TIL Steve Jobs’ design obsession went so deep he demanded Apple computers look perfect on the inside. Inspired by Zen Buddhism and Bauhaus minimalism, he believed in “deep simplicity,” and insisted that even the hidden internal engineering look as polished as the outside.

[u/ralphbernardo]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-steve-jobs-love-of-simplicity-fueled-a-design-revolution-23868877/

[u/Dogrel]

I grew up with an original Macintosh computer. When it came time to replace it and we didn’t have much use for it anymore, I asked to take it apart. What I found on the inside of the casing, underneath the black shielding paint, were the casts of the signatures of everyone at Apple who had worked on the Macintosh project. It was really cool to see.

[u/Simon_Drake → u/Dogrel]

There's a story that the little rubber feet that kept the Macintosh from scratching your desk cost about 5cents each. But Steve Jobs wanted to custom order special rubber feet with little Apple logos embedded in the rubber, even though no one would see them and it's a pointless change. One of the other OGs (I don't think it was Woz) called it "A designers wet dream idea" to put the logo everywhere, even where nobody will see it.

Well custom manufactured rubber feet with Apple Logos would have cost a couple of dollars each and the engineers made a list of all the other features they'd need to cut from the design to cover the cost. And the Macintosh shipped with the basic feet.

[u/Apptubrutae → u/Simon_Drake]

This sounds like how it should be done to me.

Aim for your perfect execution. Find the costs. Consider the pros and cons. Pick and choose your compromises.

[u/kevkevverson → u/Apptubrutae]

100% start with perfection and remove what you absolutely have to. What you’re left with is still miles better than everyone else’s

[u/DigNitty → u/kevkevverson]

Good for the consumer too.

“Oh wow even the feet are custom made”

For $200 less you can have regular feet.

“Oh yeah I’ll take that one.”

[u/Ouch_i_fell_down → u/DigNitty]

This is what I think every time someone talks about an "unboxing experience"

Oh, you mean that thing you see exactly once then throw in the trash? yea... how much am I paying for this fancy garbage?

[u/EloeOmoe → u/Ouch_i_fell_down]

I work for a major vendor in the IT segment. Over the past few years we've made our packaging more "green". Which is just cutting down on unnecessary plastic and cardboard and no longer packing in console cables or power cables.

The amount of $ it saved us when calculated against the millions of devices we ship was astounding.

[u/CredibilityProblems → u/EloeOmoe]

I read something about just changing the paper on the seatback safety brochures to a lighter paper on some airline saved 100's of thousands a year in fuel costs. Crazy how things add up.

[u/Gird_Your_Anus → u/CredibilityProblems]

Ford stopped painting the inside of ashtrays in the 90s for some models. It saved millions.

[u/Worth_Gap4226 → u/Gird_Your_Anus]

That was the paint on the underside of the bonnet. The ashtray part was an urban legend (they got phased out eventually)

"In the late 2000s and early 2010s, cash-strapped automakers (including Ford and GM) realized they could skip the shiny, glossy "clear coat" layer on the underside of the vehicle's engine hood and trunk lid. Because customers rarely look there, leaving it in plain primer or a dull base coat saved a few dollars per vehicle. Multiplied across millions of vehicles, this saved tens of millions in production costs."

Makes sense.

[u/TheSkiingDad → u/CredibilityProblems]

Heard similar in 08 about airplane peanuts. 3 fewer peanuts per bag would save like a million per year or something.

[u/Tkj5 → u/TheSkiingDad]

And now there are no more peanuts in the bags.

[u/JamesRawles → u/Ouch_i_fell_down]

That's Apple's entire business model... They sell an experience/lifestyle.

[u/OneBigBug → u/Ouch_i_fell_down]

yea... how much am I paying for this fancy garbage?

I mean, they're paying single digit dollars for it. Presumably over an alternative which isn't free. Gotta pack it in something. That's always the thing with this stuff. It's never "For $200 less you can have regular feet", because the costs of components outside of like...the big high performance chips, and screen and whatnot are basically nothing. $0.78 for the good one, $0.60 for the cost saving one.

The only reason you'd be paying more is because the price the market would bear for the product is higher because people like the nice packaging more. So in a way, you're paying $0 more. Because it's worth it to you to buy at the price you bought it for regardless of how its packaged. But maybe some other guy is paying an extra $200. Because if it weren't for a "premium experience" he saw in a review, he'd have bought a cheaper phone.

[u/DDisired → u/Ouch_i_fell_down]

At the same time, that philosophy goes into parts of the customer experience that do matter.

It's the idea that if the unboxing experience is good, then hopefully enough care went into the computer components and the parts that do matter.

Because for day to day, imo, a mac with the same "specs" as the equivalent windows performs and feels better to use, and the windows laptops that start feeling as good costs about the same as a mac.

[u/GodOfDarkLaughter → u/Apptubrutae]

That's actually how a lot of brain storming meetings for all sorts of products, services, events, locations, etc, go...it's called a blue sky pitch. Basically pitch the best idea you can think of regardless (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the situation) of cost, feasibility, sometimes even technology. Just the coolest shit you can come up with. Then see what actually works.

