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6th October 2011

Post

On Design and Steve Jobs

Before I had heard of Steve Job’s death yesterday, I had looked up the announcement date of the original iPhone (Jan. 2007). The iPhone has defined the look, feel, and function of all subsequent smartphones for the last five years. Whether it’s Android, Windows Mobile, WebOS or any other platform, they’re all measured against the basic actions people experience from that original phone.

Five years is long time in this business where the average replacement time for phones is between 13 and 17 months. One question that keeps coming back to me is whether it’s time for a fundamental change in the way a phone interacts with its owner. If you’re going to change the way services are delivered to a person through the phone, but keep it in a “familiar” user interface, does that make it distinctive enough for them to buy. In other words, if just looks and behaves like an iPhone or Android clone, why not just buy them instead.

This brings me to Steve Jobs. The words “fundamentally change” are an accolade that you maybe get once in your lifetime. Jobs has gotten that many times in his life:

  • He redefined how we use a computer with the Mac
  • He took a computer graphics company, Pixar, and created some of most heart warming stories through its movies
  • He got everyone to think of music as ‘songs’ and not ‘albums’ through the idea of “Rip, mix, burn”, pissing of the music industry in the process
  • He got the same music industry to enable people to download music instead of buying a CD
  • He got people think of their phone as something more than calling and texting people
  • and, He got everyone to think of their computer as a flatscreen you touch instead of something with a keyboard.

I can’t think of many people that accomplished so much, and still the most important point in his passing for me was that in the end he was surrounded by a loving family. We should all be so fortunate.