Aug 09, 2015 11:06 PM
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Recently I had the choice between watching the movie'Jobs' and reading the biography'Steve Jobs' by Walter Isaacson and since I have always preferred books to movies, I picked the book. And I have to say that I was not disappointed.
Microsoft did not come first! Well I don't think we can say Apple came first either but at least I now know that they came at around the same time.
Somehow because I have begun to see Apple products only since about 2004, I assumed that that was when they came into being.
Reading the history of this company and it visionary founder, you can see the seeds of these ideas from the very beginning which is something very astonishing for me. Apple products are simple to use! All the things we have seen on our products which seem almost too trivial to be even worth bothering about actually all contribute to making them so great.
I have never given too much thought to the track wheel on an iPod but think about it, no other music player makes it so easy to browse through your songs. In fact I have always been a fan of small music players with no display which will have me constantly checking which song is playing next and guess what the iPod Shuffle does just that! Add to that the uncomplicated on/off features, the clean lines of the outer coverings of all the products and you have a winner all around.
Let's just say I shan't be scoffing next time someone starts raving about their apple products:P It's ok to want things perfect! While everybody in the book(and outside of it!) agree that Steve Jobs was a major pain when it came to perfection, everybody(including Bill Gates) also agree that this passion of his led to him revolutionizing multiple industries.
Who ever heard of a CEO asking his team to redesign a product 3 weeks before its launch just because the screen was aesthetically pleasing enough? But there you have it. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication! We have come to expect complexity in our lives. When something is easy and simple we are suspicious, it cannot be, we say to ourselves.
Thus it only follows that we surround ourselves with devices that are complicated. But it need not be. Devices, machines, systems, applications are all made for use by human beings so why are we always faced with things that expect human beings to adapt and act in a way not natural to them? Shouldn't it be the other way around: things that are so simple to use that we feel empowered when we master them? The answer to that is a simple yes.
