his fourth major biography. In addition to Kissinger: A Biography (1992) he has written Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) and Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007). His most recent book is American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane (2009).

    How did Walter manage to win the trust of Steve Jobs, a man whose penchant for secrecy, and his contempt for journalists, are legendary? Says Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Priscilla Painton, Isaacson’s editor and a Time alumna: “It was Walter’s idea. And you know Walter — he just worked at it.” Fortune has a great profile on Isaacson who has a long history of convincing notable people to tell them their story.

    The Jobs book was announced in February of last year but with no title and release date.

  • Android 3.0 Honeycomb Apps List is Only 17

    // Gradly // Android, Apple, blog, google, Humor, iPad, News, Rants & Raves, Steve Jobs No Responses

    While introducing iPad 2 last month, Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs described the competitive market for tablet apps on Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb as having “at most 100 apps.” The actual Android catalog appears to be closer to 17. as noted by Appleinsider.

    Jobs noted that the iOS App Store now has over 350,000 titles, of which 65,000 “take full advantage of the iPad,” drawing attention to “consumption apps, creation apps and fantastic games, and a lot of apps for business and vertical markets apps like medical. The things people are doing here are amazing,” Jobs said.

    “That compares to our competitors, who are trying to launch these days with at most 100 apps. And I think we’re being a little generous here. This is a huge advantage we have,” Jobs added.

    A review of Google’s Android Marketplace tablet offerings “featured for tablets” depicts just 50 apps, but as blogger Justin Williams notes, “most are upconverted and offer no significant advantages on a tablet other than a larger screen.”

    Looking only at apps that either require Android 3.0 or have a user interface “specifically designed for a tablet experience,” Williams counted only 17.