2018-09-04

Steve Jobs 

- written by Walter Isaacson 

Times: 2018.02.25- 09.03; 27 hours 23 minutes

Steve Jobs was born in February 24, 1955 and died in October 5, 2011. This book shows as many details as possible about his birth, learning, careers, friends, family members, belief, failures and success as well as his dreadful cancer. The absolute real Steve Jobs appears in every line and sometimes even talks to the readers that how good Apple products are. The more you read about him, the more you will appreciate his genius, persistence, strong belief and passions for making meaningful products for the world. He is unique and great. But his standards in creating great products are only three words: simple, declarative and clean. He has strongly transformed the standards into Apple employers’ minds so that he believes that Apple will last and be the symbol of meaningful products rather than business.

Apple voice:

Simple: 

easy to understand or do; basic or plain without anything extra or unnecessary

Whenever Steve required to simplify products, he was rejected and questioned by others. At that time, not only technology can’t fulfill his standards, but also it would cost more money. It took time, energy and persistence to carry out Steve’s plans. What did Steve make?

An illiterate boy, living in the backward countryside in the west of the USA, was able to use iPad correctly and smoothly at the first sight of it. A 3-year-old Chinese boy can operate iPad without instruction. The products he made are basic and natural to use. People are prone to make things complicated if they want to demonstrate more functions. Jobs, however, has the ability to make products powerful but simple.

Clean: 

having a smooth edge, surface or shape

The first time I saw Apple4, I was stunned by its elegancy and beauty. It’s white or black, thin and handy. The glassy surface makes it smooth while the whole object is elegant enough.

Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “if I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’ People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

-Steve Jobs

He has an unbelievably intuitive sense of the future products and an advanced standard of beauty. Maybe he was inherited from his biological parents or was influenced by his adoptive father. However he formed this ability, he has amplified it completely. Since I am lack of judging beauty, I can see more pictures carefully and find out some rules.

Declarative:

 (of a sentence) in the form of a simple statement

To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.

The simple products are declarative.

Steve Jobs:

His passions, perfectionism, demons, desires, artistry, deviltry, and obsession for control were integrally connected to his approach to business and the products that resulted.

That’s what I’ve always tried to do - keep moving. Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.

Steve focused on his career ever since he saw the first arrays of electronic battery. He had been working to make simple, clean and declarative products since he picked up his first tool in the garage with Steve Wozniak. He had experienced great success and considerable frustration. But whatever he was confronted with, he continued to work the next day.  He didn’t work for a company or some people. He worked for himself, for his dreamy idea. Steve is great in making technological products but he is greater in guiding people to a higher pursuit. Whichever career you are having, Steve will be your most sincere teacher if you ‘d like.