Asked about the fact that Apple's iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs joked, 'It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.
The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player. Nor were the iPhone and iPad the first in their categories. The real reason for the success of these devices - the true unsung hero at Apple - is the iTunes software and iTunes Store. Because Apple provided them, it wasn't just selling hardware.
My parents had a software company making children's software for the Apple II+, Commodore 64 and Acorn computers. They hired these teenagers to program the software, and these guys were true hackers, trying to get more colors and sound and animation out of those computers.
You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones.
The reason why Apple computers have worked so well over time is that, unlike Microsoft, they don't bend over backward to be compatible with every piece of hardware or software in the digital universe. To code or create for Apple, you follow Apple's rules. If you're even allowed to.
If you've never met a student from the University of Chicago, I'll describe him to you. If you give him a glass of water, he says, 'This is a glass of water. But is it a glass of water? And if it is a glass of water, why is it a glass of water?' And eventually he dies of thirst.
The Steve Jobs who founded Apple as an anarchic company promoting the message of freedom, whose first projects with Stephen Wozniak were pirate boxes and computers with open schematics, would be taken aback by the future that Apple is forging. Today there is no tech company that looks more like the Big Brother from Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial than Apple itself, a testament to how quickly power can corrupt.
I asked a high school girl about unreciprocated oral sex and said, "What if guys were asking you to get them a glass of water and never offered to you a glass of water? Would you put up with that?" She burst out laughing. It never occurred to her.
Once you are present in the Energyfield of Self-discovery, it's like you are a piece of ice in warm water. The warm water is the Self. The ice is the mind. The warm water is not fighting with the ice. The ice can not resist the melting. It is a natural and fatal attraction.
Gravity pulls our bodily fluids down, like water in a glass goes to the bottom part of a glass. In space, the water doesn't stay in the bottom of the glass. It distributes itself evenly over time throughout the entire volume of the glass.
Apple's iTunes program was once the envy of the world. A combined digital music store and player, it could also sync your iPod. And it worked on both Mac and Windows. It was reasonably fast and very sure-footed.
Early on, when software was developed by computer scientists, just people working with computers, people passed around software because that was how you got computers to do things.
Apple has a passion to deliver the most amazing, innovative - and, in fact, I got criticized because in "Win," there are at least 10 references to what Steve Jobs has done, and Apple's done, in that my editor said it's too much. But Apple is a passionate company.
I bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows RSVP, The Best of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, and Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates a House the Size of Vermont.
My opinion is that the only two computer companies that are software-driven are Apple and NeXT, and I wonder about Apple.
Stay the course and keep building an integrated Apple ecosystem of iPhone + iPod + iMac + iTunes + App Store + Apple TV. No one has yet demonstrated they understand how to create an 'experience-based ecosystem' as well as Apple.
If I like somebody else's tribe I'm going to promote the hell out of it. The whole thing is a democracy, and if somebody's more popular then good luck to them.