Steve Jobs, 1955-2011 – an annotated graphic

It may no longer be news that Apple’s charismatic CEO Steve Jobs died last night, but we offer these two graphics here as supplementary elucidation on the nature of Jobs’ impact on Apple as a company, technology as a discipline and the world as a leader in thought and design.

Click on the graphics for an expanded view.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Steve Jobs and the growth of Apple

Also, you may wish to take the time to read E&T’s commentaries on Jobs’ passing, as well as some of our recent coverage of Jobs’ reign as Apple’s CEO.

Steve Jobs, RIP

Steve Jobs, Umberto Eco and why Mac computers are Catholic

Apple’s Steve Jobs hands on the baton

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs resigns

Steve Jobs: end of an era? Oh be serious.

Apple CEO agrees to participate in a book about his life

Apple becomes the world’s most valuable company – an annotated graphic

Apple has become the world’s most valuable company, deposing oil giant Exxon. Apple is now worth an estimated $337 billion, with shares up 13 per cent this year thanks to sales of the iPad and iPhone.

Click on the graphic for a larger view.

Apple milestones

So where’s the innovation?

I had a choice last night to listen to an influential orator who in the past has announced great products and has influenced millions around the world, but whose tragic flaw is his ego and arrogance – which will inevitably be his downfall. But enough about Tony Blair. I chose instead to watch the streamed Apple fall press conference. 

Apple announced the immediate availability of a new iPod Touch and Nano; and the imminent availability of a new version of Apple TV – the company’s hobby. 

iPod Nano

The nano multitouch interface looks like a welcome advance and consigns the original track wheel to the dustbin of history. Some fans will no doubt lament its passing.

 

iPod Touch

The iPod Touch with its retina display, front facing and back camera was widely expected and reaffirms the theory that it is an iPhone with trainer wheels. Clearly, it will still be popular with those who want the functionality of an iPhone, but don’t want to give up on their Blackberries just yet. I’ve never seen the iPod Touch as being a device for the Apple pure-at-heart.

 

Whether these new features will prevent iPod Touch sales being eroded by the sales cannibalisation since the introduction of the iPad. The product finds itself in a strange niche.

Apple TV

Apple TV gets the biggest overhaul. Now its UI is based on Apple’s mobile UI rather than its desktop version. In this respect, it is little more than iPad without a multitouch screen. No wonder Apple has managed to reduce the price so much.  Its basically an iPad without a screen or storage!

 

At £99 its an attractive price for a set top box, but there is already plenty of competition out there. For example, DLink has partnered with Boxee to deliver a set top box that does everything that Apple TV does and can play absolutely any codec or format you can throw at it – no file conversion needed.

Another thing that Boxee has is social networking capability. It is built from the ground-up with social networking in mind. Something that iTunes 10 has recently added. Not new or innovative, but it will succeed where the likes of MySpace and Napster 2.0 have failed because the muscle it has in the market and the fact that iTunes already boasts hundreds of millions of paid subscribers.

Jobs’ ‘Star Trek’ videocall gaffe

‘iPhone brings Star Trek to the modern world’ claims the Times story headline:

Apple has placed video calling at the centre of its new iPhone, [a feature that] that got the 5,000 crowd at the Worldwide Developers Conference most excited. Steve Jobs, founder and chief executive of Apple, introduced the new service to whoops of delight when he called to Jony Ive, the company’s British-born designer. “I grew up with The Jetsons and Star Trek, just dreaming about video calling. Now it’s real,” Mr Jobs said.

However, as any Trekkie know, the handheld devices features in the cult sci-fic series were not actually videocall-capable, as better-informed people at Trekmovie.com make clear, but it did show a kind of desktop videocalling system. And the same applies to The Jetsons: