Steve Jobs and Apple culture in paintings
Rather than starting the week by telling you about Steve’s latest emails (folders in iBooks, AirPrint-compatible printers), and the rumors about the upcoming joint Steve Jobs/Rupert Murdoch keynote, I thought I’d start by showing you some artwork I stumbled upon a couple of days ago.
The artist is a 45-year old painter from Southern Cal, Alex Gross. His paintings are quite sinister… I just love them. 🙂 One of his dominant themes is today’s consumer society, and it is frequently illustrated with references to Apple products and even the Apple culture. For example:
This one is particularly interesting:
As you know, ever since the 1980s, people who absorbed everything Steve Jobs/Apple said were famed as “drinkers of the (Steve Jobs/Apple/Mac/whatever…) Kool Aid”.
Have you ever seen a painting with a Windows PC or an Android phone in it?
… me neither.
29 Nov 2010 | in Updates
RT @Alltop: Who needs Santa when there’s an Apple store? http://yfrog.com/0bxpb0j
Steve Jobs 1985 Playboy interview re-surfaces
Most of you have already heard of it, but Playboy recently re-published their 1985 interview with Steve Jobs on their website. I had read lots of excerpts from the piece for some time, since it is abundantly quoted in Jeffrey S. Young’s The Journey Is The Reward as well as Leander Kahney’s Inside Steve’s Brain… but I had yet to read it in its entirety.
It is a fascinating read to say the least. The conclusion is not a surprise for me, just a confirmation: despite popular belief, Steve Jobs hasn’t changed much in all these years. I have gathered my favorite quotes from the interview to prove it:
In their foreword, Playboy makes a pretty accurate description of young Steve, which is just as true for old Steve (try replacing IBM by Google in the quote below):
But to hear Jobs tell it, the money isn’t even half the story, especially since he does not spend it very lavishly—and, indeed, claims to have very little time for social life. He is on a mission, preaching the Gospel of salvation through the personal computer—preferably one manufactured by Apple. He is an engaging pitchman and never loses an opportunity to sell his products…
Unable to relent in his mission to spread the Apple word, he talked with solemn ferocity about the war with IBM—but then would punctuate his enthusiasm for an idea with ‘Neat!’ or ‘Incredibly great!’
21 Nov 2010 | in Updates
RT @philiped: Steve Jobs: The Playboy interview: The magazine has re-released the piece it published in early 1985, just… http://bit.l …
18 Nov 2010 | in Updates
Handy Comic Guide to iPhone, Android, Blackberry Users via Cult of Mac http://bit.ly/cqXeSv
iWear
This is fun:
Reminds of me of a website (can’t remember its URL) whose only page was a list of Steve Jobs’ clothes. The guy who did it was interviewed by a major magazine (can’t remember either, but I’ll find it) as someone “influential in the Mac sphere“. What a joke. Worst still, the list was almost all wrong. For example, it spread the error that Steve’s turtlenecks are by St Croix. The truth: they’re from Issey Miyake (John Lasseter in a FT article – warning: you have to subscribe for the whole story)
He found this one really great black turtleneck which he loved – I think it was Issey Miyaki [sic] – so tried to buy another one and they didn’t have any more. He called the company and asked if they would make another one, and they refused. So he said: ‘Fine, how many do you have to make before I can buy them?’ So they made them – I think he has a closet full of them.
Source: TUAW (made by Scoopertino)