What’s Next for Apple?

introduction to our topic. Yeah, we're gonna talk about what's next for Apple, what's coming up for Apple now that Steve Jobs has resigned. And for those of you who somehow managed to avoid the news on August twenty, yeah, I don't know how you managed to do it. But then on augustn Steve Jobs sent a letter to the Apple's Board of Directors handing in his resignation as see EO of Apple, although he did suggest or request that

he'd be allowed to remain chairman of the board. And he also suggested that the CEOO, the Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, be named the new CEO of Apple and uh and the board took both of those actions. So and yeah, so Jobs is still he's still with Apple. The way that the News covered this, it sounded like Jobs had not only left Apple, but that he was gone forever, and that it was almost like eulogies were

being written. And as far as we know, as far as we know, the reason for Jobs stepping down he said he was no longer able to fulfill his duties as CEO, which uh he actually I can read the verbatim the way that he worded this. I have always said, if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's chief executive, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resigned as chief executive

of Apple. So the assumption is that Steve jobs health has taken such a poor turn that he just feels that it is not he's not capable of fulfilling that role, and he has been on medical leave or he was on medical leave since January and and so yeah. But the thing is, though, that that is speculation. He did not directly say that. I mean, it's you could say that, you could say it's a safe bet, but it's not necessarily the whole story and we should not jump to conclusions.

And before we go any further, and we have done an episode about Steve Jobs and his work at Apple. It was an earlier episode. We actually did an episode about Steve Jobs, and we did an episode about Bill Gates. Because these two men were both visionary, They were both leaders in in the personal computer revolution. Yeah, they both were dropouts of college and they age, They both are incredibly wealthy. They both have very strong personalities and very

specific ideas of where things need to be. Um, they have a lot of similarities, there are a lot of differences as well. Anyway, we did a podcast about Steve Jobs back then that if you are really curious about the man, I suggest you listen to. We're going to cover some of that probably again in this conversation, because it's necessary to really understand why people are reacting in such a strong way to this news. And um, and some of it, you could probably say, is to an

over emphasis on the importance of the news. Not to belittle Steve Jobs or to say that his contributions haven't been enormous to Apple's success. They clearly have been, but to turn around and say Apple's doomed is a little reactionary. I think I would go so far as to say it might even be a lot reaction. I didn't want to react too strongly to how reactionary it might be, because then we have a positive feedback reactionary loop open. I'm not sure I think that the top is still spinning.

Let's check our inception. Yes, okay, so we're still a dream within a dream at least one level down. Um, did you hear what Eric Schmitt recently said about Steve Jobs? Yes? This is this is pretty phenomenal. Alright, so Eric Schmitt, former CEO of Google, still with Google. So here's what he said. Uh that you probably thought you heard but didn't realize you had not right, it's really early. Well, you know, Chris, at this point it's just us. See

Jonathan's talking. Just agree with what he says. It's easier. Apparently there's a drinking game. So down right, congratulations. I hope you guys are being safe out there. Um. No, Eric Schmitt said recently that Steve Jobs was probably the best CEO in fifty or a hundred years, and I really hadn't heard that. It's you know, that's that's huge praise. And you've got to remember Google and Apple do not have necessarily the most friendly of relationships with one another.

They used to be. Yeah, we used to be on the board of directors for Apple as well as the board of directors for Google. He was on both at the same time, and in fact stepped down from Apple because of some worries that this was sort of a collusion or perhaps monopolization of of two fields or really one field, just two different approaches to it. Yeah. Yeah,

that that's that's pretty high praise. I mean, there have been a lot of really impressive CEOs of all kinds of companies, not just tech companies, but I mean just the you know, the people who might be considered uh, Steve Jobs as peers out there, Larry Ellison and yeah, I mean just famous tech personality and not just tech either, because the thing about Jobs is that, you know, Jobs definitely left his mark on Apple. I mean Apple, Apple's culture and Apple's products are the way they are in