[u/Billpod → u/Apptubrutae]

I worked on an RPG video game where the design director was a famous writer with no game design experience and he insisted at one point that we animate the characters’ fingers. We hadn’t done that because of the cost—both cost of animating them and performance, but also because at that scale it was noticeable or necessary.

We argued about it with him at first that it wasn’t necessary and he wasn’t convinced, but once we laid out the additional cost he agreed with us.

I feel like it was a good learning experience for both sides.

[u/mavajo → u/Apptubrutae]

Bingo. One of the biggest problems in the corporate world is people self-censoring for what's sensible or achievable. Stifles innovation and creativity.

[u/DustyRacoonDad → u/mavajo]

Ah yes, the “don’t try to do that exceptional design because it cannot be done affordably” mindset.

So nobody even attempts it during the design phase. Then someone else eventually proves it can be done, and suddenly everyone does it.

But by then, most people do not go back and rethink the earlier assumptions or redesign choices. They dont look back to realize it was always feasible, just not explored.

[u/pepperouchau → u/DustyRacoonDad]

You’re not wrong, but I’ve also been the engineer doing triple work to present three options knowing they’re 99% likely to just choose the cheap one, so the motivation to push from my end is limited.

[u/botte-la-botte → u/Apptubrutae]

See, people see the headlines of this article and think Steve Jobs was an obsessive perfectionist to the point of hubris. When he was not; he was exactly how you said, he found compromises.

Even at his worst, when he was young and leading the Mac team, he would relent. He wanted to align every single chip on the Mac's logic board perfectly, like had been done on the Apple II. They even got to the point of getting a prototype board made. But it was so expensive to make, that even then Jobs agreed the board couldn't be perfectly symmetrical.

[u/JerikOhe → u/botte-la-botte]

Let's not go to far the other way. The original Macintosh and earlier Apples were built without cooling fans bc jobs "hated the noise" so the internals would bake themselves.

Theres a certain amount of hubris involved in removing or refusing cooling for equipment that pretty heavily relies on creating heat to function, the excess of which quickly deteriorates it.

[u/JohnGillnitz → u/JerikOhe]

Like Elon not using LIDAR on Teslas. He said video only once, so now it's a hill he's willing to let other people die on.

[u/satmandu → u/JohnGillnitz]

Sadly other companies like Rivian have joined him on that stupid hill, even though visible light cameras don't hold a candle to what our eyes can do, not least because our eyes can handle a much much larger variability in brightness in what we look at.

Luckily companies like Waymo that actually do self-driving aren't insane and use LIDAR.

[u/Baddrivers13 → u/JerikOhe]

2000's macbook and up would roast you hahaha

[u/liquorfish → u/botte-la-botte]

When I think of Steve Jobs, I think of the guy who liked to put his bare feet into a toilet on the regular.

Eccentric doesnt encompass the man fully. Driven yes, design focused yes, put feet in a literal toilet yes.

[u/botte-la-botte → u/liquorfish]

That's stuff he did when he was young because he was a Californian hippie who grew up in the 70s.

He didn't do that when he was old. He got tubs for that.

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/botte-la-botte]

Let's not forget the part where he ignored medical advice in favor of quackery and probably had a worse outcome for it.

[u/Space_Slime_LF → u/Apptubrutae]

This reminds me of jobs talking about engineering ceos vs sales ceos like IBM back in the day.

[u/TheLexoPlexx → u/Simon_Drake]

This reminds me of Daft Punks Giorgio Moroder.

They used different mics from the different eras throughout the song. Nobody will hear the difference, but it's there.

[u/12thshadow → u/TheLexoPlexx]

My name is Giovanni Giorgio... great now i have that song stuck in my head

[u/hofmann419 → u/TheLexoPlexx]

I've actually listened to that song on headphones specifically to try to hear the difference, but i couldn't. It all sounded exactly the same. I guess that microphone technology has been pretty great for a long time.

[u/MediatingInstigator → u/hofmann419]

I sure as heck couldn’t tell from the conference calls I’m on, you’d think we invented microphones last year.

[u/Aten-1994 → u/TheLexoPlexx]

That's such a banger of a song. The whole album, really. The summer that Random Access Memories came out, I was still listening to CDs in my car, and of the ones in my six-disc player, that one got the heaviest use. What a time.

[u/wonkey_monkey → u/Simon_Drake]

In 2020 they were selling Mac Pro wheels for $700. Wheels which didn't lock so your computer might just roll away.

[u/ExtraHarmless → u/wonkey_monkey]

But friend, they were the nicest rims you could put on a cheese grater.

[u/geniice → u/wonkey_monkey]

The 2020 Mac Pro occupied a weird space where it was halfway a computer for a small number of people who needed exactly that feature-set and and design statement. By the time it came out almost everyone who needed serious computer grunt was running threadripper/quado combos (or just using servers) so even at the silicone level (xeon/that weird AMD double GPU thing) it was an odd duck that only made sense if you were locked into the apple ecosystem.

