The bloom has been off the rose for me for awhile. I think I'm atypical, though. Before the iPhone, having tried cell phones once, I rejected its obtuse user interface and deceptive binding contract and sent it back without even activating. All the time I've had an iPhone, I've used it much more for the apps and music playing than for mobile communications. When my current 2 year contract obligation ends in about 7 months, I'm shutting it down. In 3 years after that, I'll have saved enough to buy me a brand new, top of the line iMac.
Last night, I subscribed to Netflix for the first time and watched that Ashton Kutcher movie about Jobs. My impression was that it was good entertainment, but they left a lot of important things out. As I recall, Jobs actually went to the ad agency, Chiat Day. They were kind enough to refer him to Mike Markkula. Also, there was no mention of the pirate flag that flew over the building that housed the Macintosh development team. If I remember correctly, Sculley did go on vacation to Hawaii and returned to find that Jobs had mounted a coup, that subsequently failed. They didn't cover that he divested himself of most of his AAPL rather quickly, raising investment capital for NEXT and devastating AAPL share prices. Or, that he struggled to keep NEXT afloat with its expensive Jobsian computer design that didn't do well at all. They didn't even mention Pixar, and the tons of money it made for him.
For all of that, I was disappointed in the movie, but I rated it 4 stars on Netflix for the entertainment value. It was pretty good, but they should have named it, "Jobs vs Sculley" for the narrow focus of the story. It wasn't a complete, and therefore accurate, portrayal of Jobs at all. |
