The reason that Apple is able to create products like the iPad is because we've always tried to be at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.
Interpretation
Apple's success lies in blending technology with creativity and the humanities.
In this quote, Steve Jobs emphasizes the importance of integrating technical skills with liberal arts to foster innovation. He suggests that the intersection of these fields is where creativity flourishes, allowing for the creation of groundbreaking products like the iPad, which combine functionality with artistic design and user experience.
In practice
During a keynote address on innovation, you might say, 'As Steve Jobs pointed out, the intersection of technology and the liberal arts drives creativity.'
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
If I designed a computer with 200 chips, I tried to design it with 150. And then I would try to design it with 100. I just tried to find every trick I could in life to design things real tiny
I'm not good at selling laptops. I'm good at selling ideas.
The urge to miniaturize electronics did not exist before the space program. I mean our grandparents had radios that was furniture in the living room. Nobody at the time was saying, 'Gee, I want to carry that in my pocket.' Which is a non-thought.
By 2029, computers will have emotional intelligence and be convincing as people.
Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.
Machines are admirable and tyrannize only with the user's consent. Where, then, is the enemy? Not where the machine gives relief from drudgery but where human judgment abdicates. The smoothest machine-made product of the age is the organization man, for even the best organizing principle tends to corrupt, and the mechanical principle corrupts absolutely.
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