[u/thefunkybassist → u/Simon_Drake]

❌ happy feet

✅ Apple feet

[u/Pkock → u/Simon_Drake]

This is somewhat standard practice now if you are opening up any type of new tooling for a rubber or cast feature with a contracted manufacturer. You add your logo for a branding perspective but also because it makes it more clear that the tooling asset belongs to you. If I paid to make a new type of non scratch foot, it's gonna be my tool, I don't want it getting used to make Dells when its not running for me. Especially in China, tooling agreements are barely worth the paper they are printed on in some sub-factories.

My company even does it on the insides of our castings where it cannot be seen and it has helped us find out what contract manufacturers are leaking parts out the back door to the knockoff market.

[u/phenix_igloo → u/Simon_Drake]

Those feet are very important, a computer can't run without at least two of them.

[u/sir_mrej → u/Dogrel]

Huh mine was silver inside where the signatures were

[u/demunted → u/sir_mrej]

Only select runs had it I think.

[u/dylan_1992 → u/Dogrel]

Solid thing to do as a kid, I used to do the same with old computers.

However CRTs were build into Macintoshes with deadly capacitors even when unplugged for months, definitely not safe for a kid to handle.

[u/joebluebob → u/dylan_1992]

Me, I just can taste pennies in my pocket now. No big deal

[u/PM_me_ur_claims → u/dylan_1992]

I was taking apart an old shoulder mounted video recorded my parents didn’t use anymore way back in like the 90’s. I dunno what I hit but my screwdriver touched something and I got such a bad shock it literally knocked me off the bench i was sitting on. My arms were locked into an L shape for a few seconds. Totally forgot it even happened until now

[u/ihatereddit1221 → u/Dogrel]

And yet he wouldn’t acknowledge the Apple II team.

[u/Savannah216 → u/ihatereddit1221]

And yet he wouldn’t acknowledge the Apple II team.

A decade of acknowledgement and praise for one of the most important early computers apparently wasn't enough.

The scene in the movie never happened, the whole script is a composite of alleged events, amplified for drama. Not least because Woz was recovering from crashing his plane, the resulting amnesia, and only played a brief advisory role on the Macintosh team as a result of a 12-month leave of absence.

The skunk works team that produced the Mac consisted of Jef Raskin (employee #31) who conceived the whole idea and the man who wrote the manual for the Apple II. Burrell Smith (employee #282) founder of Radius and the designer of the first LaserWriter motherboard. Steve Wozniak who designed the Apple II motherboard. Andy Hertzfeld, who wrote the firmware for the first 80 column card for the Apple II. Finally, Steve Jobs.

All of their signatures appear on the case, including Woz.

In other words all the key people on the Mac team worked on the Apple II.

[u/pepperouchau → u/Savannah216]

I have the book Hertzfeld put out that’s a compilation of stories from the Mac team and would recommend it to anyone trying to get a better idea of what working with Jobs was really like (plus it’s just pretty interesting in general)

[u/Savannah216 → u/pepperouchau]

It's a great book. Almost the first thing I learned when I got into management is that people will make up all sorts of bonkers stories about you and the decisions you make no matter what you do.

There's a story in this thread where Jobs has asked for a costing on branded feet for the computer, they were too expensive, and he decided against it because the point of the computer was to hit approximately a quarter of the Lisa price point.

This is a perfectly normal, completely anodyne, request - how much would x cost and will it fit in the budget. The story is presented in a way designed to make Jobs appear foolish. That's really the problem with mythical figures - they're surrounded by myths!

My personal favourite quotes by jobs and about Jobs are these:-

“The greatest joy of working with Steve Jobs was that his agenda in life was clearly to change the world. He had no other interests. Money didn’t matter to him. Power didn’t matter to him and women didn’t matter to him. As a person on his team it was so refreshing to work in that kind of environment. Even though he was challenging and difficult, it was very refreshing. - Cameron Craig

"I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now. That’s what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money. That’s what I want Apple to be.”

There are some great stories here from people who actually knew and worked with him, including several from the Apple II team.

[u/botte-la-botte → u/ihatereddit1221]

That's from the movie. It was invented.

[u/lucidguppy → u/ihatereddit1221]

WOZ...

[u/HolyFreakingXmasCake → u/Dogrel]

Growing up, Jobs once helped his father build a fence around their family home in Mountain View. While working, Paul shared a piece of advice with Jobs: “You’ve got to make the back of the fence, that nobody will see, just as good looking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that you’re dedicated to making something perfect.”

[u/0ttr]

his biography traces it to his adoptive father who finished the back of the furniture he made

[u/kwispyforeskin → u/0ttr]

No way! When I read this post I was like “nah, I totally get that.” I’m a cabinetmaker/furniture maker. I always finish the underside and backside of things. “No one will ever see that!” Probably not, but it IS there, and by golly if it’s there, I want it to be done well.

[u/Few_Permission_3756 → u/kwispyforeskin]

I'm a teacher and I make sure that my worksheets are as beautiful as possible. If my 16 years old have to learn about Kant they at least can do it with nice materials.

[u/Candayence → u/Few_Permission_3756]

Kant is such a fascinating guy to learn about.

