Stop Asking What Steve Jobs Would Have Done, Seriously!

We have every reason to believe that many of the things Jobs fought for while he was running Apple no longer apply today. For one thing, it’s been more than three years since he passed away. In a constantly evolving organization such as Apple, things tend to change in much less time.

So, my question is this (and I’m hitting every note as hard as I can here): Why does the blogosphere still cling to Steve Jobs' every word?

Carte blanche to go crazy

At the memorial held on Apple’s campus in late 2011, Tim Cook openly revealed that Jobs wanted Apple’s leadership to follow their own intuition: “Among his last advice he had for me, and for all of you, was to never ask what he would do. ‘Just do what’s right,’” Cook said.

And he was right. Even a visionary like Jobs knew it would be extremely selfish (and ill-advised for a publicly-traded company) to enforce predictions of the future when he’s no longer physically available to witness unpredictable changes. Plus, Jobs had backtracked on more decisions in his lifetime that he had fingers to count them on.

As much as some like to think that Apple relied purely on one guy’s vision, there are a couple of books out there that will tell you a completely different story about brainstorming at Apple and how Jobs was often there just to approve other people’s brilliant ideas.

It’s not unfair to Jobs’ genius to say that some of his views died with him. Such as the skeuomorphic design of iOS, which Apple axed soon after the iCEO passed away. One of the people who vehemently believed in skeuomorphism was Scott Forstall. Guess what happened to Scott when he refused to play ball under Tim Cook's watch.

The fact that Jobs threw tantrums and had things his way doesn’t mean he was right in every aspect of how Apple needed to be run, how iOS and OS X needed to look, or why the Magic Mouse doesn’t have individual left-click / right-click buttons. (Yes, Apple, you’re free to change this any day now. I, for one, would appreciate it deeply).

This is Tim Cook’s Apple

Jobs chose Cook as his successor for a reason. He trusted the southerner to take Apple to new heights, and he did. He tripled Apple’s money (including its market valuation), gave back some well-deserved cash to investors, and even did some generous charity in the process – something Jobs was notoriously against. All while churning out fast-paced product upgrades and even all-new releases.

Apple under Tim Cook is firing on all cylinders, even though that might come with a few compromises here and there. But hey, who said Apple under Jobs was perfect?

So, when I hear news that Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave because Apple might be launching a stylus-equipped iPad Pro, I really think us tech editors need to change our reporting on Apple right about now. These comparisons are no longer relevant. When Steve Jobs said the iPad would never use a stylus, Apple’s biggest iPhone had a 3.5-inch display. Remember that the next time you hear rumors about Apple making something that didn’t sit well with Jobs.

This is a Personal Thoughts piece reflecting the author’s personal opinion on matters relating to Apple and / or the products associated with the Apple brand. This article should not be taken as the official stance of Softpedia on Apple-related matters.