What would Apple look like if Steve Jobs was still alive?

[Risco]

What does everyone think Apple would look like? Personally I think we would have had more aesthetically pleasing and functional products. Vision Pro would never have happened. Jonny Ives would not have left.

Or would Steve have be pushed out of the company like in the 80’s?

Thoughts?

 

[sack_peak]

When Jobs passed the baton to Cook, Apple's market value stood at $350 billion.

This year when Apple was at its all time high of $198.23/share it would have a market value of more than $3.129 trillion.

I wouldn't be surprised that the iPhone mini would be the largest iPhone today.

Steve Jobs hated games and very likely wouldn't have made Apple top revenue in games distribution.

The Macbook Pro suddenly having an all USB-C port design in 2016 would never occur. It would likely have 5-10 year transition like how FireWire 400 to FireWire 800.

I like Steve and his Stevenotes but he may not be designing mass market consumer devices we are enjoying today.

Would Steve be interested in Apple Pay, Apple High Yield Savings Account and other financial services?

 

[eyoungren]

What does everyone think Apple would look like? Personally I think we would have had more aesthetically pleasing and functional products. Vision Pro would never have happened. Jonny Ives would not have left.

Or would Steve have be pushed out of the company like in the 80’s?

Thoughts?

I don't know.

I can tell you that in my opinion, I wouldn't have liked Jony Ive staying. Jony Ive is responsible for the color pukefest of iOS 7, the reason skeumorphism died and for making it almost impossible to figure out what is a button and what is not. I'm not a fan of Ive, nor a fan of some of his designs.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

What does everyone think Apple would look like? Personally I think we would have had more aesthetically pleasing and functional products. Vision Pro would never have happened. Jonny Ives would not have left.

Or would Steve have be pushed out of the company like in the 80’s?

Thoughts?

Firstly, Steve Jobs is dead now for over a decade, and, secondly, Apple no longer prioritises cutting edge tech design which was a wonderful fusion of form and function, because, these days, it is an enormous multi-national and profitable business - richer than a significant number of the nation states on the planet - rather than a small company that designed gorgeous tech products for a niche market.

 

[MRMSFC]

I think every decision Tim Cook makes is ruled by the “What would Steve do?” Principle. And the decisions that happened after Steve are just his interpretations of his friend and boss.

And the comments that say “Steve would’ve never done this!” Are just based on an image of Steve Jobs that we saw in keynotes.

Would Apple be different? Maybe. I don’t think iOS and MacOS would’ve moved away from skeumorphism for one.

 

[velocityg4]

I don't think it would be hugely different. The biggest difference would probably be a different UI aesthetic and probably more emphasis on it being intuitive and some different case design choices.

In the Mac space. He probably would've considered the Mac Pro choices idiotic with the 6,1 and later. It would either be killed off or not so ultra exclusive. Other than that. The iMac and Macbook line would probably have been largely similar. He had no problem with killing ports. Although I don't think he'd allow design styles to languish for so many years and would change the cases more frequently.

Couldn't say if Apple Silicon would be a thing or not in Macs.

I doubt they'd have tried a streaming TV service.

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

I honestly don’t know. After all, he has been dead for more than a decade, which is quite a long time. I cannot tell what Steve Jobs would have thought of Apple today or what he would have done if he was still alive because I obviously cannot read the mind of someone who has been dead for that many years 😅

But if I’m gonna have to use my speculation, here’s what I can think of :

1- I don’t think the iPhone Mini would ever be discontinued. Actually, it would have probably been the biggest size option available. I’m saying that because Steve seemed to highly prefer small phones. That’s why iPhones have been very small a while ago, back when most Android phones were considered “phablets”, until the iPhone 6 came out which offered a bigger screen with the 6+.