large part due to Steve Jobs. Not to say that the other people at Apple haven't made enormous contributions, fundamental contributions to the company's success. They have, but Steve Jobs is he It's hard to imagine Apple as it is today without Steve Jobs in that picture, because he and

the company are almost synonymous. And so I would compare Steve Jobs with some other famous leaders who also the company in some cases literally was synonymous, for example, Walt Disney, because Walt Disney had a reputation for having a very clear vision of where he wanted his company to go and what he wanted to accomplish, and he also had a reputation for not wanting to compromise on that vision, to do whatever it takes to make that vision a reality,

and he was had a reputation for being a taskmaster. That working for Disney was incredibly rewarding professionally, but it was also really rough. I mean it was it meant that you were working harder than you had ever worked before,

and you were expected to contribute that level all the time. Well, a lot can be said about Steve Jobs that is almost identical to that, right So, and in fact, you know, you even have Jobs as a relationship with Disney goes even further because Jobs sits on the board for Disney and also was the head of Pixar, So you know

Pixar is also now a Disney company. So the relationship goes beyond just the superficial where you can say Disney and Jobs are like this because of I mean, the two merged in a way which is, you know interesting. I think that Jobs is um becoming synonymous with Apple is in part to two things which are oddly um at odds with one another. Um, which is, you know, he co founded the company and then he was essentially forced out of the company. Yeah, that's that's we should

probably address that a little bit. Um. Yeah, I mean, the he his strong personality hasn't always served him well, well, it hasn't made the best impression on other very influential people. So so back in the early days of Apple, and we're talking the mid eighties here, uh, Steve Jobs had his his behavior. He he clearly was a genius. I mean, it's already obvious that he was a genius, that the

man was a visionary. But he also had a very uh, well, what's the best word to use, strong personality, you'll say, and and again a desire to attain a vision without compromise, which you know that can rub some people the way. And in fact, his inexperience with business lead the Apple's board of directors to choose a different person to act as president and CEO, and that person was John Scully. Yeah,

Scully actually came from a completely different field. Yes, he came from pepsi Um and uh, a lot of people didn't. I didn't like that because they thought, well, you know, this is a completely different change, and you know it's it's not somebody who is intimately tech and he didn't necessarily share the vision that that Apple's founders had when

they created the company. So then you're asking, well, it can you even call Apple the same company that it was when it started, because now you've got, uh, someone who's coming from this from a totally different angle in charge. And uh, eventually Jobs left Apple. You know, you could argue whether or not Apple fired him or Jobs resigned. It's kind of essentially Scully kept pushing, pushing Jobs further and further to the edge of the company. I think

they ran them off. Yeah. Yeah, essentially it's almost like if I'm nasty enough, they'll go away sort of thing. Um, that's oversimplifying it, but essentially that's what's happened. And then so Jobs leaves the company, and then he goes off and does his own thing. Meanwhile, Scully's tenure at Apple is not the best thing for that company. It's the company starts to have some serious issues over the next decade. Yeah,

it had. It had supply problems. UM. They were known for creating multiple computers with hard to Basically we're using a numbering system. At that point, UM they had and and the numbering system. It wasn't clear necessarily what computer was what UM. The differences between the pro and consumer computers was confusing, and they and Scully started to do

something that Jobs absolutely refused to do. Well, there was one more thing before I was going to add that simply that they were also known for quality problems, which is not something that a lot of people associate with Apple in two thousand eleven, but at the time there were no Yeah, they were known for releasing lemons, complete lines. You know the UM you know this particular model number five thirty stinks. Don't ever buy this computer because it's

just a terrible, terrible design. Well, the the other thing that Scully did that Jobs definitely did not approve of was essentially approving clones of Apple devices other manufacturers to be able to use um TO to incorporate Apple's technology into into their own machines. That's not something Jobs was

