If Time covers were any kind of measure, Apple would own the PC market. Apple Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs has been on at least five times (the first time as Steven) and prominently featured on other occasions. But the latest cover tries to explain via a very veiled look inside the design process why emphasis on controlling the ecosystem works for innovation and against PC market share. Like the boy in the bubble portrayed by John Travolta, that control is vital to Apple’s corporate life. Introduce variables like outside software or hardware manufactured by someone else and problems will crop up.
“He needs that control because he is fastidious about technology the way a gourmet is fastidious about foie gras, and he recognizes that in an increasingly networked world, in which gadgets can’t just do their own thing but have to talk to one another, that conversation will go better if Jobs has scripted both sides of it. ‘One company makes the software. The other makes the hardware … It’s not working,’ Jobs says. ‘The innovation can’t happen fast enough. The integration isn’t seamless enough. No one takes responsibility for the user interface. It’s a mess.'”
Beyond that, the man who was openly dismissive of portable video only a year ago has bet the iPod’s future on the idea but still falls short of evangelist. “There is no market today for portable video,” he says. “We’re going to sell millions of these to people who want to play their music, and video is going to come along for the ride. Anyone who wants to put out video content will put it out for this. And we’ll find out what happens.”
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