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Tag: Macintosh

  • Prabhakar Mundkur on how he can’t get over the brilliance of the commentary of the Think Different commercial

    Prabhakar Mundkur: An Ode to Steve Jobs

    Prabhakar MundkurBy Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    “Think different” was written by Craig Tonamoto, art director at Chiat/Day who also did the initial concept work on Apple. In a way that shattered the notion that art directors are meant to do art and copywriters are meant to do copy.  But the world had changed already in 1997 when this tag line was written, breaking the boundaries between different disciplines in creative, a notion that existed in the advertising business of the 60s and 70s.

     

    October 5 of course brought back memories of Steve Jobs because it has now been a decade since he passed.  As an Apple user for the last 15 years, I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sadness when I read the statement that his family put out on this memorable day.

     

    “For a decade now, mourning and healing have gone together. Our gratitude has become as great as our loss.

    Each of us has found his or her own path to consolation, but we have come together in a beautiful place of love for Steve, and for what he taught us.

    For all of Steve’s gifts, it was his power as a teacher that has endured.

    He taught us to be open to the beauty of the world, to be curious around new ideas, to see around the next corner and most of all to stay humble in our own beginner’s mind.

    There are many things we still see through his eyes, but he also taught to look for ourselves. He gave us equipment for living, and it has served us well.

    One of our greatest sources of consolation has been our association of Steve with beauty. The sight of something beautiful – a wooded hillside, a well‑made object – recalls his spirit to us.”

     

    With that statement was also released a film that encapsulated the essence of Jobs and Apple.

     

     

    Before I started using Apple, I would be amazed at the instant connection that two Apple users felt in a room when they first discovered each other to be Apple users. The connection was almost electric. It was magical, the sense of camaraderie and the feeling of belonging to a secret cult of Apple lovers.

     

    When I saw the shape of the newly launched iPhone 13 this month, I couldn’t help feeling that it reminded me strongly of the Apple iPhone 5 which was the last phone launched by Jobs.

     

    I can’t get over the brilliance of the commentary of the Think Different commercial.  It makes me proud to belong to a cult of Apple users.

     

    Here’s to the crazy ones

    The misfits

    The rebels

    The troublemakers

    The round pegs in square holes

    The ones who see things differently

    They are not fond of rules

    And they have no respect for the status quo

    You can quote them, disagree with them,

    Glorify them or vilify them

    About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them

    Because they change things

    They push the human race forward

    While some may see them as the crazy ones

    we see genius

    Because the people who are crazy enough to think

    They can change the world, are the ones who do

     

    It was to catapult the Apple being one of most worthy  brands on the planet. Today, it is worth $ 612 billion.

     

     

    In many ways, the commentary of Think Different glorified the Apple user and made her/him feel a strong part of a tribe around the world.

     

    As we remember Jobs, this powerful and shared feeling carries on.

     

     

  • Obituary: Steve Jobs (1955-2011) showed what it takes to turn the smallest of ideas into life-changing products

    Steve Jobs – The Vision and the Conviction

    By Prasanto K Roy

     

    It’s a well-worn cliché to speak of the end of an era when someone well known has passed away.

    Today, however, it does feel like something has changed forever in the world of tech.

    The brilliance and clarity of vision, the courage of conviction, the fiery intolerance for imperfection.

    I really don’t see another individual impacting technology in anywhere near the same way, in our era, as Steven Paul Jobs did.

    He wasn’t just the guy who made the world’s coolest gadgets. Oh, well, that too. I don’t know of any other company for whose products buyers queue up for three days, ahead of launch.

    Steve Jobs created markets and product categories. He changed how we consume information and entertainment. He redefined leadership.

    I can’t think of another person whom I have been so proud to have merely met, once, for a few minutes, or sat through as many as two of his “oh, and one more thing” launches. When he pulled that first iPod out of his jeans pocket, we all stood up, and I didn’t even notice when my new notebook slid from my lap and cracked its display. It was a small price to pay to be a part of a piece of history, to experience the famous Jobs near-field distortion. “The Force is strong with him”, an elderly, pony-tailed journo sitting next to me said, perhaps to console me.

    There’s so much about Steve Jobs that marks him out from the many tech visionaries that dot Silicon Valley and the rest of the world. His never-say-die reinvention of himself and the companies he started, repeatedly turning adversity into advantage, described most famously in his Stanford address. His candor about shamelessly stealing the best ideas he came across, and then turning them into life-changing gadgets. His violent intolerance for ‘good enough’, making life hell for his design and execution teams, but turning out extraordinary products.

    Can you think of another person who would have had the vision to take his company into uncharted waters like a mobile phone with no keypad, which no market research had showed any demand for, and then change the world with that? Or who’d have the courage to bet upon and live with one, just one, model to take on the world’s phone vendors… and then to edge them out, with the world’s most brilliant, and most profitable smart phone? Or have the vision and execution to back great design with the amazing apps and accessories ecosystem that led to the re-invention of the tablet?

    This is a eulogy from a non-fanboy, and indeed something of an Apple critic. Though my first computer was an Apple IIc and my home is today dotted with iPads and iPods, I am no fan of Apple’s closed-garden approach, its secrecy and indeed its arrogance, or its historical lack of interest in India.

    I know that all of these largely derive from Steve Jobs, despite his old ties with India, which famously made a big impression on him as he backpacked through it (or when he went for his meals to a Hare Krishna temple in California).

    But we lived with all that that, and still bought Apple products. The secrecy and arrogance were an inseparable, even necessary part of the picture of Steve Jobs and Apple, especially if you go by results: stunning, life-changing lifestyle devices.

    With every chapter that ends, there is a new beginning.

    Of course the world, and Apple, will produce more outstanding, life-changing products. But yes, something has changed in the world of tech today, leaving (for Star Wars fans) not just a disturbance, but also a major discontinuity, in the Force.

     

    Prasanto K Roy is the chief editor of CyberMedia’s ICT group, and can be found at http://www.pkr.in/ or found on twitter.com/prasanto