ever interested in. And UH. It was what enabled Windows to become as big as it was was IBM's decision to allow clones of its machines, so it had there was precedence for this move, but it ended up not being the right idea for Apple. And in nine the company Apple, the company decided to purchase a company called Next,

which was Steve Jobs's company. It was a company that was dedicated to creating uh new computer systems specifically for educational purposes, not just educational purposes, but that was like the main focus. Yeah, I was aimed at that market. Now, there were other competitors that I mean basically people analysts

were saying at the time that Apple was doomed. Um. You know, Michael Dell actually was famous in his proclamation that Apple should be uh sold off and the proceeds be redistributed to its stockholders because it was in such

bad shape. Um. Wired magazine had a famous cover and UH in which they were talking about Apple's problems and what should be done, if anything, to save the company, if anything could save the company, and um, it was pretty widely own and they had an operating system that was languishing the next version of its operating sy Some

people kept saying, when is this thing coming out? It doesn't look like it's ever coming out, and they said, well they're There are rumors going around that Apple was looking to buy Next or some other companies, one of which was buh B as in b operated Um had a computer called the b Box, which was a was pretty innovative for its time and at four processors and was led by a former Apple executive named Jean Luis Gassa, who also has a strong personality, and a lot of

people thought it was down to be versus Next, or at least a lot of people that I was reading about at the time because I was actually following this. And Apple decided to acquire Next outright, and they sort of acquired Steve Jobs along with it. A lot of people thought that Apple was more interested in Steve than was the Next operating system, although Next operating System did play a fundamental role in what would become the new

version of mac OS. But yes, so Steve Jobs comes back to Apple and before too long becomes the new president and CEO of Apple, and at that point Jobs started to to undo some of the changes that Scully had made during his tenure. He completely remained Apple, I would go so far as to see and it took some years before Apple really started to see he some big success because at this point, really, and you could argue still today, Mac max just consisted of a very

tiny portion of the personal computer market. They just really didn't make a huge dent. It was mainly PCs, so Windows based machines, and then there was a tiny slice of Apple products. But also, I mean, just in just to put it in perspective, at that point, Windows was out, was coming out. I mean, Windows was really hitting its stride in making inroads to the desktop in businesses all around the world. Yeah, it was essentially the business operating system.

It was much more polished than Windows three point x um, much more polished it was. It was a huge leap forward for Windows. So I mean Apple had that was the wrong time, the exact wrong time for Apple to be stinking it up. So job starts making changes. But it's not really until about two thousand one that the next huge thing happens that really pushes Apple forward, and that's the introduction of the iPod and MP three players

existed before the iPod came out. It's not that the iPod was a new idea, but the iPod had an elegant design compared to the other MP three players that were out on the market at that time. And Steve Jobs is, uh, he's many things. He's a visionary, he's a powerful leader, but he's also incredibly um good at marketing and and getting a message across and getting you to believe then buy into that message. You could walk into an Apple keynote completely skeptical and walk out thinking

I gotta get to an Apple store. Now, well, there weren't any Apple stores in two thousands, and an Apple didn't make anything other than computers and operating systems. UM. Actually it did make other software, which it spun off, actually spun off a division of itself called Claris, which made all kinds of other software. I mean, they were into They even had their own work suite UM, and

they had some other stuff they did. They did have the Newton, which was a p d A and the the Image, which wasn't an educational device that people kind of wish they still made for a while. I just think of the Simpsons with the Newton. Yeah, make a note, Beat up Martin, eat up Martha. But yeah. Handwriting recognition was well known for noting, um, that will get somebody who really loves their Newton, who still uses their Newton?

Who who can will? Even the creators of the Newton admit that the handwriting software was not quite ready it was. That was one of those things where the company was pushing for it before the the hardware and software were fully baked Apple, fully baked pie Pie. So so, Steve Jobs introduced a new scheme in which they would create a consumer line of portables and desktops, and a and an educational line which was sort of off to the side, and then the pro line of of portables and desktops.

