Many people have said many things already, which have brought tears and chuckles, but I’d like to tell a personal story.

A few months ago, I stood in the same room as Steve Jobs, while visiting Apple.  He was walking with Jony Ive and another executive in MacCafè at the mothership.  Standing 50ft from him was paralyzing, yet he was just a guy, walking around with his co-workers with a smile on his face.  I really wanted to walk up to him, but feared security would tackle me and my host may become embarrassed.  I  just watched him and thought, “wow!”

You keep memories of certain things close, like the birth of your child or visiting a breathtaking location.  That image of Steve and Jony walking is one of those memories for me.

Sounds corny maybe, but let’s face it–the man was and remains one of my true heroes.  I aspire to accomplish a small percentage of what he has.  The lessons learned by his entire history is something I think about often.  The company he founded, the products, the reasons behind the products, the people he’s inspired, the comeback and the iPhone have profoundly changed my life.

In 1985, I was fortunate enough to receive my first Mac.  My father did not know anything about computers, but was an expert at consumer electronics (he was in the biz) and loved gadgets.  He also trusted my opinion on computers.  In 1984, I saw my first Mac and was enamored.  The local camera shop was the only Apple dealer in the small town where I resided.  I didn’t know from 1984 Superbowl ads or what was on the cover of Byte or Time, all I saw was the amazing little box with a mouse connected to it.  The signs and point of sale materials intrigued me, but after I sat my butt down in front of the 128k Macintosh, it was hard to pull me away.  At that young age, I was working the mouse, copying and pasting–it was miraculous.  After programming in Microsoft Basic on a TRS-80 Model 4 and running TRS-DOS using 5 1/4 inch double-sided, double-density floppies, this new Macintosh thing was extraordinary.

The Macintosh changed my life.  My perspective of what is possible widened dramatically.

Later that year, I bought some 3.5″ disks and begged the local bank to use their Macintosh for a school project. My teacher was blown away and I got an A just for what I did with MacWrite–clipart was something no one had seen on a document with text around it and proportional-spaced fonts.

So the Mac 512KE and ImageWriter II printer arrived Christmas 1985 and I was absolutely blown away by the computer; moreover that my dad sprang for it.  He read my enthusiasm and knew this was the proper next step for me.  My homework was never the same again.  In fact, school was never the same again.  I completely lost interest in programming and moved onto creating.  I gained a reputation as the “computer whiz” in school, but had limited programming knowledge.  I was the only kid in the whole school district with a Mac.

Since then, even though I consider myself quite proficient (if not expert) on things Microsoft, I’ve always owned a Mac.  Then the iPod came and we all know how that changed our lives.  For me, however, the biggest impact since that original Mac is the iPhone.  I’m not even sure how I lived without it prior to 2007.  It’s truly the phone I always dreamed of when I used to bitch about mobile phones.  Yep, I was that guy who bought a new mobile every 6-months.  I went from Motorola to Nokia to Sony-Ericsson and back to Motorola again and was never quite satisfied.  When I saw the liveblogs of the original iPhone keynote from a hotel room in San Francisco, I nearly cried with overwhelming joy, “someone finally got the mobile phone right!” Two hours later, I was staring at it in a glass enclosure and thinking, “cool.”

The Web also changed my life and is the vehicle on which our company was founded.  A recent visit to the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California (just a few blocks from Google HQ) taught me that the World-Wide Web was created on a NeXT by Mr. Berners-Lee.

So Steve, his companies, his visions and the teams that he’s inspired truly changed my life on multiple levels and all for the better.  Rest in piece, Mr. Jobs, you will be missed, yet your legacy will continue on forever.  You’ve changed the world for all of us–the rest of us.

SOSReady is once again supporting the Teens in Tech Conference for 2011. The Teens in Tech Conference is about connecting youth and technology with entrepreneurship, startups and the web; in front of an audience of young entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

SOSReady is once again very proud and honored to be able to sponsor this exciting and important event.

Just noticed Safari 5 has this nifty feature where you can select, as an alternative to Google, Yahoo! or Bing for your current search! Pretty slick.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

His observations are remarkable. Blackberry people do always hold it out in their hand like that, particularly women who use them.

Looks like you can do Twitter/Ping integration and have it automatically tell your peeps that you posted something new. Very cool.

If you’re a Mac user and an avid blogger, check out MacUpdate’s limited time, sale price offer of Blogo.

Blogo puts your blogging in one, simple and efficient console. It works with all the major blogging platforms including WordPress, MovableType and Expression Engine, including “miniblog” platforms, such as Tumblr. The software even supports hosted platforms like Blogger and Typepad. They’ve added micro-blogging as well, so now enjoy Twitter and Ping.fm posting right from Blogo.

