by Mark Milian
Sometimes Apple products can suffer from being overhyped. Often, the hype was warranted, as evidenced by high sales and happy customers. Apple itself has an aggressive hype machine, and Steve Jobs was its wizard operator. The contents of each one of the seemingly inconsequential e-mails described in this chapter made headlines on countless technology news websites. Fans and reporters pored over each one-word or few-line message for clues to Apple’s future directions. Steve managed to control the narrative in many cases through e-mails, and through the innovative and accelerated game of telephone that shuffled a message from Steve through a customer and to thousands of people obsessively checking the blogs as often as they refresh their own inboxes.
Chapter 4
Attachment
Like an unfit father, Apple was taken from Steve Jobs once. “How can you get fired from a company you started?” Steve asked rhetorically in a commencement speech to Stanford University’s 2005 graduating class. Steve had adopted the paternal analogy, once telling Wired’s Steven Levy about tough managerial decisions made after his return to the company: “I was Dad. And that was hard.” Steve Jobs became especially protective of Apple, as he was for his own children. If Steve willfully hurt anyone, often it would be in self-defense.
“I love Apple so much,” he wrote in his bleak notice of medical leave in 2010, his last before resigning. When defending the company, Steve sometimes broke from his typical brevity in order to expound on why Apple made the choices that it did or on what Apple believes in.
In one such instance, tech blogger Robin Miller wrote to Steve shortly after the iPod’s debut in 2001. The subject line was, “Why does the iPod exist?” and Robin went on to criticize its high price tag and its inability to interface with Windows computers. Robin compared the iPod to the G4 Cube, an attractive, monitor-less computer that failed to catch on.
“If there was ever a product that catalyzed what’s Apple’s reason for being, it’s this,” Steve said of the iPod to Steven Levy, the reporter, “Because it combines Apple’s incredible technology base with Apple’s legendary ease of use with Apple’s awesome design … it’s like, this is what we do. So if anybody was ever wondering why is Apple on the earth, I would hold this up as a good example.” Steve’s response to Robin’s e-mail was less ostentatious and more analytical, almost as if presenting to a jury his closing arguments.
From: Steve Jobs
Date: Tue Oct 23, 2001 10:40 PM
To: Robin Miller
Subject: Re: Why does the iPod exist?
I respectfully would like to disagree with you, Robin. The iPod has many breakthroughs that have never been seen before in a portable digital music device.
Just to name a few advances:
- The iPod holds a 1000 songs and fits in your pocket
- The iPod weighs just 6.5 ozs
- The iPod has a state-of-the-art lithium polymer battery so that it plays continuously for 10 hours
- The iPod has Apple's legendary easy to use interface
- The iPod has a unique scroll wheel so you can operate it with one hand
- The iPod uses FireWire to load all your music on it at a blazing 5 to 10
seconds per CD
- The iPod also charges itself over FireWire, fast charging to 80% in just one hour
- The iPod automatically syncs with your iTunes library so it is easy to
get all your music and playlists on it
- The iPod is also a portable 5GB HD
I could go on and on. The iPod is the first truly usable portable digital music player and hopefully will, with all it's innovations, make this new product category a success. Other products may be priced anywhere from $50 to $500 but none have been worth their price because they just haven't worked yet (they are big, slow, have bad UIs, are hard to update, etc etc.).
There are many consumer products people pay about $400 for today (TVs, Stereos, Bikes, DVD players, Microwaves, Satellite dishes, game systems, cameras, camcorders, etc.). More importantly breakthrough category devices like CD Players, DVD players, cell phones, Walkmans, and more have appeared in this price range and been very large successes. What is important is that the product deliver on an important need while also providing a great value. I may be biased but I think iPod does both far better than any consume digital audio product yet.
Steve
A reply that long from Steve is rare, but he had broken from his usual one- to three-word responses for similarly combative challenges.When Leo Prieto wrote on June 29, 2004 to Apple executives accusing them of stealing the concept for Konfabulator, the desktop widgets platform that was later acquired by Yahoo, and adapting it for Apple’s own Dashboard feature, Steve wrote: “Excuse me, but Mac OS 9 had desktop Widgets long before Konfabulator did. Apple was the first to use the term Widgets as well. We never complained when the Konfabulator guys ‘ripped off Apple’ and I think its a bit unfair for them to be claiming we ripped them off now.”
Gauging which flames would set Steve off was a sport in itself. Sometimes he would pontificate on topics of very little importance to anyone except for a small corner of the programming world. Responding to an e-mail on Christmas day in 2005 from Nitesh Dhanjani claiming that the Objective C language, which Apple uses for the Mac and iPhone, “sucks,” Steve retorted: “Actually, Objective C is pretty great. Its far nicer than most other ways of writing apps. What don’t you like about it? What do you like better?” Nitesh wrote back saying he favored C#, Microsoft’s .NET and Ruby. Steve said: “I guess we disagree. First of all, .NET with CLI and managed code runs SLOW, so most serious developers can’t use it because of performance. Second, the libraries in C# are FAR less mature and elegant than those in Cocoa. We are working on a better implementation for garbage collection than we’ve seen out there so far, but in the end its a performance hit and an unpredictable time that is not good for some kinds of apps.”