It's even better when you have a German teacher, and discover how they pronounce his name, and start calling him 'the German philosopher' instead.

[u/Responsible-Can-8361 → u/Candayence]

You can’t say Kant

[u/Few_Permission_3756 → u/Candayence]

Ha! I'm from Germany and teach in Germany. We talk about this funny coincidence and they love it.

Edit: I'd also never call him anything else. He's a cunt for writing like he does, but I love his philosophy.

[u/Karnaugh_Map → u/kwispyforeskin]

It's not visible until you move house and the new location for that dresser isn't wide enough, so you see some of the back panel peeking around the corner...

[u/kwispyforeskin → u/Karnaugh_Map]

Exactly! Things like that happen. I never liked moving furniture when I was younger and seeing the stain or paint at the bottom. It was never clean looking, and dust sticks to it and all sorts of things. I don’t usually make sure it’s perfect in those areas, unless I’m building something for myself.

[u/Karnaugh_Map → u/kwispyforeskin]

A lot of furniture also looks really ugly from the point of view of a toddler.

[u/readeral → u/kwispyforeskin]

I’m repainting my house (inside) bit by bit, and it kills me how many spots were left unpainted by the previous change when removing a casing or shroud or pelmet would’ve taken 5 minutes at most and 10 seconds in most cases. Maddening

[u/DrownmeinIslay → u/0ttr]

"But ill know its there" is the curse and talent of the perfectionist.

[u/RoarOfTheWorlds → u/0ttr]

I believe it was fences

[u/trowaman → u/RoarOfTheWorlds]

Furniture. Wood working carpenter.

[u/Jakelshark]

I remember in his biography, there was a story about how his step adoptive father was a major influence on this. Stuff like how he'd watch him refinish the back of a wood dresser because it's the right way to do it, even if you don't necessarily see it. He learned it as a child.

[u/Worldly_Car912 → u/Jakelshark]

It's weird that he looked up to his step dad like that, but didn't bother with his biological children.

[u/DimitriCushion → u/Worldly_Car912]

He assumed their step dad would be an inspiration for them.

[u/Jakelshark → u/Worldly_Car912]

It's complicated to say the least about his relationship with his daughter Lisa, though they did make amends. He seemed more normal with his other three kids. They all got a large inheritance worth multiple millions. It was mostly the first several years of Lisa's life that he was an asshole/deadbeat/absentee-father.

[u/Disastrous_Usual4886 → u/Jakelshark]

His adoptive father. Not his step dad.

[u/AdAnnual5736]

That’s probably why they never released a mouse that was ergonomic in any way. It was designed for the eyes, not for the hands, which makes no sense when you’re interacting with it via the hands.

[u/0xe1e10d68 → u/AdAnnual5736]

Yeah, although Logitech has done the job for them with the MX Master. imo it looks good to be eyes and is great for the hands. It may not look as minimalist as the Apple Magic Mouse, but it looks sleek and well designed. As opposed to most mice out there, especially gaming mice.

[u/Giraffe_Dude → u/0xe1e10d68]

The only downside is its god awful polling rate, which I don’t understand why they refuse to fix.

[u/chargers949 → u/AdAnnual5736]

The fucking charging by turning it facing up and completely useless was always such a design fail to me

[u/soba_set → u/chargers949]

That's so you don't have to look at the disgusting, sinful charging hole. Think of the children. Charging should be done in private, away from the eyes of the innocent.

[u/DiegesisThesis → u/chargers949]

They knew people would be "lazy" and just leave it plugged in, and you can't have your pristine sleek Apple reputation tarnished by a user having a gag WIRED mouse.

[u/SolusLoqui]

Article author: "Hmm, should I include some example pictures of the internal engineering this article is about? Nah, I'll just slap a picture of an iPad home button on there and call it good."

[u/Kradget]

He also got cancer and rather than going to the doctor and getting treatment, he decided to eat more fruit about it until it was too late, so it's not always the case that these quirks are beneficial.

[u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT → u/Kradget]

Eat fruit about it lol

[u/Fabulous_Ninja119 → u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT]

You've never eaten fruit about it?

[u/ObligationMurky8716 → u/Fabulous_Ninja119]

Yeah but at least I showered.

[u/Actual_Duck_1215 → u/ObligationMurky8716]

But did you wash your feet in the toilet?

[u/mdp300 → u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT]

Years before the cancer, he somehow got the idea that eating nothing but fruit would solve all your health problems.

[u/Ouch_i_fell_down → u/mdp300]

People who are really good at one thing always convince themselves that makes them really good at everything else too.

[u/redtruck2024 → u/mdp300]

Ashton Kutcher tried the fruit diet for his Steve Jobs movie and developed pancreas issues.

