WHEN it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computer industry, or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and conjure up an “incredible” new electronic gadget in front of an awed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and shuffle numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. Mr. Jobs, who died this week aged 56, spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.
The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowers outside Apple stores and the internet humming with tributes from politicians, is proof that Mr. Jobs had become something much more significant than just a clever money-maker. He stood out in three ways—as a technologist, as a corporate leader and as somebody who was able to make people love what had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets. Strangely, it is this last quality that may have the deepest effect on the way people live. The era of personal technology is in many ways just beginning.
Apple of his eye
As a technologist, Mr. Jobs was different because he was not an engineer—and that was his great strength. Instead he was obsessed with product design and aesthetics, and with making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea—the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smart phone, the tablet computer—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms scrambled to follow where he led. In the process he triggered upheavals in computing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful for incumbent firms but welcomed by millions of consumers.
Within the wider business world, a man who liked to see himself as a hippy, permanently in revolt against big companies, ended up being hailed by many of those corporate giants as one of the greatest chief executives of his time. That was partly due to his talents: showmanship, strategic vision, an astonishing attention to detail and a dictatorial management style which many bosses must have envied. But most of all it was the extraordinary trajectory of his life. His fall from grace in the 1980s, followed by his return to Apple in 1996 after a period in the wilderness, is an inspiration to any businessperson whose career has taken a turn for the worse. The way in which Mr. Jobs revived the ailing company he had co-founded and turned it into the world’s biggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gates’s Microsoft, the company that had outsmarted Apple so dramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywood movie—which, no doubt, it soon will be.
But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr. Jobs was the fanatical loyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Which other technology brand do you ever see on bumper stickers? Many Apple users feel themselves to be part of a community, with Mr. Jobs as its leader. And there was indeed a personal link. Apple’s products were designed to accord with the boss’s tastes and to meet his obsessively high standards. Every iPhone or MacBook has his fingerprints all over it. His great achievement was to combine an emotional spark with computer technology, and make the resulting product feel personal. And that is what put Mr. Jobs on the right side of history, as the epicenter of technological innovation has moved into consumer electronics over the past decade.
A world without Jobs
As our special report in this week’s issue (printed before Mr. Jobs’s death) explains, innovation used to spill over from military and corporate laboratories to the consumer market, but lately this process has gone into reverse. Many people’s homes now have more powerful, and more flexible, devices than their offices do; consumer gizmos and online services are smarter and easier to use than most companies’ systems. Familiar consumer products are being adopted by businesses, government and the armed forces. Companies are employing in-house versions of Facebook and creating their own “app stores” to deliver software to smart phone-toting employees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals. Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continues to swell. Apple’s products are now being snapped up in Delhi and Dalian just as in Dublin and Dallas.
Mr. Jobs had a reputation as a control freak, and his critics complained that the products and systems he designed were closed and inflexible, in the name of greater ease of use. Yet he also empowered millions of people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology. His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deeply ingrained in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: “What would Steve Jobs do?”
The gap between Apple and other tech firms is now likely to narrow. This week’s announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr. Jobs to sprinkle his star dust on the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technology firm. At the recent unveiling of a tablet computer by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, whose company is doing the best job of following Apple’s lead in combining hardware, software, content and services in an easy-to-use bundle, there were several swipes at Apple. But by doing his best to imitate Mr. Jobs, Mr. Bezos also flattered him. With Mr. Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technology firms trying to invoke his unruly spirit in new products.
Mr. Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he conjured up a reality of his own, channeling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that.
