Steve Jobs a music visionary? Judge for yourself | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs a music visionary? Judge for yourself

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26 pointswallflower13 comments

I remember when Jobs was caught by surprise by the then-Windows-only process of ripping and burning CDs using Winamp, etc. Apple had zero momentum in that area. I read an interview where he admitted to being 'caught by surprise' by the whole phenomena and he declared something to the effect of "Trust me, it won't happen again." Next thing you know, Apple came from a position of being in last place to becoming a market leader. AOL, on the other hand, bought Winamp, had all the raw materials and the dedicated users required to rule the music universe and what happened? (that is a rhetorical question ;-).

I'm not sure I'd want him as a boss, but I have tremendous respect for the man and his ability to hire great people and demand the best from them.

Jobs is an effective leader. But here's an innocent question from my inexperienced 20-year-old self: I wonder, how many marriages or families in general have been torn apart as a result of Apple's highly driven environment?

If your manager is asking you to work harder, it's easy to forget work-life balance. Sometimes, it even feels good when your manager requests you work late. I once almost became addicted to the feeling of "being heroic", which caused rather severe problems in other aspects of my life.

As far as I've heard, Apple engineers put in a lot of overtime. All that said, are the results worth the pain? Is it worth it to build fantastic products at the expense of others?

I don't know. Personally, I'd say "yes", because nobody is being forced to work for Apple. But it's easy for a company to become somewhat evil by pushing that logic too far.

I'd agree and say yes. The sorts of people who are attracted to Apple are the sorts of people I'd bet thrive in that hellish environment. The people who don't feel that way don't have to work there.

Very nice write-up... I remember the days when Winamp was King. I even got an Infrared receiver for my PC, and had it working with Winamp. It was pretty sweet being able to fast forward / rewind / shuffle, etc... with a remote. This was in the Napster days I guess about 7-9 years ago?

What bothers me is the hysteria surrounding Apple. They make a white remote with 4 buttons and suddenly it's "incredible design" and "pure genius."

It's not clear what hysteria you're referring to.

Given that remotes trend toward having ten times as many buttons and the corresponding size, complexity and dismal ergonomics--while accomplishing little more--it's not unreasonable or hysterical to refer to it as a good design for the purpose. I suspect it more closely resembles the remote you used 7-9 years ago than most do.

I'm not sure if I believe that anyone has referred to it as "pure genius", though surely your quotes indicate that you are quoting someone and aren't just exaggerating to make a vapid point.

I might be wrong, but I believe Winamp is still very much The King. Platform market share and all that...

I know plenty of audiophiles who swear by foobar now instead of winamp. They want winamp 2.x back, something about AOL ruining winamp with 5.x? I can't remember the exact reasons.

Seeing as it's Winamp, owned by AOL, I have to say - Me too (uses Winamp)

Panic's story about Audion and iTunes has been posted here before, and it's still an excellent insider look into Apple from the POV of a ISV.

http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/

"We were thrilled to say the least. So much so, we had almost forgotten about the fact that the answer to our SoundJam mystery was about to unfold, right before our eyes, in one week...

iTunes was, of course, and I'll say this now, brilliant. It single-handedly taught us an entirely new philosophy on software design. Do you really need that Preference that 1% of your users will use?"

Wow, just spent the last 15 minutes reading that. What an engrossing story.

Here's two things I've learned about making things happen: say "yes" to everything you can and do your best. And don't worry about "fair," worry about doing the best for yourself and your customers.

"Jobs correctly predicted that attempts by the major labels to find a technological solution to piracy would fail. When it came to subscription music services, he said the public would reject them."

I think most people on HN have predicted the same thing. To create something like iTunes, presumably a huge army of lawyers was necessary. Not saying that other people could have been as successful, but it was definitely not something some guy in a garage could have done, because of the legal issues.

An army of lawyers, plus a brilliant rock-star entrepreneur usually described as "the smartest man in the room" who can pull it off, based on smarts and bravado.

Definitely not saying just anybody could have done it, with enough lawyers on his hand. Also the iPod itself probably helped (I guess it was part of the sales pitch to the music industry).

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