Blogo allows you to set links, upload images, embed images, preview your post and more. Plus, you can even go back and edit your posts all without logging into your blog platform.

Finally, I’ve taken the plunge. Previously, I just couldn’t justify the price, considering how little I actually post a blog entry, but at $18.75 on sale, it’s a no brainer.

As many of you may be aware, and as I discussed on VexedTech, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo fame (as well as other ventures and who may be referred to as a new-media socialite), wrote his dissertation against Apple entitled, “The Case Against Apple-in Five Parts” to his email subscribers (link to blog post version).  Below is my response to his email.

————

Jason,

I’m glad you opened up this dialogue, because I think there are many in the tech community who think like you, but haven’t been able to articulate it quite as you have.

That said, there’s a fundamental issue I have with most of your argument regarding Apple. If you believe in free market, which I know you do, how do you ignore that the market has spoken and chose Apple?

Let’s begin with MP3: If you recall the dawn of the MP3 player, Apple was not the inventor. There was iRiver, Creative and about 200 little Chinese and Taiwanese manufactures in the space. Attending CES back in the 90s, I remember all sorts of tiny, innovative players. My company even considered marketing a few of these, but in every single interaction with these products, the same issue came up; all these units were a complete pain in the ass to load up and modify music playlists. Companies like Creative were not new to the computer space, yet completely ignored the user experience. All of these companies approached their product/software mix as that of a techie/hobbyist, when a majority of the public couldn’t even figure out how to set their VCR’s clock.

Fast forward to iPod and Apple uses their skills at design and usability to create a compelling combination, using their “digital hub” concept. First and only on the Mac, then a year later on Windows. A year! And yet, no one in the space could come understand what made the iPod sell. In my opinion, this is truly a case of bizarre corporate ignorance. When iTunes launched for Windows, Apple had a tiny bit of market-share compared to iRiver and Creative, who I believe were the leaders in the space at that juncture. Even Sony, the innovator of the Walkman, couldn’t figure out how to make a digital player a compelling purchase. Over and over I would tell people, “it’s the software, stupid!” and yet, year after year I’d attend CES and shake my head in disbelief, watching companies throw millions at product development with no usability advantage.

Anyone could have eaten Apple’s lunch in portable media player space, but they were asleep at the wheel.

So the market spoke and Apple’s player becomes number one. Subsequently, they convince the record companies to sell music digitally–a deal no other organization had been able to close upon previously. It’s a runaway success. Again, the market spoke–even laden with DRM.

If Apple is so evil, why wouldn’t they keep DRM active? Seems to me, DRM would keep people locked in and using iPods if they buy iTunes music, right?

iTunes the app is free and so are many other applications that do similar functions, including Microsoft’s own Windows Media Player. People can still buy digital media players from Sandisk, Creative, Sony and Microsoft, but they stick with Apple. They can buy their music digitally from Napster, Amazon, Real and eMusic. They can buy physical discs at many outlets.

How is their choice to use Apple’s iPod and Apple’s iTunes jukebox application to consume content monopolistic when there are so many other choices?

Your argument against opening up iTunes is not in the interest of Apple. They don’t sell iTunes and they don’t make much on music. They simply sell devices. If you don’t like the device, then you’d use another application. The Zune application doesn’t work with iPod or the Sansa–should Microsoft be called a monopoly for this action? Apple’s building a complete solution and non-techie people really appreciate a computer, no, a consumer electronics device, that actually works without a whole lot of tinkering–just like their DVD Player, television and microwave.

I think the iTunes part of your Case Against Apple is as ridiculous as the continual bullshit EU-legislation against Microsoft for Internet Explorer. Just because Microsoft was better at gaining market share for an OS, they shouldn’t be spanked down for it, unless they used monopolistic practices to get there. Last time I checked, Apple never forced anyone to package iTunes or iPods with other products by giving them discounts or creative incentives. They simply built a better product and the market responded.

The iPhone/AT&T tie-up thing is another argument oft-debated. Here’s what I think many people miss, including Leo Laporte who often preaches that Apple should’ve released the iPhone as Nokia has the N95 (which has sold like gangbusters in the USA, right?): Apple knew nothing about making phones when it began the iPhone project–it needed a carrier partner to reinvent the mobile phone. How does a company, with no experience in the mobile phone space, suddenly develop a mobile device that performs among the best in the business? It has to align with a partner. It needs help with field testing, co-developing software on both sides for a new style of voicemail and creating a quick and easy purchase experience at its retail stores. None of this, particularly the latter, could have been accomplished by simply developing a phone and throwing it onto the market. Look at the G1 for example. The G1 is a phone built by an experienced mobile manufacturer, but lacks on so many levels compared to nearly every other smart phone, that it’s a total dog. Abysmal battery life, mediocre call quality and slow operation are all things I’ve heard about the G1. Adam Curry mentioned that his G1 was a great device, it just sucked at being a phone.

