Chapter 10 of Issacson's book spends quite a bit of time talking about Raskin vs Jobs on the Macintosh. Raskin is sourced several times for that chapter. The Macintosh would have been a very, very different product if Jobs had not taken over, and demanded a very different system than the one Raskin had envisioned.
The Issacson Analysis (backed up by Atkinson) was that Raskin had envisioned an underpowered, less expensive system that would not have had many of the features that made the original Macintosh "Insanely Great."
I like Gladwell's analysis - Jobs was a great _editor_ He didn't necessarily create very much, but he was driven to relentlessly critique until something great emerged.
It's amazing how valuable a function that can be, particularly in the presences of great engineers who can rise to the challenge.
The reason people praise Steve Jobs is not because he designed anything (though he may have had a few design suggestions) - but because his singular drive to release great products resulted in so many being created (and then, quite logically, being copied by everyone else)
The Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad all came about because of Steve Jobs, and have changed the technology that we use every day. Love him, or Hate him, you can't take that away from him.
>The Issacson Analysis (backed up by Atkinson) was that Raskin had envisioned an underpowered, less expensive system that would not have had many of the features that made the original Macintosh "Insanely Great."
Or may be if Raskin was able to had it his way, we would Apple would have brought a PC to nearly every home and has as much impact to the society as MS had. We can only guess (and not even guesstimate) what would have happened if Jobs weren't there in this particular project.
> It's amazing how valuable a function that can be, particularly in the presences of great engineers who can rise to the challenge - Yes exactly. One of the major issues is that the Engineers are been given very less credit. Jobs was the editor, the face of APPL and not the creator. The current trend is to attribute all the success of Apple to just Jobs and no one else. I am not aware if they were actually great designers, developers and engineers under him or was it him alone who single handedly guided dumb sheep into greatness. Most of the Job praises after his death tend to point towards the latter, which is unfair if not wrong.
> Or may be if Raskin was able to had it his way, we would Apple would have brought a PC to nearly every home and has as much impact to the society as MS had.
If I'm not wrong, Raskin's I'd say "anti-vision" consisted of no GUI, no mouse, basically a kind of machine that even predated PC-s (capable of even less, but therefore being simpler to use). Jobs wanted more than anywhere existed and still having it simple to use.
Or may be if Raskin was able to had it his way, we would Apple would have brought a PC to nearly every home and has as much impact to the society as MS had.
Very true. Though the [lack of] success and interest in the Canon Cat, which was much closer to Raskin's vision than the shipping Macintosh ended up being, seems to belie this.
The Issacson Analysis (backed up by Atkinson) was that Raskin had envisioned an underpowered, less expensive system that would not have had many of the features that made the original Macintosh "Insanely Great."
I like Gladwell's analysis - Jobs was a great _editor_ He didn't necessarily create very much, but he was driven to relentlessly critique until something great emerged.
It's amazing how valuable a function that can be, particularly in the presences of great engineers who can rise to the challenge.
The reason people praise Steve Jobs is not because he designed anything (though he may have had a few design suggestions) - but because his singular drive to release great products resulted in so many being created (and then, quite logically, being copied by everyone else)
The Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad all came about because of Steve Jobs, and have changed the technology that we use every day. Love him, or Hate him, you can't take that away from him.