Opinion> Froma Harrop> Steve Jobs Told Us What We Wanted

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Steve Jobs Told Us What We Wanted

"It's not the consumers' job to know what they want" — Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs didn't make his billions shorting stocks, feeding off the taxpayers or simply being around when a rich relative died. The college dropout from California mixed technology with popular culture and brilliant marketing to make handsome products that I and millions others didn't know we wanted — but had to have. I've bought enough of them to gild at least one bathroom fixture on Jobs' estate. Steve, it was my pleasure.

I also own 50 shares of Apple stock, something I should disclose right off.

Having started out in the PC world, I did come to know what I didn't want: a house full of complicated electronics requiring a night course to operate. When something went wrong with the innards, I'd have to hire someone who charged by the hour to solve the problem, and the hours piled up.

If I tried to deal with PC support on the phone, the techies would ask inscrutable questions. When I answered "What?", they might emit a geeky sigh (which seemed to say, "I can see you're a nice person, but gosh"). Some may have deemed me unworthy of that divinely conceived device, packed with amazing capabilities that I'd never figure out. Here's the final straw that sent me into the arms of Apple:

I had an expensive PC laptop that went haywire after about 10 months. To resolve the problem, I had to: spend three hours on the phone, being transferred from call centers in Asia to Europe and back again; write down long case numbers and repeat them to each new support person; deal with contradictory information; and try to understand people who barely spoke English.

I finally lost my temper and was sent to an American who stuck with me as we tried to identify the "issue." I ended up driving the laptop to some computer fix-it shop, which took a week to replace the hard drive.

The operating system software was reinstalled, but not before a struggle (more call centers) over whether I had to pay Microsoft for it and, if so, how much. The computer had come with Windows installed, so there were no CDs.

When there's a problem with my iPhone, iMac, MacBook or MacBook Air (no iPad), I go to the Apple store, and a "genius" takes over. When one of my Apples had faulty hardware, the drive was replaced overnight and for no charge. (It took a while to stop feeling that, if I wanted any help, I had to ingratiate myself with a guy at the repair shop for whom I was obviously low-priority.)

Apple has long worked under the solid assumption that consumers would pay more for sleek design, higher quality and superior service. Nothing it makes looks like it fell from a flying saucer.

Throughout his long treatment for pancreatic cancer, Jobs said he'd leave the chief executive post when he could no longer handle it. That time has apparently come.

Few companies are as associated with their founder as is this one, and Apple's stock price swooned (alas) on news of Jobs' departure. Whatever happens to Jobs at this point — and I hope he lives a long, long time — Apple the company goes on.

I probably won't sell my Apple stock as long as the folks in the store keep telling me there are no dumb questions. Perhaps they don't really believe that. Perhaps they think I'm completely dumb and therefore have the lowest of expectations.

If that's the case, I don't care. Thank you, Steve Jobs, for letting me know what I want.

To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Comments

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Thank you, Ms. Harrop. This says what I've been trying to tell my friends better than I can when they ask me why I prefer my iMac to ANY PC on the market.

Comment: #1
Posted by: Keith Brinegar
Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:12 AM

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----YES, as the info is begining to leak out not only about
the details of the Globalist RED China TREASON OP generally,
but the suicidal realiities of Apple's sweat shop, slave labor
Chinese factories -----the capstone set up Apple really IS
telling us --'what we want'.

Comment: #2
Posted by: free bee
Tue Aug 30, 2011 5:09 AM

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Forma contends Steev Jobs stated: "It's not the consumers' job to know what they want" — Steve Jobs.

Only an elitist liberal could interpret that sentence to say that Steve Jobs "told us what we wanted". Forma clearly believes that this article is a clever way of making a point that government needs to tell the people what the people want instead of the people telling government what the people want.

You see, elitists like Forma believe they are intellectually superior to the masses and thus have a duty, no an obligation, to tell we the people what we want and force us to "want it" if necessary. Indeed, tyrants always believe they have good reasons for forcing their beliefs on lesser humans.

Steve Jobs and Apple did not do anything different than any successful company in the past has done before in the free market society. Apple supplied products that people wanted, it's that simple.

I suppose Rush Limbaugh told the talk radio audience what it wanted. Well, actually I suppose there are always one exception to rule, and perhaps this is it.

In any event , Steve Jobs didn't tell us what we wanted, Like numerous successful companies before Apple, Apple simply put out some products that the public liked and we told the free market what we wanted by voting with our dollars. Apple doesn't necessarily have the best products, it appears they simply have the products people want at the moment.

Better products will follow manufactured by different companies and then we the people will again tell the free market, including Apple, what we want.

Nonetheless, what Forma wants is for we the people to make the wrong connection between a private company taking a risk and supplying products that perhaps the public didn't realize they wanted and government tyrants telling we the people what we want, for our own good.

Typical elitist liberal tyrant.

Comment: #3
Posted by: SusansMirror
Tue Aug 30, 2011 6:52 AM

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Oh for god's sake. She liked the products, she liked the service she got, and of course there has to be at least one reply bleating "Typical elitist liberal SNOB" /foaming at the mouth (because heaven forbid someone open your eyes to a possibility you haven't even considered.)

It was a lovely column. Thanks for it. It'll be interesting to see where Apple goes from here.

Comment: #4
Posted by: Annalise
Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:34 PM

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---PC 'Civ--ILL--IT--he' OP --ALERT!-- (remember, among the 'Big Boys' --we're the ITs!)
This is a jounral which should stand for debate ------NOT PC twee.
America and the world is facing full spectrum surveillance from the
cy-world grid as TREASON with the most awesomely genocidal regime
history's ever seen is consumated.
It's 2011 ----Oprah's OVER -------------------------------------GET WITH THE DE-PROGRAM.

Comment: #5
Posted by: free bee
Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:06 PM

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