2- Not exactly sure about that one, but I don’t think the Apple Pencil would be a thing. Remember his iconic “Who wants a stylus ?” Haha. Well I know that the context was a little different here, as he was talking about using a stylus with a phone, and the stylus being the only way to interact with your phone. The Apple Pencil works only with the iPad and it’s not the only way to interact with it, as you can also use your fingers.
But yeah since he seemed to dislike the concept of using a stylus with a phone, I’m not really sure if he would’ve liked the idea of the Apple Pencil.

3- The Vision Pro… yeah, what is really surprising about it is that it has been confirmed that Apple has been apparently working on it since 2007. So does that mean Steve was somehow involved with it from the beginning ? And what would he think of it right now ? This is indeed very interesting to think about !

4- I don’t know why, but I feel like Apple has lately stopped caring so much about the iMac. Looking at how they discontinued the iMac Pro and the 27” iMac, I can’t think of another reason why they did that other than encouraging more people to go for the Mac Mini/Studio instead. I mean, the iMac is currently available only in the 24” size which is too small for lots of people. I can imagine the M1 version wasn’t possibly sell very well, which could be the reason why they didn’t bother updating it to M2. I’m honestly a little worried they may end up discontinuing the iMac as a whole at some point..
Again, I don’t think Steve would’ve allowed that. Remember that the first iMac was kind of like the thing that saved Apple after it was on the edges of bankruptcy back in the late 90s. So yeah, I just don’t think Steve would’ve let it die so quickly.

5- The keynotes would be a lot more interesting and fun. Yeah, seriously this. Personally, I’m a really big fan of Steve’s keynotes. Something about the way he presents the new products/features, the way he always seems very excited, how he often did the demos by himself, his charismatic personality, his humor, the way he explains things in a very simple way that makes everything so easy to understand.. it all just made his keynotes very interesting and fun to watch, no matter how long they were. Watching his keynotes was one of the main things that got me into Apple and made me consider trying an Apple product !
But look at Apple’s current keynotes.. okay yes, the pre-recorded style might seem more professional but.. it just doesn’t have the same vibes of the good old live keynotes (especially the ones with Steve Jobs). Right now the only “fun” part of the keynote is Craig’s jokes.. but the rest of it all just seems very bland. (Oh and not to mention, that unnecessary Mother Nature skit in the recent keynote… I really don’t wanna talk about that..)

 

[BugeyeSTI]

A cemetery because he's been dead for quite awhile

 

[Apple_Robert]

The question asked is bad on logical fallacy. As such, it can't be answered without using the same.

 

[JPack]

Jobs was known to be more radical and personally involved in design decisions. He already knew what was best. If you wanted to change his mind, you better be persistent and have extraordinary evidence. Cook is known to sit back, hear the room, then make a decision.

Products like iPhone 8, iPhone 12 mini, and Apple Maps (iOS 6) probably wouldn't have launched.

• iPhone 8 was clearly a warmed over 7 and served as a backup to iPhone X. The XR should have launched in 2017.
• iPhone 12 mini was a bad attempt to have it all. Apple already decided big phones were best, so it made no sense to sell a small phone. You don't see Apple letting you dual-boot into macOS/iPadOS or offer headphone jacks on some iPhone models.
• Apple Maps clearly didn't pass the fundamental "can we be proud of this product" test

 

[HDFan]

think every decision Tim Cook makes is ruled by the “What would Steve do?” Principle.

Jobs told Cook not to do that.

 

[laptech]

If Jobs was alive today I do think he would have changed or try to change the look and feel of many of Apple's products because for many years now all that Apple has done is kept the same look of Apple devices and computers but changed the internals, basically upgrades. Apples product line up looks stale and i do think Jobs would have changed that.

 

[Le Big Mac]

Firstly, Steve Jobs is dead now for over a decade, and, secondly, Apple no longer prioritises cutting edge tech design which was a wonderful fusion of form and function, because, these days, it is an enormous multi-national and profitable business - richer than a significant number of the nation states on the planet - rather than a small company that designed gorgeous tech products for a niche market.

Given how successful Apple has been over the last decade, it appears to have made a number of good decisions, as much as some of them rankle long-time Apple fans/customers.