Then you had the iPod, and then in two thousand seven you had the iPhone, and in two thousand ten the iPad. In fact, way back when the iPod was coming out, Jobs had already predicted something that has come true, which is that the digital lifestyle would be one where we would have a lot of digital devices and the personal computer would become more of a synchronous zation hub and less of a of a focus on your computing time. Essentially,

he predicted the post PC era. And you could argue, and we have argued, that we are in a post PC era. It's not that the PC has gone away. It's not that it's not important. It's just that we are using other devices to interact with the Internet and to do just basic computing that have nothing that that do not resemble desktops or laptops. It's more we get our information from more places than just our PC, right, and more frequently than we do with our PCs in general.

I mean, I sit in front of a PCL day, so I get a lot of my information from my PC. But otherwise I no longer feel like, you know, I still carry that experience with me when I walk away from the PC because I have a smartphone. And so, yeah, what Jobs was saying has come true. Uh he also uh he also was really good again at at selling

these ideas like like the iPad AD. I was famously skeptical about how the iPad would do in the market because I was thinking of the old tablet computers, and tablet computers have been around for a while and they just never took off the consumer market, and I was thinking, how the heck is Jobs going to convince people that they need a device that historically no one has wanted, right And I know I'm exaggerating by saying no one, but for the sake of argument, I recently had a

conversation with Wilson Tang from c NET and he gave me his perspective of what he thought one day when it was after the iPad had been announced, but before he had he had purchased one, and it really makes a lot of sense. He said. He was on the subway in New York and he was looking around and he saw that someone was reading a book, and someone else was reading a newspaper, and someone was playing a game on a device, and someone's listening to an MP

three player. And they thought, wait a minute, that's what this is for. That's what this iPad is for. It's not, ah, it's it's not that it's taking it's creating a new space or whatever, but it's it's it's almost like, it's not that it's replacing smartphones. It's not that it's replacing m P three players or video game controllers. It's that it's doing all of these things at the same time,

and it's replacing paper. It's replacing books and newspapers in the sense that you can then consume them on this one device and you don't have a larger form factor you have to deal with when you're done with the whatever the thing is, whether it's a book or a newspaper, you don't have to throw it away or file it away or or you know, put it on a bookshelf. You just you can get another file and look at that. And when you think about in that perspective, uh, it

really that's exactly what Steve Jobs did. He showed that this is how you could use this device and how it would give you a lot more flexibility in the way you consume media and play games and all of these sort of ideas. And uh and I just did not see that. I didn't see it until Jobs took

the stage and explained it to me. And that's one of the things that you gotta argue about Jobs is that he really is a visionary, when he really is a kind of person who gets an idea and can see it and the value in it before anyone else does. And then he can, even more amazingly than that, convince you to agree with his point of view. But you know, the day before you never would have considered it the day after. You can't imagine it any other way. It's

the reality distortion field. Yes, that often we'd call it the reality distortion field. That you know, it's magical. I think you're gonna love it. Right. One more thing too, but one more thing that hasn't been around for ages, but he was famous for leaving the most compelling, most wow factor element out of a product release until the very last minute when he was on stage. One more thing. It's kind of like the Columbo One more thing. It's when he drops the hammer and you and you get

that like he figured it out. He knew the game before you even knew you were playing. It's the kicker. Yeah, yeah, that's um. That's the thing too. Because I would not necessarily have imagined that people would tune in to a computer companies product announcements for entertainment. Yes, you have. You have people taking time off of work to log into a systems to watch either to watch the keynote live or to watch some tech journalists covering the keynote live.

