I saw Steve Jobs give his last WWDC presentation — and that was when I knew Apple could last for 50 years and beyond
50 years of Apple
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I didn’t know I was watching the swan song of a genius. Sure, Steve Jobs was awfully skinny, methodically pacing the WWDC 2011 stage as he ran through iOS 5, the new iCloud, and macOS Lion, but the audience was mesmerized. Jobs was smart, engaged, excited and funny. He was Apple.
Apple did not hesitate. Tim Cook slipped into the driver’s seat without even stopping at the pits. He took the stage at Apple’s old headquarters in Cupertino hours before Jobs died to unveil the iPhone 4s and Siri, and it seemed to me like he’d been doing it his whole life.
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15 years later, as Apple celebrates 50 years as a company, I find myself thinking about Jobs, Woz, what they built, and why we all feel differently about Apple.
Apple is special because Jobs was special
Think about it. Apple has its ardent fans and its ardent detractors. What it lacks are people in the middle, those who have no feeling towards the company.
Apple was designed to be not only a technology company, but also an expression of cool. Now, “cool” may sound retro or even cheesy, but it’s not some Arthur Fonzerelli kind of cool. It’s an aesthetic that instantly communicates difference. Apple’s hardware and design choices were, from their beginnings, infused with Steve Jobs’ obsession with craftsmanship and materials.
If Wozniak was a technical genius with a scholarly gift for electronic engineering, Jobs was the one who understood the biology of products. Together, they built computers that connected us to our need to produce and our desire to be inspired.
I know many people credit the iconic 1984 commercial with helping to make the first Mac successful. The ad was radical and memorable at a time when most tech commercials and advertisements were timed to hit businessmen’s pocketbooks and not their hearts and minds.
Apple was, and Steve Jobs found it
Yet it was the product that connected people on a more visceral level. By 1984, I knew enough about computers to understand that the Mac was something different. In 1985, when I sat down in front of my first model, I felt a spark of kinship with technology I had never experienced before. I like to assume that the connection traveled from me via the Mac to Steve Jobs.
I remember just as well the time when Apple lost its way, sometime between the mid-80s and late 90s. With Jobs gone, Apple’s spark dimmed and the company began making boxy, uninspiring computers like everyone else.
I used to train people on these computers, and I remember feeling absolutely nothing. Software was the thing, and Apple’s hardware was just another means of delivery, and a boring one at that.
Typically you don’t attribute the success of a company, let alone individual products, to a single person, but few other companies are Apple.
The return of Steve Jobs not only heralded the return of a guiding hand who could help guide average products toward reluctant consumers. Jobs’ unique gift was how he took his emotions out and made them tangible in a product.
Wozniak, the electronics wizard, was long gone, and while his absence should have bothered Jobs, it might have encouraged him to follow his own product instincts.
Employment, Ives and the importance of the Cook factor
With design impresario Jony Ive on board since 1992, Jobs had his ideal partner. They were a formidable duo, but arguably the missing piece to the puzzle was the arrival of Tim Cook. If Ive and Jobs were free radicals, Cook was their solid center. A process and supply chain expert, there might be no better third leg of the stool for soon-to-explode product ambitions.
Most people credit the iMac with saving the company, which is sort of true, but it was surely the iPod that cemented Apple’s legacy as the coolest tech company on the planet. Undeniably attractive, the iPod was also a deceptively simple gadget; its sole purpose was music streaming and playback.
Apple did not invent this type of device. Clunky MP3 players existed long before the iPod, but Jobs’s commitment to simplicity, elegance and quality made his portable music device something more.
Steve Jobs Show Tickets
Jobs’ abilities as a showman and communicator were unmatched at that time. Every time he took the stage in his signature black turtleneck, jeans and New Balance sneakers, it was an event. Jobs demanded your attention and then earned your applause.
It was obvious to everyone watching that, behind the scenes, Jobs was running his giant company in a way unimaginable at other tech companies. The demanding call for quality, even perfection; the incessant desire for secrecy and wonder.
It didn’t always lead to a great place. Jobs, ever carefree, hated publicly admitting his mistakes (even though he was the king of last-minute changes to avoid such mistakes), and he lashed out at a technology publication when it accidentally broke the company’s vaunted privacy framework (see the iPhone 4 scandal).
Overall, though, Apple under Steve Jobs was a company that attracted the kind of attention usually reserved for A-list celebrities.
Apple under Tim Cook is still cool, but it also seems more predictable. Cook’s biggest swings, like the Apple Watch and Vision Pro, don’t really bear his fingerprints. Cook may engage and inspire, but there is no evidence of an undercurrent of emotion and creative drive underneath.
There are no whispered stories about Cook sending people back to the drawing board to, say, replace a round Apple Watch with a square dial or to put eyes on the Vision Pro’s exterior. These things surely happened at some point, but probably not at the last minute, and were instead the result of careful thought and long-term preparation.
A mature but intact apple
A company that has lasted 50 years cannot be the same as it was in 1976, 1997, 2001 or even just 15 years ago. It’s not just that Apple has changed; the world changed around her and the business naturally moved towards management rather than success.
Just look at what passes for growth these days: services. It’s arguably the fastest-growing part of Apple’s business, but it’s tied to hardware that was invented and then gradually perfected over the years.
Remarkably, Apple is still cool in 2026. People still care more about what it does than most other tech companies — hell, any other company. Credit Tim Cook for this. He’s no Steve Jobs, but he has long recognized the need not only to keep Jobs’ memory alive, but also to keep his Apple soul intact. If this soul still lives anywhere, it’s in the center of the giant Apple Campus ring.
In some ways, Apple Park was Steve Jobs’ last big idea and constantly reminds us of his sprawling ambition and uncanny ability to know what we wanted before we wanted it. It’s a ring of ambition and ideas, so unusual and memorable that it helps keep alive the idea of Apple as the coolest company on the planet.
That day in June 2011, when I watched Steve Jobs give his last big presentation, I knew I was witnessing something special: a unicorn of technology and business, a unique maverick who built something special and passed it on to his business heirs. They could have ruined their project, but Jobs’ passion was such that the fire, although it dimmed at times, never went out. It was the undeniable engine of those first 50 years – we’ll see if it continues to burn bright enough to keep Apple going for another 50 years.
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