[u/mdp300 → u/redtruck2024]

Yeah apparently the all-fruit diet was the worst possible thing he could have done when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

[u/sharrrper → u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT]

Do cocaine about it

[u/Fiery_Soul_34857 → u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT]

Lol

[u/North_Yak966 → u/Fiery_Soul_34857]

Lmao even

[u/impreprex → u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT]

lol got me too. Reminded me of Stillwell’s mother (the blonde woman) in A League of Their Own when she asks a drunk Tom Hanks if she can bring Stillwell with them on the bus. And then she says that she asked her husband to watch him, but that he told her that SHE should watch him - and that she “should just shut up about it and take him”. 😂

[u/tom_friday_ → u/Kradget]

As a Buddhist, I have never understood his buddhist shtick and how any of his actions and intentions are in anyway reflective of Buddhist practice.

[u/Simpanzee0123 → u/tom_friday_]

It's definitely that "tourist Buddhism" where, and I can only speak for my fellow Americans who do it, we tend to distort and bastardize it, the same way we do "Chinese food". Rather than really genuinely following it like a religion, we tend to only include it where we find it "convenient" as a self-help tool or partial philosophy.

For the most extreme example, if Madonna, the "Material Girl", is a Buddhist, then I'm Henry fucking Cavill.

[u/tom_friday_ → u/Simpanzee0123]

But isn't a material girl in a material world to become one with everything?

[u/AimDev → u/tom_friday_]

It's more or less what people say they believe in when they need to have a religion for something. Government grants, masonic temples, outcast by family for being atheist, etc. 

[u/lorarc → u/tom_friday_]

Yen buddhism, money is evil so let's save others by hoarding it.

[u/Senior-Deer-3249 → u/tom_friday_]

Marc Benioff is also huge into Buddhism and Hawaiian culture and bragged at the big Salesforce event I went to that his mornings were spent in prayer with Buddhist monks before he went off to have lunch with them on his Hawaiian compound. I think it was just the thing of tech ceos whose only friends were each other in the 80s and 90s. 

[u/Hellkyte → u/tom_friday_]

He was 0% Buddhist and 100% bullshitist

Real buddhists aren't abusive

[u/FlirtyFluffyFox → u/tom_friday_]

Orientalism. Westerners like to pick up select philosophies from Eastern religions and ignore the practical and problematic beliefs while pretending like the more enlightened revelations aren't also in Christian theology as advanced/esoteric as their cherry picked form of Buddhism.

[u/GalacticCmdr → u/Kradget]

Let's not forget what an ASSHOLE he was as a parent.

[u/Neethis → u/GalacticCmdr]

And as a business partner.

[u/THE-ONE-DONGLER → u/Neethis]

Basically as a human

[u/Skittleavix → u/THE-ONE-DONGLER]

Nobody amasses that much power without leaving a trail of broken relationships in their wake

[u/touchet29 → u/Skittleavix]

I do that without any power at all.

[u/Overall-Register9758 → u/touchet29]

All powerful people are sociopaths, but not all sociopaths are powerful people.

[u/RacingNeilo → u/THE-ONE-DONGLER]

I never understood people who left flowers outside of apple stores

[u/xstrike0 → u/RacingNeilo]

Wait til you see what happens in the future when Elon Musk is no longer with us, I am expecting Shia-leader level wailing and self-flagellation

[u/ee3k → u/xstrike0]

strap him into a cypertruck and fire him into space.

both his enemies and followers could support that one.

the only difference is if his heart has stopped beating first.

[u/RutzButtercup → u/xstrike0]

I prefer to do that sort of thing at home, in private

[u/NirgalFromMars → u/xstrike0]

Anyone who flagelates himself over Elon Musk would actually deserve the lashes.

[u/Special_Order-937 → u/Neethis]

I guess Woz had the last laugh.

Or at least still gets to laugh at any time he chooses.

[u/HomeAliveIn45 → u/Special_Order-937]

The Wizard of Woz can live forever. He just chooses to roll d20s with us mortals

[u/mechy84 → u/GalacticCmdr]

An asshole that found success, thereby inspiring a whole culture of CEO-assholery in the tech industry that persists today.

[u/ObiLAN- → u/mechy84]

True, wish we had more people act like Woz instead of Jobs.

[u/mdp300 → u/mechy84]

He was far from the first CEO to be an asshole.

[u/Captain_Mazhar → u/mdp300]

cough cough Jack Welch

[u/FizzyBeverage → u/mechy84]

Robber barons were a thing before Jobs was even born. We've had asshole CEOs/leaders since the East India Company, and far earlier going back to the ancient empires aplenty.

[u/Korbalt → u/GalacticCmdr]

I knew he was a shit dad, but like, not there for you shit dad, but holy fuck, after hearing his episode of Behind the Bastards, fuck what a piece of shit human being he was.

[u/FizzyBeverage → u/Korbalt]

His oldest daughter Lisa, whom he seldom acknowledged writes about it extensively in her book "Small Fry"

Long story short, he was such an asshole that when she got into Harvard... he wouldn't pay the tuition.

Rich neighbors had to pay for some of her terms and Steve would begrudgingly pay them back.

[u/Korbalt → u/FizzyBeverage]

Motherfucker was loaded and the government of California had to sue his ass because the mother of his child was on government subsidies. That piece of shit had to be forced by the government to take a DNA test because he firmly believed that Lisa was not his daughter…

[u/transemacabre → u/FizzyBeverage]

He made her sleep in an unheated room. Richest man on Earth and he made his kid sleep in a room with no heat just to be cruel.

