For the last few years whenever you hear anything about Apple you inevitably hear about Steve Jobs. All of this talk makes me wonder how much influence the man actually has on the products. The Apple community treats the guy like he can do no wrong and that he is the company.
While I do agree that Mr. Jobs did turn a sinking ship back into a successful fleet, I do not know how much he does on a day to day basis. To understand what I am talking about one will have to just see a quite from The Unofficial Apple Weblog
NBC Exec. A: Heh. We showed them. We’ll make a bundle on the new stuff and then, bam! We slam the door in December. Cha-ching!
NBC Exec. B: Um, sir? They’re going to pull all of our stuff immediately. No new shows.
* NBC Exec. A: Wilhelm scream B-But, they can’t do that.
NBC Exec. B: It’s done, sir.
NBC Exec. A: Damn. Get Jobs on the phone.
It’s that last line that makes me wonder. People say little things like this all the time; they seem to act like this man is the company. I am fairly sure that Steve Jobs had very little to do with this decision. They have a ton of smart people who run the day to day operations. He may come in for the final approval, but I am fairly sure that he does not approve every single aspect of everything at Apple. The reason is the company is too large. For any one person to be on top of everything they do is just impractical if not impossible.
In my opinion what Jobs has done for Apple is brought in very smart people who work their asses off and not get any external press. Apple has done a great job at spinning everything to look like Jobs did it himself. For example, the postings to apple.com under his name; they are clearly not directly by him. These letters were clearly written by very smart people inside of Apple, but not by Steve Jobs himself. It could have easily been his basic idea for each of them, but he did not sit down and write them. How could he have done this as he is busy running the rest of the company.
As with most things Apple, we will never know the full truth. They are an extremely closed company and you do not hear a word until they are full and ready for it.
