Good Reads: The world bids farewell to its 'reinventor,' Apple's Steve Jobs (video)
Good Reads highlights the best reporting and analysis available on the top international stories of the day 鈥� and other key topics you shouldn't miss.
With the passing of Steve Jobs last night, the world鈥檚 papers are carrying lengthy obituaries, personal essays by his colleagues, and business stories about Apple鈥檚 future now that its founding genius is gone.
Among the best at describing is the New Yorker鈥檚 Ken Auletta, who writes that Jobs "was a great, transformative, and historical figure.鈥�
What will stand erect like an indestructible monument are the things Steve Jobs created that changed our lives: The Macintosh; the iTunes store that induced people to pay for music and other content; Pixar, which forever changed animation; the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. These were more than technological feats, but Apple products were beautifully designed, as well. For three decades, even as he got older, Steve Jobs and Apple remained 鈥渃ool.鈥�
Foreign Policy鈥檚 David Kenner reminds us of the Jeff Bezos statement that credits Jobs with 鈥渞einventing reading,鈥� creating personal devices that If you have purchased an e-reader in the past few years, whether it was an iPad or not, you owe that experience to the vision of Steve Jobs. And if you bought an app to read your favorite newspaper on that e-reader? Well, some of us journalists may one day thank Steve Jobs for creating a new viable business model that saved the news industry.
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See also Alan M. Webber鈥檚 recent must-read piece in the weekly Monitor on "The Apple Effect." The reason for Apple鈥檚 success, Mr. Webber argues, is that Jobs and his colleagues focused more on how people use computers than on what the computer itself is capable of doing. As Webber writes, 鈥淭he company is built on the proposition that the status quo is the enemy. That big and boring and dull 鈥� whether as a description of a company's products and services or as a way of working 鈥� are simply bad. Bad for innovation, bad for people, bad for customers, bad for business.鈥�
Now the question on many people鈥檚 minds is whether Apple can thrive after its detail-oriented founder has left.
Nick Wingfield nimbly addresses this question in The New York Times, and concludes that Jobs鈥檚 successor as head of Apple, Tim Cooks, needs to set a fine balance between following the vision of the company鈥檚 founder and adjusting to the ever-changing environment that will come in the years ahead. Mr. Wingfield offers this quote from David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard University.
鈥淗e鈥檚 got to send a signal to troops that the heart of Apple won鈥檛 change. Otherwise he risks losing talent.
鈥淎t the same time, Tim can鈥檛 be another Steve Jobs,鈥� Mr. Yoffie continued. 鈥淎t some level, the company will have to evolve. The way it evolves and the types of changes are yet to be understood, probably by Tim himself.鈥�
There is great uncertainty about whether Mr. Cooks has what it takes, and today after news of Jobs鈥檚 death.
But the Daily Telegraph notes that that has learned to create products with less and less guidance from its visionary founder.
Apple has delivered results in the past by diving into fragmented, stagnating industries 鈥� notably music and telephones 鈥� and re-imagining them through technological innovation. Many experts say TV and its confusing array of options is ripe for an Apple-like "simple is beautiful" makeover.