[u/FizzyBeverage → u/transemacabre]

They'd drive by a strip club and he'd say "that's where Lisa's going to work." They'd pass a homeless guy and he'd say "that's where Lisa's going to live."

Apparently Lisa once brought a friend to dinner at a restaurant and vegan Steve showed up late, then called her friend a disgusting pig for ordering a cheeseburger. He made his daughter's friend from school cry. Just insanity.

Lisa was like 11 years old... Steve was a sadistic sonofabitch. Many Apple employees have reported the same abuse, but at least they didn't have to live with him and were there for rather large paychecks.

[u/shrek3onDVDandBluray → u/GalacticCmdr]

Gotta actually be a parent to be an asshole parent. He’s just an asshole lol.

[u/moonmelter → u/Kradget]

He also believed the fruit diet made him immune to getting body odour, despite being repeatedly informed by those around him that it absolutely did not. That’s my favourite Jobs fact.

[u/Chastain86 → u/moonmelter]

Interesting side story about that "Fruitarian" diet -- when Ashton Kutcher was cast to play Jobs in his biopic, he tried to adopt the diet himself to take on a more Jobs-like mindset. He had to be hospitalized twice in the first thirty days due to severe pain and inflammation in his pancreas, and dropped off the diet immediately afterwards at the urging of his doctors. Since Jobs died due to pancreatic cancer, one would naturally wonder if his dietary insanity played a role in his eventual death. And for a guy that likely had the best medical care that money could buy, one would imagine his own doctors did their own urging, all of which Jobs likely ignored.

[u/wonklebobb → u/Chastain86]

wonder if his dietary insanity played a role in his eventual death

it absolutely did, there are very strong links between fructose intake and pancreatic issues, studies have even found that pancreatic cancers tend to activate growth pathways from fructose specifically - granted the largest study i found on that was from 2010, and jobs already had the cancer by then i think

still, it's well-known at this point that he was gifted a highly treatable form of pancreatic cancer, an extremely rare type due to how untreatable pancreatic cancer is normally. and he blew that chance on his ego-driven fruitarian self-treatment attempt for nearly a year, and by the time he admitted it was off base it was too late

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/moonmelter]

He's not alone. I've certainly met other people who proudly proclaim they "don't need deodorant". I disagreed.

[u/DusqRunner → u/Kradget]

An apple a day took Steve Jobs away 😭

[u/Nikiaf → u/Kradget]

The same guy that refused to get license plates for his cars, so he just kept buying new Mercedes and swapped them out after the grace period ended.

[u/WatashiwaNobodyDesu → u/Nikiaf]

I was going to ask why but I’ll still end up thinking he was a pretentious arsehole and full of himself.

[u/JackandFred → u/WatashiwaNobodyDesu]

Supposedly it was so people wouldn’t try to track him and follow him based on His plate. The law allowed six months without a plate so he worked out a deal with a dealership to basically do repeated six month leases. Of course the end result was that anytime people saw a car like his without a plate they’d say ooh I wonder if that’s him. He probably got more attention than he would’ve if he just did nothing 

[u/mdp300 → u/JackandFred]

If I remember right, he drove around with NO plate, not even the temporary one you get while waiting for your real plates. So it didn't even help him hide, because anyone who knew that fact would know that the brand new Mercedes SL with no plate would be Jobs.

[u/___--_-_----___--__- → u/WatashiwaNobodyDesu]

IIRC you don’t have to get a license plate for your car for like 6 months so he’d just buy a new car every 6 months 

Also he’d park in the handicapped spot 

[u/fallway → u/Kradget]

The worst part about this is that, after this obviously fruitless approach to treating the cancer didn’t work, he then used his money and influence to obtain a liver that someone else could have used

[u/darodardar_Inc → u/fallway]

"fruitless approach" lol

[u/transemacabre → u/fallway]

He gamed the system to get a liver transplant.

[u/weaponizedtoddlers → u/Kradget]

Also ate so many carrots that he turned orange. His doctor was trying to get him to stop as the beta carotene didn't know where to go.

[u/Logical-Breakfast150 → u/Kradget]

And when he was beyond saving and on deaths door, he took an organ transplant that could have gone to a viable candidate. 

Dude main-charactered himself and an innocent bystander to death. 

[u/Kaiisim → u/Kradget]

And tbh I dread to think what Steve Jobs would be doing right now if he hadn't died. He'd be a huge tech billionaire too.

[u/toan55 → u/Kaiisim]

He'd be a huge tech billionaire

He was.

[u/matt95110 → u/Kradget]

And he also bought a liver.

[u/moonmelter → u/matt95110]

That shit makes me so mad. He was going to die with or without the liver, but he got one because he could essentially afford to jump the queue. Someone had to wait for a liver or perhaps even died because they didn’t get one, all because moneybags believed in his fruit diet

[u/Mobile_Morale → u/moonmelter]

My sister died in need of a heart transplant. Dick Cheney killed thousands children in Iraq and he got a heart transplant in his 80's.