And you know, you have live blogs that blog line by line what's being said on stage, and people are just furiously refreshing their pages to see what the next thing is that is. I mean, how many other companies have that Google? Maybe? Well, they and and this is one of those things that other companies have realized that Apple was doing well with Steve Jobs's help. Um, and people like Google have done that with and and more

and more. You see tech news outlets like see net going to Google I oh and talking about the next version of Android and telling you what the new thing is. Um. We saw it somewhat with Palm with the web os a little bit. It didn't really pan out well for them. But but you have to have someone when you're doing this. You have to have someone who's charismatic. And Steve Jobs showed the tech industry, look, you guys, we can make

products that make people sit up and take notice. You just got to show them the right way, right, Yeah, he can. You can do this. You can. You can introduce a totally revolutionary product that no one had any desire for the day before it. I had no knowledge of it, and just you can create the market for that. Yeah, exactly. You could put that in front of somebody and not say anything, and that person may find it compelling or they may just walk away. But if you show them

why it's compelling, then you've got them. You hooked them, and and you gotta agree. I mean, the iPad sales a loan show that that's true. But I wanted to talk a little bit about Steve's personal style a little bit. Not not the way he dressed Turtle, the mock turtle neck and genus. No, No, not that I wanted to

talk about sort of. Steve Jobs has a reputation for being very outspoken and very critical, to the point where some people would call it like just devastating criticism that you know, he did not hold back, and he wouldn't. He wouldn't. It wouldn't just be a criticism of your work. It would He would direct insults to people who worked for him, And there's been a lot of talk about that about how he was kind of a a super

tough boss. But I've actually read some some interesting reports that said that really his reasoning for that wasn't to convince people to do things his way. He wasn't setting out to belittle someone in order to get them to become a yes man, right, because that's the that's the popular view is that Steve Jobs has an iron will and this is why it has to be done this way. Know, what he was doing was he was testing people, and

he would test them by two ways. One he would try and say that their ideas had no merit in an in an attempt to have them defend those ideas. And if the person could defend his or her idea passionately and intelligently, then Steve Jobs would say, you know this, this employee really believes in this, and this is something I need to pay attention to and you know. So it was kind of a way of separating really interesting

ideas that had real merit out from the noise. So it was separating the signal from the noise in that sense. It's just doing it in a really abrasive way. And the other thing that he was testing was by telling uh an engineer that this is not the best you can do. You're reinforcing a kind of insecurity that runs through most engineers, which is I could have made something better than this if I had really tried. You're reinforcing

that idea. And so then the engineer goes back and even if they really did put forth their full effort before, somehow they scrape down and they get a little bit more and they push themselves even harder. Now, the danger of this, of course, is that you can burn out people pretty quickly. It's it's tough to be in that environment.

And in fact, there are a lot of Apple employees who said, you know, I did the best work of my life for Steve Jobs, but you know, after a while, that just takes a psychological toll, and Steve Jobs wouldn't. It's not that he would never praise people. He would heap praise on people for a good job, but then that same person might get chewed out the next day if Steve Jobs sees something that he thought was not

up to the right standard. So you would have this day where you don't when you go into work, you don't know if you're gonna get, you know, carried around the office on everyone's shoulders are thrown out into the parking lot and just you had no way of knowing. And that is a very stressful environment. It was also an incredibly productive environment because we saw some of the most amazing products come out of Apple because of this culture. It's just I know that I personally would not want

to work in a place with that culture. It would I I wouldn't last. I don't have that kind of Yeah, I don't have that kind of personality. It wouldn't I would, I would crumble. And maybe that just means that that's just proof that I don't fit there, right, it's not. And that's not saying that I'm a bad person or that Apple is a bad company. It's just a bad fit. And so now there's the question of with Jobs resigning,

is that culture still going to be there. Is there still going to be someone testing employees and pushing them harder? And will it be done the same way or will it Will they try a different approach? Will will Tim Cook who will now be the CEO, Will he find a different way to encourage employees than Steve Jobs. Now we should say that Tim Cook also has a reputation

for having a very specific approach to things. He's not known as a visionary, but he is known as someone who can take a system and make it far more efficient and manageable. He's a great manager. In fact, he's the reason why Apple has a lot of deals with various other companies like It's. It's the relationships formed between Apple and these companies those were overseen by Tim Cook. And he was just really good at getting that stuff

