Steve Jobs Resigns from Apple

[mr_pikachu]

Yes, apparently it's true. Steve Jobs, one of the most influential business icons of the past few decades, a man who many revere as the savior of Apple with his innovative concepts and tremendous speaking charisma, has just announced his resignation from the computing giant.

According to Reuters,

Silicon Valley legend Steve Jobs on Wednesday resigned as chief executive of Apple Inc in a stunning move that ended his 14-year reign at the technology giant he co-founded in a garage.

Apple shares were suspended from trade before the announcement. They had gained 0.7 percent to close at $376.18.

The pancreatic cancer survivor and industry icon, who has been on medical leave for an undisclosed condition since January 17, will be replaced by COO and longtime heir apparent Tim Cook.

"I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come," he said in a brief letter announcing his resignation.

This is just awesome for me, as one of the courses I'm teaching for the next four months uses a textbook that's all about Jobs' presentational techniques. Tomorrow's class will be... interesting.

Feel free to discuss while I rewrite my next 20 lesson plans.

[Drago]

Jobs is staying on however, as chairman of the board.

We'll see how active he stays in this lesser role.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

We here are looking closely on how this will affect on the competition with Nokia. I've never had an IPhone, but that isn't because of 'HAIL FINLANDIA'-attitude. I heard Iphones are great for every other stuff but suck at basic functions. As if Nokia cell phones were better, every single model has a little different interface, making them confusing. Hopefully the co-operation with Microsoft will bring some sense there. But then again, Microsoft has some failures like Millenium and Vista, too. I liked Vista to some extent, though.

[ChobiChibi]

My iPhone is fine on it's basic phone functions. And my previous one was. I didn't think Nokia was that popular anymore...

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

IPhone? Oops, I meant iPhone. Anyway, Nokia is in a big financial trouble, that's why they were so willing to co-operate with Microsoft.

[Leon-IH]

All Jobs (and Apple, for that matter) ever did was clone other companies products and throw marketing at them.

[shazza]

All Jobs (and Apple, for that matter) ever did was clone other companies products and throw marketing at them.

What? Apple have always been one of the most innovative technology companies since the 80s. It is Microsoft that have more frequently played copy cat.

Anyway, Steve Jobless.

[Heald]

Apple saw a gap in the market for people who can't use computers and made computers for them (right-clicking seemed beyond a lot of people so they just removed the right mouse button. Simples!). Turns out quite a lot of people can't use computers.

Then they made a quite nice mp3 player, although there were better ones on the market that didn't have as good marketing.

Then they made a really nice phone and even though better rival models are on the market it is still the strongest model out there, even if it does have some pretty ridiculous flaws (unjustifiably high price tag, no hot-swappable memory, can't automatically set songs as ringtones, stupid text jingles that you need to download special software to change, no flash, lousy touch keyboard, pretty weak in-built apps, can't swap files using bluetooth etc.) (nb I know there are apps out there that circumvent some of these problems but the point is you shouldn't need to download some third-party app in order to fix a very basic issue that Apple should have fixed before release and even since updated or patched).

Although forgive me if I don't think making stuff over-priced and simplistic and then sticking an Apple logo on it, making it white and putting a stupidly high-price tag on it counts as being 'innovative'.

Also, Apple is the only store I've seen where you constantly see big lines of people queuing up for the tech support and people actually have to make bookings in some places in order to see the tech support because of how shitty some of their products are, or how easily they break.

[Becky]

Brian's exaggerating, but Jobs' departure as CEO made for a nice introduction to the course text in the class I teach (Brian and I are the two instructors for this course).

Say what you will about the business and political side of Apple, but as a presenter, it's undeniable that Jobs' style is so influential that he's had everything from a book written entirely about his speaking ability to SNL skits that parody his persona.

[Dark Sage]

I saw this coming for months. He was sick. Logic said that he was going to resign due illness evetually.

[Leon-IH]

What? Apple have always been one of the most innovative technology companies since the 80s. It is Microsoft that have more frequently played copy cat.

Completely and totally untrue, I'll admit that Microsoft has played copy cat on occasion (though Apple did so too).

However if you consider what Microsoft has done in corporate environments, including a lot of things the average user never even knows about, they've really changed how computers work.

[Classtoise]

Now whose dick do Apple fans have to suck to get the iphone 6: Now With Coverage?