So to me the question is whether Jobs would have made even better business decisions, many of the same ones, or gone in a different direction, in which case he might have been eased out of his role.

What we can't know is whether there would have been some new visionary product . . . as it stands Apple's product line has followed a pretty standard and expected maturation process.

 

[XboxEvolved]

This is a question I think a lot of us ponder, and Apple was already on its way to the value it’s at now before his death. Apple was also already tinkering with or developing other ideas that came out after his death such as the watch, bigger phones, a smaller iPad, and the beginnings of the car that hasn’t panned out yet.

Maps likely would have launched better, but I think ultimately we still would have gotten iOS 7, just not quite how we did.

The big thing that we likely would have gotten is an actual TV set, or at least it would have gotten further along into development than it did. It seemed to have died completely about a year or two after his death.

 

[JimmyG]

I think every decision Tim Cook makes is ruled by the “What would Steve do?” Principle. And the decisions that happened after Steve are just his interpretations of his friend and boss.

And the comments that say “Steve would’ve never done this!” Are just based on an image of Steve Jobs that we saw in keynotes.

Would Apple be different? Maybe. I don’t think iOS and MacOS would’ve moved away from skeumorphism for one.

Well, by Cook's own accounting, he says he does not ever ask that question (at the 2:47 mark)...

Rock Center: Apple CEO Tim Cook Interview - YouTube

<<
NBC's Brian Williams: How are you not Steve Jobs?

Tim Cook: In many ways one of the things he did for me that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed is, he told me on a couple of occasions before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never asked the question, “what Steve would’ve do” [sic], to just “do what's right”.
>>

...though I, personally, would find that a near-impossible thing to oblige were I in Cook's shoes!

On topic...Snow Leopard was, for me, the pinnacle of what OSX was meant to be...fully-functional, lean, efficient, no bloat. Looking at the processes running on 10.6.8 vs all the crud that's running in Monterey (my most current OS) methinks Steve would have lopped heads of those responsible for having all that OS crud constantly running.

I also agree with those that the flat UI look would have never happened.

As for products, methinks Steve saw everything as all-in-ones and that iMac would have evolved into a mightier titan in their line-up. My 2¢.

 

[jz0309]

What does everyone think Apple would look like? Personally I think we would have had more aesthetically pleasing and functional products. Vision Pro would never have happened. Jonny Ives would not have left.

Or would Steve have be pushed out of the company like in the 80’s?

Thoughts?

Who cares, he put Cook in charge and passed over a decade ago…
Living in nostalgia and phantasy land…

 

[NEPOBABY]

Apple would look exactly the same today under Steve Jobs, except that he was a fan of desktop towers and loved working with film makers and animators, so the Mac Pro would have been better.

 

[I7guy]

Apple would have likely been smaller. iPhones would be the form factor of the iPhone 5. There would be no Apple Pencil, Vision Pro, Apple TV+, apple car. Max would have been “better” and more expensive. Imo of course.

 

[VisceralRealist]

I don’t know; this is like wondering what kind of music Mozart would’ve written had he lived to 70 instead of 35. Would Mozart have continued writing in the same style as the culture changed around him? Would he have started to sound less “Classical” and more “Romantic”? I feel like we can ask the same thing of Jobs and Apple. A lot of people act like Jobs would’ve just continued doing the same things, that he would’ve been more conservative. But we don’t know that.

 

[jayducharme]

Jony Ive is responsible for the color pukefest of iOS 7, the reason skeumorphism died and for making it almost impossible to figure out what is a button and what is not. I'm not a fan of Ive, nor a fan of some of his designs.

Ive was (and is) a brilliant hardware designer. But in retrospect, it was a mistake to have him handle the UI; he and his team didn't seem to understand what makes software intuitive. iOS 7 took all the whimsy out of iPhones. They were no longer fun to use. Even worse, for the first time iPhones became tedious to navigate. I don't think Jobs would have let Forstall go; they had very similar UI philosophies.