Scott Frazer, the technical chief for a company called Portico Systems, wrote Steve on another obscure issue — about rumors that Apple would stop bundling a Java plugin with its Mac operating system. Steve wrote: “Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms. They have their own release schedules, which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind. This may not be the best way to do it.”
Steve Jobs could talk passionately and at length on an unlikely smattering of topics that he “cared deeply about,” a phrase he often used to explain why Apple ventured into the music industry or did not try to do Web search. Steve wrote thousand-plus-word missives on topics such as digital-music copy protection and Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash online video protocol, which were called “Thoughts on Music” and “Thoughts on Flash,” respectively. The music industry concurred with the proposal to drop copy protection, but some record executives said it was their idea, not Steve’s, and the reasoning was that Apple was locking customers into iTunes and iPods; they say Steve repurposed the mission to make himself look like the savior. By the time Steve had written “Thoughts on Music,” Amazon.com Inc. was well underway in negotiating its DRM-free music store, which launched in September 2007, and Steve rushed to release iTunes Plus in 2007. Apple would not completely do away with DRM in its store’s catalog until 2009. In regards to Steve’s Flash bashing, Adobe neither agreed with, nor saw eye-to-eye with him on the issue, and it strained the companies’ relationship. Steve tried to communicate that his concerns with Flash weren’t personal; for example, in an e-mail to Josh Cheney, a fan who contacted him frequently, Steve wrote: “I respect and admire Adobe. We just chose to not have Flash on our devices.”
In rare cases, Steve would defer to another industry commenter’s opinion on a topic, rather than write his own essay. When Greg Slepak, the founder of software developer Tao Effect, e-mailed Steve about changes to Apple’s developer agreement that eliminated program-language translators, like those from Adobe, Steve shot back, “We think John Gruber’s post is very insightful and not nega
tive,” and provided a link to that blog post. John is the author of a blog called Daring Fireball, which is influential within the Apple community and within Apple itself. Steve and other executives read it regularly. That particular post, as are most of Daring Fireball’s essays, was kind to Apple, although it made assertions that part of Apple’s motivation may have involved the challenge that Flash and other cross-platform initiatives pose to the App Store’s competitive advantages. In other words, if video providers can offer copy-protected movies through Flash, they don’t need to use Apple’s store or pay the company royalties. Steve apparently did not dispute this. Greg replied to Steve’s e-mail saying he disagreed with John Gruber and that he disagreed with Apple’s decisions. Three minutes later, Steve returned: “We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.”
Similarly, when asked about a video codec called VP8 (also called WebM) that Google was promoting, Steve responded only with a link to a report from Jason Garrett-Glaser, a video-codec programmer who worked directly with H.264. “Overall, VP8 appears to be significantly weaker than H.264 compression-wise,” Jason wrote in his verdict. H.264 is the industry standard video compression technology used by television broadcasters. It’s used in Blu-ray, Flash, Windows and Apple’s QuickTime software. “It’s the best video-compression technology on the planet,” Steve said in 2005.
Another critic, Hugo Roy, pressed Steve on Apple’s adoption of H.264 versus an open standard that could be more widely adopted. Steve countered: “All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other ‘open source’ codecs now. Unfortunately, just because something is open source, it doesn’t mean or guarantee that it doesn’t infringe on others patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source.”
Though not always done at length, Steve Jobs often felt the obligation to defend Apple and its choices. For example, designers questioned Apple’s aesthetics after the company chose to retire the compact disc portrayed in the iTunes logo in favor of having the recognizable musical note centered in a simple, blue circle. Joshua Kopac, who oversees design work for advertising firm ValuLeads, e-mailed Steve saying, “This new iTunes logo really sucks.” Steve’s shot back, “We disagree,” without further explanation.
Another designer, William Szilveszter, discussing a separate matter messaged Steve about the lack of support on the iPhone for a certain feature called IMAP Idle that can instantly push new e-mails to a device. “Its a power hog,” Steve wrote. Srini Dharmaji, CEO of mobile ad company GoldSpot Media, called Steve a jerk regarding how Apple was handling the iAd mobile banner network and then offered consulting. Steve replied sarcastically, “You are a super salesperson, by the way.”