I believe that Apple’s focus was to build the best phone it could–great call quality, great audio, great purchase experience and to reinvent every other stupid element of most mobile phones (that we just sort of accepted for years). With that directive, and being relatively naive to the space, it found a partner in AT&T to roll it out. Who else would they have chosen? Verizon, with it’s nearly unused-worldwide CDMA network? T-Mobile, arguably the #3 carrier in the States? Sprint having both CDMA and being smaller going against it. Verizon also suffers from the “build it our way or we won’t offer it” mentality–by disabling Bluetooth data and “genericizing” interfaces on many of its devices.

Do you really think that Apple truly believed their phone, at $599, would be the runaway success it has become? Steve Ballmer certainly didn’t! Do you think the wizards at Apple marketing thought they would achieve such amazing market penetration in such a short time? Lambasting Apple for choosing a carrier partner in the USA to help it with R&D and subsequent launch, growing pains and all, is ludicrous. The product has only been out for just over 2 years–give ‘em a break!

Apple built a better mousetrap, the market spoke once again and now they are a monopoly?

By the way, carrier agreements and locking phones to a particular carrier is nothing new, so I’m not sure why people are so vocal about the iPhone. I can’t take a Blackberry from Sprint to T-Mobile. I can’t currently use a Palm Pre on AT&T. Carriers and manufacturers make these deals to get a product to market and make money (gasp). There are other choices, Jason. The aforementioned Palm Pre, Windows Mobile devices, RIM devices and Android phones do the same thing as the iPhone–they make calls, go on the Web and read and write email. So why is everyone so pissed at Apple?

It’s like a bunch of people in the tech space with entitlement issues, wanting their iPhone and their carrier choice, too. If open platforms were truly better and compelling to consumers, wouldn’t Linux be the number one OS by market share? Wouldn’t Og-vorbis be the choice of audio format? Opening a platform is a techie-guy, community-based ideal, not in the best interest of Joe Consumer, who wouldn’t know what to do with the open-platform to begin with.

The App Store discussion, I’m almost in total agreement with you on. In Apple’s defense, I’m going to cite growing pains and I’m guessing they are as surprised as some of us are regarding what’s transpired with it over the year it’s been around. That being said, I think it’s been poorly managed and needs more transparency, especially with its developer partnerships. It’s just bad PR, too. I keep thinking, “when’s someone in Apple’s PR department going to raise their hand and say, ‘we need to fix this before it becomes a PR disaster’.”

Flash: I think Flash, like all other Adobe products, has become a hog–a resource hog in this case. On Windows or Mac, my fans whir up like crazy when I watch a lot of flash content. If watching Flash means my battery will die in 30 minutes, I don’t want Flash on my phone–I don’t even want the choice. I’d like to see Flash be used less and less in the market–I think it’s not good for the consumer and I bet if you polled consumers, they rather not deal with it. Other than live video, most people I know hate flash content on sites.

Finally, I think Apple is a very sturdily run company. They are not evil, but they are not nice. They have rules and those rules can be quite rigid. (that’s why the App Store seems to go against their “here are the rules” line of thinking). Overall, I think Apple is a well-managed business, that has built a tremendously loyal following, which has snowballed over the last few years. This snowball effect proves that Apple’s following is not because of a bunch of geeky fanboys chanting “Steve! Steve!” every time Apple does something. The momentum gain is due to great products, that work together well–almost easily–and the market has responded. Once they get a taste of, “you mean there are computer products that work well together and have integrated software and hardware?” they end up buying more of those products. The halo effect, indeed.

I don’t agree with everything Apple does, as I don’t agree with everything Microsoft does (really guys, you’re going to stay with this multiple-version of Windows 7 thing?). I’ve spent hours talking about Microsoft’s stupidity and how they are destined to crash. Many of my friends work at Microsoft–the stories are laughable. MS has become an unmanageable behemoth that is so fragmented, few people within the organization know what direction the organization is going. Sort of reminds me of another company that in the 1990s that rested on its laurels and was so fragmented it almost went out of business.

That company of course, was Apple.

Don’t you love the free-market economy?

Thanks for the conversation.

Best,
Paul Salzman

PS: Not to pander, yet I want to mention that I truly respect your business acumen and impressed with you accomplishments.