Steve Jobs Is Most Fascinating Person of 2011

I never understood the Jobs mystique. He was a great salesman with average technical skills. When he and Steve Wozniak started Apple they followed the plan they developed when they were selling blue boxes. Wozniak designed and built the stuff and Jobs sold it.

Jobs had a flair for industrial design although he didn't have the technical skills to do it for a living.

Jobs' main skill was trend spotting. Regardless of the number of patents in his name he never invented anything. He had an eye for emerging technology. Apple and Jobs got things to market after others had done the groundwork.

Real innovators in computers and electronics are people like Vinton Cerf, who was the primary architect of the Internet, or Alan Kay who headed the group at Xerox that developed everything that Apple used in the Mac.

I have to give him more credit than my friend Nippy above. Jobs got involved in these projects at a somewhat lower level than Nippy has it, although Nippy is correct that Jobs had a fantastic marketing sense. Although Jobs horned his way in on the initial Macintosh project (after producing a crappy machine in Lisa), he forced innovations in that design that were eventually important to its success.

The PARC work was an inspiration and not a source for Apple's designs. If it were just a matter of saying "hey, I want some of that," then Apple wouldn't have floundered while Jobs was off making a nascent success of NEXT Computer (and reviving Apple magnificently when he returned).

Pixar was a successful operation before Jobs arrived. It was nine years after Jobs came on board that Disney bought Toy Story for a (relative) song--and locked themselves into a high-cost, and successful, commitment to Pixar that culminated in their $7.4 Billion purchase of Pixar 11 years later.

With Apple products there is always a firm sense that someone is minding the store--the interfaces are reliable and intuitive; the support is nonpareil; it all works. That has always gone from Jobs all the way down. I hope it will continue.

I agree that Apple products are well made and work well. I use my daughter's Macbook often. I've only had one application crash in the last six months. I'm still not adjusted to the keyboard. I really miss the home, end, pageup and down, and delete character to the right of cursor keys. I know there are equivalents for them but they all involve pressing more than one key.

Mind you, you do pay a little extra for the Apple level of quality. For a lot of people it's worth it. I'm cheap and don't mind working without a net. :)

If the iPod played flac files I might consider one. Meanwhile I'll stick to my $40 Sansa player. It plays flac files and supports micro-sd cards. On the con side, the display is too small to read when I'm driving and I can't control it from a car stereo.

When AT&T started their clearance sale on iPhone 3GSs a few months ago, I got one, cheap. I just got one for 99¢ for my spouse (of course, these are prices that roll the expense into a contract, but they work for me). Without my paying much attention, a sync with my limping old iBook sucked my entire iTunes library onto the phone, which includes everything from old Beatles albums to Putumayo sampler discs to all nine of Beethoven's symphonies. I can use the phone like a "remote" and play this stuff over an old Airport express that's hooked to my home stereo, or in the car.

That reminds me that Apple products tend to have a much longer useful life than competing brands. That might be a leveler when considering the TCO of competing products. Incidentally, I'm posting this comment from the phone. The small screen is a bit cumbersome for working with lengthy Gather threads, but they load and display flawlessly. I'm glad Apple entered, and revolutionized, the smartphone market. I'm also grateful for Google's work with Android, because it should make for healthy competition and drive innovation.

He changed our lives forever!

I think that it was a given that he'd be the person who won this year.

Barbara Walters is entitled to her opinion and, in fact, I share that opinion. Just remember that it is opinion.