to work. He can run a company very well, but he does not have a reputation for being a risk taker like Steve Jobs was and a visionary like Steve Jobs was. So that's where the question of well, now that Steve Jobs is gone, does this mean that Apple is going to like? Will Apple's future mean that we'll

still get good products? We just won't get this is going to change everything type products because the iPhone was billed as the device that would change everything, and then a way it kind of did, at least in the smartphone market because before the iPhone there was no real consumer smartphone out there. Well, Apple is no longer Apple Computer. It is Apple Incorporated at this point, and I think

that shows the company's intended direction. I think it's also important to note um that Apple is not Steve Jobs. If it were Steve by himself, he would never have been able to take Apple where it is now. Yeah, and it because it would be a one person operation. And again because Steve Jobs use this way to challenge people and to get them to defend their ideas and then incorporate those ideas. You know, you could say that yes, Steve Jobs doesn't wanna, doesn't want to to end up

giving in or giving giving way to anyone else. But the truth is he just wanted to make sure the best ideas were incorporated. And if it had just been his own ideas, it would be a very different company today. In fact, it might not even exist today. He might not have been able to to recover from the situation Apple was in when he came on as CEO. But yeah, they're they're I mean, the company wouldn't be where it is today without people like Tim Cook. But people like

Jonathan I've yes, who is a brilliant designer. He's the fellow who really gives Apple products the look that they have. Yeah, I mean he was. He was behind some of the company's most iconic UH devices, like the original iMac, like the iPod um, and many many other devices in those lines. And you know the that the design factor. I mean, these are the things that Apple's UH opponents complain about. Oh, they're just interested in having the thing that looks cool.

Well there's That's part of Apple's appeal is that it does look cool. It's part of very important, it's part of why Apple is claud its way back in the Market's part of why Apples competitors are now concerned about design um and jobs also had a reputation of being very specific, like if something was even just a hair off, he would jump on that and say, this is not right, we have to fix it. So, you know, those people

for the moment are still there. And I don't think there's anything you know, if you're an Apple fan, I don't think there's anything for you to worry about in the immediate future. Well, yeah, I think for the next few years. The product plans are made. Yes, yeah, for at least three to five years. I mean, the Apple's got its product plans laid out. It's it's not like these companies are just a few months ahead of whenever

they announced something. You've got to know that when something is being announced that chances are there's at least two generations of that device in some form of uh production or planning at at the time when the one's launching. So when we see the iPhone five launch, iPhone six and seven are at least in a good planning stage or being lost somewhere. Yeah, I can't believe twice that's happened.

Now we're recording this just after the news broke. If you don't remember the iPhone four, there's a prototype iPhone four that got lost or quote unquote loss. So it may have been left in a bar and may have found itself freed from someone's pocket. The details are not

entirely clear. What is known is that, of course, the person who found it then sold the iPhone to a online news source that I'm not even gonna name because I'm so sick of them anyway, But anyway, so I think of that as a very unethical thing and I'm going to leave it at that. So at anyway, you hear this story and you're like, wow, that's terrible control of your products. And then it happened again. Yeah, But we don't know right now as the recording of this

podcast the nature of the device that was lost. We know it was a prototype, or at least it was an early build of a device, but we don't know if it's an iPhone five or maybe like the iPhone four. S Now, we don't know what the yes, so we don't as of the recording of this podcast, we're not sure exactly what it is. But it is weird that almost and it was almost a year like between the two incidents, like it was a little more than a year,

but not by much when they happened. This actually happened back in July, but it wasn't until what was it August thirty one when the news broke or September one? It was one of the Yeah, I was, I was out of town, so it was hard for me to follow. In fact, what was funny was I was out of town and someone came up to me and they said, what do you think about the whole iPhone bar thing? And I said, why are you talking to me about that? That happened a year and a half ago. I think, no, no,