【More】
Steve Jobs
A genius departs
The astonishing career of the world’s most revered chief executive
//www.economist.com/node/21531530
说到表演艺术，在计算机行业或其他行业中，没有人可以与史蒂夫•乔布斯（Steve Jobs）媲美。在产品发布会上，他独自站上讲台，手中摆弄着新上市的电子产品，向敬畏的观众展示这款产品的“神奇”之处：这正是一位表演大师的风范。他曾经说，虽然计算机所做的工作只是获取和传递数字，但当它们的工作速度足够快时，“将产生魔术般的结果”。乔布斯先生于本周逝世，享年56岁，他的一生都在为生产设计精美、使用便捷的产品而忙碌。
乔布斯死后，人们在苹果专卖店外摆上蜡烛和鲜花，政客们在网络上发表颂词，这足以证明乔布斯先生远不仅是一个聪明的商人。他在三个方面都出类拔萃——他不仅是一名优秀的技术人员，一位优秀的企业领袖，也是一位把非个人的、实用的小玩意儿推向个人的魔术师。意外的是，正是他最后这一品质对人们的生活方式产生了最深远的影响。从许多方面看来，个人技术的时代才刚刚开始。
苹果——他的毕生心血
作为一名技术人员，乔布斯先生是与众不同的，因为他并不是一名工程师，这正是他的优势所在。他醉心于产品的设计与美观，致力于把先进的技术变得便捷易用。他多次从已经存在但尚未成型的理念中吸取灵感，设计出鼠标电脑、数码音乐播放器、智能手机、平板电脑等，并向整个行业展示如何正确生产这些产品。竞争对手们竞相追随他所引领的潮流。在这个过程中，他引起了计算机、音乐、通信和新闻行业的大变革，使这些行业的巨擘感到头疼，但却受到了亿万消费者的欢迎。
在商界，乔布斯喜欢把自己描述成一个反叛的人，一直与大公司作对。然而正是这样一个人，被那些企业巨擘称为这个时代最伟大的执行总裁之一。这一方面是由于他极具表演天赋，拥有远见卓识，对细节格外关注，并且有一套令许多老板羡慕不已的独裁式管理方法。然而更多的则是由于他非凡的人生轨迹。20世纪80年代，他辞职离开苹果公司，事业上遭受重创。数年后，他重振旗鼓，于1996年回到了苹果公司。这段经历，对那些事业正处在滑坡阶段的商人们而言无疑是莫大的鼓励。乔布斯利用自己的才华，使他联合创办的苹果公司转危为安，并赶超比尔•盖茨（Bill Gates）的微软（Microsoft）成为世界上最大的科技公司。这段传奇故事像极了好莱坞电影中的桥段，毫无疑问，它很快就会被拍成电影。
但最令人称奇的是，通过先进的科技产品，乔布斯赢得了消费者疯狂的亲睐。除了苹果，你还在汽车保险杠的小标语上看到过别的科技品牌吗？许多苹果用户都有一种归属感，而乔布斯正是他们的领头人。诚然，苹果的产品彰显了人与人之间的联系。凡苹果公司生产的产品，其设计理念都要符合乔布斯的审美，达到他制定的高标准。每一部iPhone或MacBook上，都有乔布斯的指纹。他的伟大成就就是将计算机技术注入情感的火花，使产品人性化。这一理念使乔布斯走在了正确的历史道路上。在过去的十年里，科技创新的重心已向家用电子产品倾斜。
没有乔布斯的世界
在乔布斯逝世之前，本刊发表的一周特别报告中指出：从前，科技创新是从军事和企业实验室进入消费者市场的；而现在，这一过程却恰恰相反。如今，许多人家中拥有的设备比他们办公室中的仪器功能更强大、使用更方便；消费者产品和在线服务比许多公司的系统更智能、更快捷。人们所熟知的消费产品纷纷被企业、政府和军队采用。许多公司正在建设内部的Facebook社交网站，并建立他们自己的“应用程序商店”，用以向使用智能手机的职员传输软件。在医院，医生们也开始使用平板电脑工作。另外，对苹果产品的消费需求仍在持续增加。无论是在德里还是大连，抑或是都柏林、达拉斯，苹果公司的产品都被抢购一空。
乔布斯素来以控制狂著称，批评家指出，他设计的产品和系统打着更方便使用的幌子，实则是封闭的、死板的。然而，他也使亿万用户接触到了顶尖的科技。他对“用户至上”理念的坚持，对产品雅致外观和便捷实用性的执着，在苹果公司深深地扎下了根，甚至在对手公司都广为推崇。如今，其他公司的设计者也会像苹果公司在设计者一样，问道“换作乔布斯，他会怎样做呢？”
苹果公司与其他科技公司的差距将会慢慢缩小。本周，8月份接替乔布斯担任执行总裁的蒂姆•库克（Tim Cook）所率领的团队发布了最新款iPhone手机。人们普遍认为这次发布会虽然合格，但并不振奋人心。没有了乔布斯智慧的火花，这场发布会与其他科技公司举办的关于其他产品的发布会没有什么区别。近期，亚马逊公司（Amazon）的杰夫•贝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）发布了一款平板电脑，招来了苹果公司的尖锐批评。亚马逊公司追随苹果公司的理念，致力于将硬件、软件、信息、服务整合在一起，使之便捷易用。贝佐斯对乔布斯的模仿，正体现了他对乔布斯的敬佩。乔布斯逝世之后，苹果公司变得与其他科技公司一样，努力在新产品中注入叛逆的元素。
在苹果公司刚起步的时候，一位工程师曾形容乔布斯散发着“现实扭曲力场”，指的就是他的说服力。最终，乔布斯确实创造了一个属于自己的“现实世界”。他将计算机运作的魔力融入电子产品中，而这些产品重塑了整个电子行业。年轻时，乔布斯说他想“在这个世上有一番作为”，而他做到了。
整理：熊博