Research Report On Steve Jobs Media Essay

This report examines Steve Job’s early history, educational background, family life, key influences, a discussion of Steve’s personal philosophy about his field, quotations and important milestones in his career as well as major contributions to the IT industry and personal reasons to his success. It includes the adoption of Steven by Paul and Clara Jobs, his attendance to Homestead high school and his brief attend dance to Reed College. This report includes a look into Steve’s personal life which involves Daughter Lisa as well as a look into his Key Influences which had been HP engineers the simplistic goal of using computers to do creative work and making life easier. The report summarized quotes on management and creativity that have imprinted clearly in the minds of his followers. We review his creations of Apple I, Apple II, Lisa, Macintosh, NeXT Inc, Pixar, Mac OS X, the iPod, the iTunes Music, the iPhone and the iPad and it concludes with my personal reasons for Steve Jobs’ success.

The purpose of this report is to examine the life Steve Jobs. This report will be including different aspects which will include a discussion of his early history which includes his educational background as well as family background, it will include the people and situations that have influenced him, his personal philosophy and several quotations he lives by, some important milestones in his long career, his major contributions to the industry as well as reasoning for his continuous success. The resources used to compile this research report have ranged from websites devoted to Steve Jobs, television websites, blogs, online business articles as well as online IT articles. The goal of this research paper will be to include the most important details of his life which have helped him achieve his level of success in the business field as well as the IT.

Early history

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1955. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Santa Clara, California. Steve attended high school in Cupertino. He temporarily enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Ore., but dropped out. Jobs went back to California and got a job with Atari, where Wozniak had also worked.

Educational background

Homestead High

Steve was usually bored in school, as he explains with own words, Figure 2 Figure 1 – Mr. McCollum’s ELectronics 1 Class (Steve in the middle)

Steve attended Homestead High School. He enrolled in McCollum’s electronics class. McCollum recalled of one time when Steve’s entrepreneurial skills showed up. He had called up Bill Hewlett himself, who was the co-founder of HP, to obtain extra parts for his homework. He had also inquired about a summer job in his factory. Steven and Steve Wozniak (Woz) met in 1969, introduced by classmate Bill Fernandez when they were 14 and 19. Woz was working on a little computer board with Bill which they called “the Cream Soda Computer”.

Reed College

Steve finished high school and he decided to go to attend Reed College, in Oregon. Even though tuition for Reed was so expensive that his parents could hardly afford it, Steve had his heart se on that institution. He only stayed for a few of months before he dropped out. On the bright side of things, this allowed him to attend classes that were not part of his program.

While at Reed, Steve began researching Eastern mysticism. He became a fruitarian. He also began practicing fasting for extended periods of time and used LSD or rare occasion.

The Jobs family

Since Steve had been born of wedlock in the 1950s, he was given up for adoption. His mother, Joanne, had a college education and insisted that her boy do the same. Unfortunately, his adoptive parents, Paul and Clara, could not meet her expectations as they were a lower-middle class couple. Paul Jobs had not even graduated from high school.

Personal life

Steve had a baby girl name Lisa. Years past, and he began to recognize his 9-year-old daughter Lisa as family. She gradually spent more time at his home in and he even brought her to NeXT’s offices from time to time. He started to get genuinely occupied in her schooling.

Key Influences

Steve’s early influence came to be HP engineers. They played an important role in his life. They came to be the first to introduce the Steve to electronics. This had become his number one hobby when he entered Homestead High.

What inspired Steve Jobs in the long run was simplicity, ease of use and using computers to do creative work as well as make life easier. He always looked up to Sony, who created consumer electronics business.

The Steve Jobs Philosophy

Steve Jobs considers he was appropriate to build great products and being enthusiastic about them. He believes he is best for finding a group of capable people and producing equipment with them. His personal philosophy is that everything begins with a great creation. He believes in listening to customers even though customers are not able to tell you about the next breakthrough. He goes on to say,

Quotes

Steve Jobs has influence many people. He is able to guide and teach them from his perspective on many different topics. Here are some quotes he is most memorable for on Management and Creativity.

Important Milestones and Major Contributions

Apple I

Figure 5 – Page 5 An Apple I computer

Apple was born in April 1, 1976. With the introduction of the Apple I, the computers made its first sale a few weeks later by Paul Terrel, who has just founded a new chain of computer stores called the Byte shop. He wanted to buy 50 apples at $500 per computer. While the first Apples were made of just a circuit board, the following models, which were all assembled in the Jobs’ famous garage, were delivered in a wooden box.

