What Steve Jobs is passionate about is the product experience. This goes way beyond hardware and software. Now, of course the software must run flawlessly and the hardware must be able to support it, but that's not his primary concern. Steve oversees every aspect from the initial marketing to create consumer interest in the products to the store where they're bought to what the customer sees whent they take the product out of the box for the first time. Everything is on Steve's radar. And I think it's that attention to detail that allows Apple to charge more for comparable devices than windows based computers can. While Dell and HP are competing almost solely on price, Apple continues to grow faster than either one while charging more. Thats not coincidence.

I believe that Jobs is more concerned about delivering experiences than hardware or software. Because we're tactile we need hardware to interact naturally with an experience and because vision is our dominant sense we need software to generate compelling images. The hardware and software are just a means to an end.

It's a false dichotomy. Also worth noting what Alan Kay said: "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...

That assumes he sees a differentiation between the two in the grand scheme of things. To Jobs, there's one final product comprised of hardware and software.

I think to separate the two misses the point entirely with respect to what Steve -- and Apple -- is all about. This is why I selected "both equally."

Steve's vision for Apple -- and the products and services they have produced since his return -- prove that his passion is the "sum of all parts," i.e., the whole package of hardware, software, UI, services, etc.

Apple's software, minus the second-to-none hardware design, wouldn't be Apple.

Similarly, Apple's stellar hardware designs, minus the phenomenal software and UI, wouldn't be Apple.

So if I were to pick a singular answer to describe Steve's passion, it wouldn't be "hardware and software equally" but rather, "the end user experience." That's his passion.

His passion is user experience. This requires top-notch hardware, software, retail stores, support, distribution, packaging, research, legal work...

The question is a false quad-chotomy.

Steve's passion is for the experience — not only does that include everything that goes into the product, but even the content of the commercials and the layout of the store, and even what music is available on iTunes.

"With the other guys, whenever something doesn't work they all point fingers at each other -- it's the software, it's the hardware, it's the network. With us, we make the whole widget." Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs certainly understands the competitive advantage that making both hardware and software gives Apple.

If I had to distinguish between the two in Apple products I would say his passion lays more with hardware because:

a) It's what you actually hold in your hand

b) It's a lot easier for most customers to understand and identify good hardware than software, so if you have the ability to make good hardware it's a big competitive advantage.

Anyone who says both, or software: Please explain iTunes to me in this context.

He's passionate about imposing his "vision" on everyone. He's a control-freak of the highest order.