it happened yesterday. Wait what again? Deja vu? But yeah, I mean, I think that's what happens when Steve Jobs leaves. It's if he was there, it would you know, he probably would have said never again, and then he leaves, and then again happens except that that, except that it happened in July, not in that part of the story kind of falls apart when you look at the facts. But when the facts ever gotten in the way of a good story for me exactly now, Um, I don't

think there's any crisis in the near future for Apple. UM, I think they're going to have to find a new spokesperson. Tim Cook, while he is a an excellent uh choice for someone to run a company like Apple, is not the showman that Steve Jobs was. So they're gonna need to find somebody else to carry on that part of things, and they're gonna have to Jonathan I have tends to be a very quiet and private person, so although I've seen him incorporated in in presentations, though it's usually in

a very like kind of a cute way. Like when they launched the iPhone, he was one of the people that Steve Jobs called and he was wandering the actual floor at the keynote and talking Tuesday. He was using a flip phone, I think, but Steve Jobs, of course was on the iPhone. Right. Well, they're they're going to need to find the next visionary within the company, yes, or next visionaries to come up with the you know,

new products, new ideas. UM. But that's true of any company, and they may very well have those people right then and right there, because again it's not like Steve Jobs wakes up in the morning sketches out something on a piece of paper. And walks and make this happen and then goes and eats an intern. That's not what happens. Um, you know, there are teams of people working on vegetarians. Okay, I'm sorry, eats a tofu intern. Uh, it's that's that's

not the way this works. So there are people. There are brilliant designers who are working at Apple. It's just that, you know, those ideas were all sort of focused through Steve Jobs, and we're wondering if without that out the lens, that is Steve Jobs, what's it gonna look like in about five six years. I suspect that Apple will remain a strong player specifically in the mobile device market UM PCs and desks and laptops and everything or desktops and laptops.

They'll they'll still be playing in that field as well. But we are seeing that whole post PC era descend on us. So I suspect we'll still see innovation from those areas. Uh, they just might not be they might not have the same feel to them as the Steve Jobs era did, but that that doesn't mean that they they won't be compelling or they won't be successes. And I think it's gonna be a long time before the

post Steve Jobs era manifests itself. It might be it might be a decade before we even start seeing a hint of that, because he really did leave a very strong stamp on that company, and then as part of the board of directors, that stamp will probably continue for a few years. Yes, he could still be quite the visionary and help guide the company in his role as chairman.

He's just not going to be their data day and so yeah, it may well be that hopefully what this is the best possible choice for Steve Jobs for his health and that he will he will have his health will improve and he'll live a good long time and have a healthy life. So that, you know, that's really the most important thing when you really get down to it, is that, I mean, we don't wish him any harm at all, and if it means that stepping back is going to help him, then by all means I hope

that that turns out to be the case. Um. It's interesting because I always think of Steve Jobs as one of those people who, because he's so guarded about his personal life, we mostly know him from his professional life. So to us, Steve jobs is Apple, So it's hard for us to imagine him not doing that because to us that that looks like that's the driving force in his life. But who knows, you know, maybe that maybe

that is a uh, you know, a big factor. But maybe he finds other elements in his life to be far more compelling and we just don't know about it because he keeps that personal, which is fine. There's no reason to object to that, um, because he's he shouldn't be treated just as a celebrity anyway. Fascinating man. We really are expecting some interesting developments with Apple over the next few years, and it may be quite a few before we can start definitively to say, oh, well here

we go, here's the new direction. Um, But we'll keep our eyes open because you know, Apple is a huge player and technology and I don't see that changing anytime real soon. So if you guys have any topics he would like us to tackle anything, you'd like us to to kind of wrap our minds around, whether it's a philosophical matter sort of like this one, or if it's a really technical thing like you just want us to explain how toasters work. Let us know, you get host toast.

You can let us know on Facebook and Twitter are handled. There is text stuff HS, double you or shoot us an email. That address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the

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