Apple II

The company received 300 orders for Apple, twice as much as the total number of Apple Is sold. By January of 1978, Apple was valued $3,000,000. The first disk drive for the Apple II became available in early 1978. This allowed armature programmers and amateur hackers to write, increasing the number of programs available quickly. Since there were no personal computers on the market other than the Apple II, Apple became the company of personal computers.

Lisa

In early 1979, Steve decided he would launch his own distinctive project, a computer

whose success, unlike the Apple II, could not be attributed to Woz’s great talent. He decided to call it LISA. LISA was the first personal computer involved with the mouse feature making it user-friendly. LISA’s price ran at $10,000.

Macintosh

Steve wanted to be involved in the development of Apple’s future products. And he was worried that the Lisa would not be as great a computer as he had envisioned. Apple III came with an introduction that took place with great fanfare in the summer of 1980 at Disneyland. The computer turned out to have major design flaws and the first 14,000 models had to be returned to the company.

NeXT Inc.

Jobs tried began again with a new company called NextStep. He was to build a next generation of PCs incomparable to Apple, but it didn’t happen. After struggling for eight years, NextStep had closed its hardware division. Jobs realized he needed to turn his attention to the software side of the computer industry. NextStep had to revolutionize the industry with its new operating system software which incorporates object-oriented programming allowing big complex programs to be assembled smaller. NextStep introduced its first machine, the Cube. NextStep made it easier for in-house programmers to modify software to handle significant parts in their companies.

Figure 6 – Toy Story released on November 22

In the 1970s, a shared a dream of making animated movies with computers caught the attention of Steve. Steve’s other company; Pixar was working on a graphical workstation dedicated only to processing visual data. Disney decided to sign a deal with Pixar for a full feature film which was made completely with computers. When Toy Story was released on November 22, it surpassed every hope that Pixar and Disney had. Success after success was released from the animation studio. A Bug’s Life in 1998 and Toy Story 2 in 1999 and Monsters Inc. released in 2001. The company had stretched out and was ready to release a fresh movie every two years.

Mac OS X

The iPod revolution

The iPod is an important element of Apple’s vision of the digital way of life. The unique iPod distinguished itself from rivals for several reasons. Its look, its click wheel and user interface that made browsing music albums easy and fast. It also had a hard drive which stored 5GB.

The iTunes Music Store

Steve Jobs launched the iTunes Store in 2003. It was the beginning of a revolution. Since iPod was already a triumph, but it was now becoming so successful that it personified the digital music era all in one brand.

iPhone

The iPhone project happened in 2003. He had made a agreement with Cingular who knew that the only way to boost its earnings was by charging users for their rising use of data online. Its most innovative element was its touch-screen display.

iPad

Steve Jobs finally introduced iPad, a much-anticipated touch screen tablet. In the beginning of 2010, Steve Jobs finally unveiled iPad to the world.

Personal Reasons for Success

There are many reasons for success. One was that he allowed individuals to have abilities that they could have never before imagined. He had an enormous vision, but always kept in mind the precise detail of every step. This made him a real perfectionist. One of the traits that made him stand out among everyone else was his attention to minimalism. His success is attributed to the relentless pursuit of user-friendly gadgets. His perspective always focused on what the user’s experience will be. He believed on consumer testing and showing his customers his products so they can test drive them. He has always been famous for his decisions on stunning designs and for recruiting the best people for the job.

The introduction of Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OS X, was the product of three years of hard work. Mac OS X began in 2001 and became the foundation of Apple’s resurgence and current success.

Another reason for his success is the increasing habit of writing emails to customers just as he has been known to do so for years. Usually, he has used them to openly answer questions about Apple or to spread gossip himself.

The last reason would be his implication on charity issues. With large donations to charities, he was able to speak openly about organ donations in 2010 and played a significant role in creating the nations’ first organ donor registry.

Conclusions

Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy at one point and is now one of the most influential and leading high-tech company in the world. It is a leader in the music and telephone companies, and a likely powerhouse for future decades. Pixar is the most thriving movie studio in Hollywood and it has defined the future of animation. The founder of these companies, Steve Jobs, is now regularly nominated one of the world’s most significant business leaders. He has made many lives much simpler by creating technology that is seamless, exciting, intuitive and beautiful, instead of dull and complicated. With his current success, he is surely to continue to build his brand as years pass.