Dick Cheney deserved prison time and nothing less.

[u/dew2459 → u/moonmelter]

Pretty safe to guess that someone else died. There is a long waiting list for organs.

[u/hogsucker → u/Kradget]

Imagine how insufferable he would be if he was around for this new gilded age of oligarchs 

[u/TheQuestionMaster8 → u/hogsucker]

Well, his own hubris killed him

[u/WeWantLADDER49sequel → u/Kradget]

A lot of things with Apple are so over romanticized to the point of absurdity anyways. Steve Jobs was a marketing genius which everyone acknowledges. But most people don't want to accept that their obsessive, over the top view of Apple and how "perfect" it is as a company is also due to that image being marketed to them for decades and them gobbling it up.

[u/TheSorrryCanadian → u/Kradget]

bro u got cancer

ahh its all good i'll have a pear for lunch

[u/Einn1Tveir2]

Didn't the original 1984 mac overheat and break because he didn't want to include a fan, and it couldn't be opened up because you needed "special tools"

[u/lacb1 → u/Einn1Tveir2]

Yeah. He never considered it to be an issue because it didn't present an issue for him as he was a grade A tool.

[u/RutzButtercup]

First thing that popped into my mind was the smug episode of South Park.

[u/AcousticOnomatopoeia → u/RutzButtercup]

THAAA-AAAAAANKS!!

[u/GarretBarrett]

As someone who has disassembled the old iMac, the cool transparent color monitors, when did he do this? Those were atrociously designed lol

[u/KevHes1245 → u/GarretBarrett]

It's IN the COMPUTER?! monkey noises

[u/NotPatricularlyKind → u/KevHes1245]

Genuinely that joke could only truly work for a sliver of time in human history and they captured it. I fucking love that joke

[u/Osteo_Sapien → u/GarretBarrett]

The post is talking about when Jobs originally co-founded Apple. The iMac G3 (the colorful one) was the first product to release after Jobs came back to Apple. By that point, the company was doing terribly and it's safe to say that Jobs' vision of perfection had been all but scrapped in favor of profit.

[u/toan55 → u/Osteo_Sapien]

Very much this. Marketing oversold his Buddhist practices of his early 20's. People ate this up.

[u/wpm → u/Osteo_Sapien]

Jobs reportedly cried over the fact that the iMac wouldn't ship with a slot-load disc drive, and that he had to announce the product with an ugly tray loader.

He believed that was the route to profitability. Sleek, fun, or as he said, "sexy", computers in an era when almost none of them were.

[u/DigNitty → u/wpm]

I never had a tray loader refuse to give me my cd back. I had a slot drive sit there and make noises at me, twice.

[u/botte-la-botte → u/Osteo_Sapien]

The original Macintosh had signatures inside, but as time went on and the number of ports increased, signatures disappeared. So at some point they decided to remove them all. The later models based on the original Macintosh don't have the signatures.

By the time of the iMac G3's release, Apple had decided on a collective no easter egg and credits policy. It was seen as distracting and confusing. It also lessened the ability of competitors to poach employees. That computer also had way too many collaborators to be able to sign inside.

[u/jenorama_CA → u/GarretBarrett]

Those were a bear to take apart.

[u/cyanophage]

On one computer the engineers said the case needed vents or it would overheat. He didn't like that idea so he said no vents. The computers overheated so much the motherboards bent and plugs came disconnected inside. The official way to fix them was to lift them a few inches off the desk and drop them. This would reseat the motherboard so the plugs reconnected.

So yeah, Apple have been "form over function" for decades. From bending motherboards to unusable keyboards to plugs on the bottom of mice. What shit will they pull next...

[u/DigNitty → u/cyanophage]

I’m not even a fanboy of apple’s but they have been killing it the last few years.

Telling the FBI no they won’t unlock that guy’s iPhone. Delaying AI on the phones so that they could figure out how to run it locally instead of sending all your data to some data center. Releasing the Neo, that $600 laptop. …

And as an aside, Microsoft is absolutely shitting the bed right now.

[u/braindance74 → u/DigNitty]

I’m not even a fanboy of apple’s but they have been killing it the last few years.

Telling the FBI no they won’t unlock that guy’s iPhone.

Even ignoring how 2016 hardly constitutes "last few years", it was easy to be defiant under Obama, with checks and balances ensuring their protection vs the government.

Nowadays - the actual "last few years" - Apple is brown-nosing Trump with praise and solid gold presents from CEO, altering supply chains, pledging billions to domestic manufacturing, moving facilities etc., everything to appease the government to avoid tariffs and gain points with the king.

So who knows what requests from Kash Patel's FBI they comply with behind the scenes these days.

[u/SpiritFingersKitty]

A lot of computer enthusiasts still do the same thing today. And when one of the selling points of your computer is having a translucent back, it kind of makes sense.

[u/i_am_tct]

wanking motion

[u/that_baddest_dude → u/i_am_tct]

Yeah Steve Job's real talent was screaming at engineering teams until they produced results he was happy with.

