Introduction
Steve Jobs, the 42nd wealthiest man in America by the year 2010, whose net worth amounted to 8.3 billion dollars, and the entrepreneur who changed the way information technology worked had adopted an individualistic way of strategizing business by focusing on the designs and the ease of the customer. By 2001, Apple had launched the iPod, and by 2003, iTunes had been launched. Earlier in time, both of the launched programs were deemed revolutionary products despite the MP3 players already gracing the market. From buying Pixar to supporting environmental causes and charities, Jobs’ innovations and achievements continue to impact lifestyles and industries worldwide.
How Steve Jobs Changed the World
The music record companies, which were losing business because several people were downloading music off of illegal sites, had financial profits, too, after they had regained their customers through iTunes. Similarly, the world had already seen touch screens in the forms of PDAs, easy online activities through the World Wide Web, and mobile broadband; however, Steve Jobs set the bar higher by incorporating all three things into one device that served as what we now call a smartphone (Willis).
Steve Jobs erected landmarks for competitors in the market by making products that were made for industrial and technological evolution (Lusted). The success he achieved through the entire process is similar to that of Silicon Valley, and even though he was repeatedly rejected by shareholders and sacked multiple times, the vision he had devised for the products did eventually come true and is still present even after his demise and continues to benefit the people in their work and daily lives in general (Shea). The innovations made by the entrepreneur are still widely used today and are considered more stable in terms of their software and processors than other brands available in the market. For example, the iPod has changed the way people listen to music. The portable device added with the iTunes business proved to be a success for Apple (Shea).
Steve Jobs’ contribution in the realm of graphics and animation gave the public successes like Pixar and movies like “The Toy Story” which are still raved about to this day. Then, the creation of gadgets like the iPhone and the iPad became perhaps the most significant milestones in the post-modernist era. The iPhone serves the purpose of being an assistive device in everyday life, so much so that many people are perhaps unable to go about their day without their gadgets (Shea). Moreover, the iPad became the most portable computer after the creation of notebooks and laptops. Even though the concept of the tablet wasn’t a far-fetched idea then, it was still not achieved since companies like Microsoft and even Apple failed to make one after trying to make a laptop and tablet hybrid (Yu).
Furthermore, education is perhaps the only area where Steve Jobs’ influence hasn’t been realized to this day. His strategy in this area was too unorthodox; that is, his vision was to revolutionize the way the teachers teach and the students learn. He had advocated the focus on student learning and was against teacher unions (Willis). He also wanted a new style of teaching to arrive at schools, colleges, and universities in which the teacher would automatically adapt to the new learning experiences. Plus, his idea was to provide students with the opportunity for vouching to study in the school of their choice, and for this, he wanted to bring awareness among the parents (Lusted).
The reason he wanted to change the education system was that he wanted children to have an open space to learn anything of their choice (Moritz). He was a believer in the fact that isolated, closed-off learning experiences and mechanical environments, which, albeit generally do exist to this day, didn’t let people’s minds grow, and, in turn, innovations, ideas, and new practices no longer happen. Another reason products Jobs introduced are likeable by critics and people around the world is that the process of making the products, as well as the products themselves, is environment-friendly, which becomes a big plus in products today when the world is already seized by long-term problems such as global warming (Lusted).
Jobs’ concept of the ‘ecosystem’ was also deemed worthy of appraisal as it, too, was unique and significant in terms of the durability of a product (Shea). The iPhone system was made in such a way that the hardware, software, and entire processor were integrated into a closed-off system so that viruses wouldn’t penetrate easily, which made the devices safe for use. This idea was then adopted later on by other companies as well (Yu). Moreover, Jobs’ continual view of simplistic designs in gadgets and in the way gadgets work is even seen today. The Apple system was designed in such a way that it was evidently simpler than other systems such as Linux, MS-DOS, or Windows. It was earlier criticized because of the over-simplification of the devices, but it was later appraised because the accessibility provided by the gadgets and their less customizable design had made them stable, which had not previously been said for Windows, MS-DOS, or even Linux (Moritz).
His contributions brought enormous benefits to consumers who now have various choices when looking for the right gadget. His innovations became such a success that the status symbol now attached to phones and other gadgets is palpable. Lastly, his contributions as a philanthropist, although greatly unrecognized like his contribution to education, still exist as an example for other players in the market.
Conclusion
Steve Jobs’ tenure in the world of information technology was brief due to his early demise; nevertheless, the fact that his innovations continue to influence the world and have profound effects on it cannot be negated. His contributions to education, technology, life and perhaps even literature, when he decided to have a biography written on him, garner continual appraisal even to this day (Moritz). Moreover, by creating a successful company like Apple Inc., he brought a huge competitor in the race of gadgets, and today, even when Samsung is able to sell the most phones in the market, Apple iPhones are still considered to be reliable products in relation to others (Yu).
Bibliography
Lusted, Marcia Amidon. Apple: The Company and Its Visionary Founder, Steve Jobs: The Company and Its Visionary Founder, Steve Jobs. ABDO, 2012. Document.
Moritz, Michael. Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs, the creation of Apple, and how it changed the world. Gerald Duckworth & Co, 2010. Document.
Shea, Therese. Steve Jobs and Apple. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2012. Document.
Willis, Amy. “Steve Jobs: the five Apple products ‘that changed the world’.” 6 October 2011. The Telegraph. Document. 1 April 2018.
Yu, Howard H. “Decoding Leadership: How Steve Jobs Transformed Apple to Spearhead a Technological Informal Economy.” Journal of Business and Management (2013): 33-44. Document.
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