John Casasanta shared his own insult from Steve exclusively for this book. John runs Tap Tap Tap, a San Francisco app developer that created hits such as Where To? and Camera+. He e-mailed Steve on September 5, 2008 expressing displeasure with a loophole in the App Store’s system. Developers were pumping themselves up in the rankings by giving away their apps in order to inflate download numbers, and then jacking up the price, so that the momentum would carry them high up into the paid-software rankings, a more coveted placement. Steve clued John in to Apple’s solution, which the company had never talked about previously, and concluded with a jab. Steve wrote: “We will be moving to more review-driven rankings. Tricking the review process is quickly dwarfed by real reviews. I notice that your app has not received great reviews…”
Among startup developers, Steve Jobs lost a bit of goodwill when he sided with Apple’s legal department in bullying a small studio into changing the name of its software. The Little App Factory Pty. Ltd. received a letter from Apple saying that the name iPodRip, which is a program for transferring songs to a Mac, infringed on Apple’s trademark, despite the small company having operated under that name for years without protest from Apple. John Devor, the CEO of that developer, penned a desperate, cordial appeal. But Steve offered no remorse: “Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.” With that, iPodRip became iRip. Steve’s tough business tactic was sort of a blessing for John. “It actually ended up helping us because we got so much press,” John says. So he printed out the e-mail and put it up on the wall in his apartment. “It sits right behind where I work everyday,” he says.
For Little App Factory, changing its app’s name really wasn’t that big of a deal. However, for Russell Ivanovic, Apple’s decision not to allow his app on its store left little option for him, he said, but to catapult from his fifteen minutes of fame afforded by publishing a Steve Jobs letter. Steve wrote in a cut-and-dry message: “We are not allowing apps that create their own desktops. Sorry.”
Likewise, Steve’s take on Gil Friedlander’s proposed app for iPhone SAR radiation readings was, “No interest,” which Gil took to reporters. Gil later offered his app through Cydia, an unauthorized storefront that can only be accessed by modifying the software on an iPhone in a process Apple spurns called “jailbreaking.” “We tried to enter Apple through the front door, and we had constructive discussions with them, and I think we were very patient,” Gil says begrudgingly.
Steve was known to occasionally and abruptly change his stances on issues. He would dismiss a colleague’s proposal on first listen, then the next time, he would reluctantly hear but often reject the notion, and sometimes, by the third, he would come around. This was a piece of the mechanism that made Steve tick. Several people who worked with Steve long enough to understand basic ways in which he operated had observed this behavior. It was less prevalent in e-mail, but his dynamic opinions can be traced through some of his messages.
In October 2008, one customer lamented how some MacBook laptops were no longer including a Firewire port. Steve, who seemed to be less adamant about the Firewire protocol that Apple had long pushed in its products, replied, “Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2.” Before this, Apple had required PC users to install a rarely-used Firewire card in their computer in order to use the iPod. After this, Steve told another customer that Apple would not support next-generation USB.
In another instance, Steve tried to explain to an iPhone developer that a new Apple policy requiring apps to sell subscriptions through Apple’s billing system was created for publishers, not services. After much fury from media companies, even the publisher stipulation didn’t stick. Apple eventually backtracked on even that stance in a public mea culpa. Steve’s words were often taken as gospel, but keeping them in order was a task of biblical proportions.
Chapter 5
Redirect
Evaluating the effectiveness of the guerrilla marketing that Steve Jobs funneled through e-mail isn’t quite feasible. His messages succeeded at grabbing headlines, but whether the efforts materially helped the business can’t be sufficiently examined. Steve maintained a complicated relationship with the news media, and the e-mail communiqués provided a viable alternative.
In more traditional interviews, Steve readily misled reporters and analysts. The professional truth seekers tend to ask critical questions whose answers could reveal the secrets behind competitive moves or personal subjects. Steve tried to connect with the influential ones. He kindled a friendship with the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg. Steve called the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart when he thought a joke was funny or offensive, and he e-mailed the political satirist Stephen Colbert after he unsheathed an iPad from his jacket pocket at the Grammy Awards — making him one of the first to publicly show one after Steve. The subject line of that e-mail read “Last Night,” and the body said only, “Sweet! Thanks!”
When Steve, who rarely liked to use the term “no comment,” didn’t have someone under his thumb or could not ignore them, he fell back on misdirection. He threw verbal smoke bombs and pulled off conversational disappearing acts. In one of many instances where
Steve’s actions contradicted his words, he said people do not want video on a small screen and later released a product called the iPod Video that offered just that. “It’s a stunner,” Steve said at its unveiling. He said people don't read anymore, and then opened a digital bookstore. In October 2008, he answered an analyst's question about netbooks by saying, “We don't know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” Fifteen months later, he unveiled the iPad, a $499 portable computer that was conceived in the early 2000s. Steve also said in 2003 that Apple had no plans to make a tablet.
That the renowned Steve Jobs was a business, design, marketing and technology visionary has been established. So these seemingly shortsighted comments are interpreted as competitive misdirection, not as temporary blindness. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Steve’s longtime rival, has been rankled over decades for a quote that has been attributed to him saying that 640 kilobytes of memory is all anyone would ever need in their computers. Of course, now they have four-thousand times that. But Bill seemingly never actually said this everlasting quote, except to debunk it. He told a class of students in the 1990s, “I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.” Steve had a real big whopper of his own. During his roadshow to promote NeXT computers, according to a November 1987 article in the New York Times, Steve said video was of little use on a personal computer.