[u/zobq]

We can talk a lot about Steve Jobs, but CEO who actually cares about quality of the product is so rare today.

[u/artguydeluxe → u/zobq]

He simply wouldn’t put up with a lot of things Apple does today. Music (iTunes) is a mess and has been ever since he passed.

[u/zuzg → u/artguydeluxe]

The magic mouse is the most useless thing I've ever seen. That thing came out 2 years to prior to his death....

[u/throwawayPzaFm → u/artguydeluxe]

Music (iTunes) is a mess and has been ever since he passed.

iTunes has been an absolute piece of shit since inception

[u/Climatize → u/artguydeluxe]

It's hard to even imagine Jobs coming up with the Vision headset. Like, look it comes with a battery pack and wires, a big goofy visor and strap, and...

[u/NecroDolphinn → u/artguydeluxe]

The fact that Apple Music still doesn’t have a Spotify Connect equivalent is baffling to me. I happily use AM over Spotify but a primary selling point for Apple is the ecosystem, so the fact that music can’t fluidly sync between devices is insane to me

[u/toan55 → u/zobq]

Like the iphone that you had to hold it a certain way for you take a call on it lol.

[u/Danloeser → u/zobq]

He didn't, it was about looks over quality. Those machines were notorious for overheating because of how badly engineered the internals were.

[u/mukavastinumb → u/Danloeser]

I remember reading that he hated fans and the noise they make

[u/mightypup1974 → u/mukavastinumb]

Yeah, read up on the Apple III

[u/kiwigate → u/[deleted]]

Makes one wonder, if Elon Musk had dropped dead before public opinion caught up to his behavior, would people still be reposting propaganda from his early days. Nothing will ever make me forget his nazi salutes. Who knows what people would think of Jobs if he hadn't died so young.

[u/Bilboswaggings19 → u/[deleted]]

You should know that people will not look further than a headline

[u/PointsOfXP]

Psychedelics affect people differently.

[u/Physical-Cod2853]

Didn’t he also chuck the first iPod in a fish tank and when there was bubbles he told them to get rid of any vacant space

[u/fanboy_killer → u/Physical-Cod2853]

No, but it's a popular myth.

[u/thefunkybassist → u/fanboy_killer]

I'd be looking forward to a fish tank filled with rusty iPods in the Apple Museum lol

[u/Randomperson1362 → u/Physical-Cod2853]

The same story is said about the Sony Walkman. There is also a Sony videocamera commercial where they are throwing prototypes into a fish tank to check for bubbles.

Maybe its true for Jobs, maybe it isn't.

[u/ashriekfromspace]

He probably should have used his buddhism inspiration to become less of an asshole

[u/Throwaway-Addict]

If only his passion for design extended to his passion for labor rights, as opposed to his actual legacy, which is blatant wage theft from his own engineers.

[u/hoxful]

Lol yeah the simple detachment and minimalism of growing one of the largest computer companies ever... Lmao

Yeah the hardware does have an aesthetic to it, it looks more organized, in layout, and cleaner, but that's superficial when they constantly treat their end user like the biggest idiots, and are outright hostile in choices like removal of 3.5mm headphone jack, or one button mouse charge upside down, guess it's good though m$ has a competitor.

[u/aegrotatio]

Is that why I need a plastic spudger, a specialized screwdriver, a heat gun, and lots of adhesive tape to do ANY KIND OF FIX to my Apple devices?

[u/amenflurries]

I took apart an older Apple recently and I can attest that there was no such design philosophy applied to the mess of ribbon cables and random parts

[u/cheezballs]

If only he tried that hard at being a good human.

[u/JobAnxious2005]

Yeah but…

iTunes 🤣

[u/RykinPoe]

As someone who has done an HDD swap on an iBook G4 I can say that definitely didn’t follow this approach with everything.

[u/No-Barber-5289]

I used to repair Macs for a living. This is a crock of shit, lol.

[u/Dave_OB]

He also came in late at night and attempted to redesign a circuit board with zero understanding of how to do so, completely ignorant of the importance of maintaining equal trace length of parallel data buses. All because he didn't like the way the copper traces looked. In the process he ended up trashing weeks' worth of work which ultimately had to be redone.

What a complete fucking jackass. Yes, he had some brilliant ideas, and he had a very good eye for design. But let's also not forget what an utter tool this man could be.

[u/PsychologicalSir3326]

No thanks. I’ll take my systems ugly, but customizable, repairable, and respectful of my ability to learn how to operate it the way I want to.

I know today’s Apple isn’t quite Steve Job’s Apple, but he laid the groundwork for aesthetically appealing, overpriced toys.

[u/Lennnybruce]

Like all good Buddhists Steve Jobs had billions of dollars, profited immensely from what was essentially slave labor, and was a huge asshole in general.

[u/Gryndyl]

Exhibit #7846 that Jobs was a twat

[u/ItsSignalsJerry_]

Nonsense. The inside of old macs was hacky.

The myth around jobs as some design genius guru is fucking cringe. He sold computers. And took credit for other people's work. From some accounts he was also an asshole. Then he thought he could beat cancer with natural remedies.

Gimme a break.