Apple’s guru calls a new tune

Only Steve Jobs can turn the launch of a new phone into a quasi-religious ceremony. Last week’s launch of the Apple’s latest iPhone in San Francisco was preceded by the usual feverish excitement and speculation.

When Jobs, chief executive and founder of the computer firm, finally got up to speak, audience members whooped and punched the air in triumph. Bloggers logged minute-by-minute updates on Jobs’ utterances as if undertaking a football match commentary.

In the end, the launch was something of a letdown, though disciples of Jobs will not have a bad word said against their leader. The phone replaces the iPhone launched last year, coming equipped with 3G to enable faster Internet access. The only real surprise was the price — US$199 — compared with US$399 for the cheapest version last summer.

So how has Jobs inspired such fervent devotion to Apple and to what most people would just call a new phone?

Jobs’ life story is better documented — and more unconventional — than almost any other chief executive of a leading company. Born in 1955, he dropped out of university after one term and took a job at video game maker Atari to save up enough money to backpack around India.

When he returned, with friend Steve Wozniak and barely out of his teens, he designed and hand-built in his garage what many people have credited as being the world’s first personal computer. A local store put them on sale for US$666.66 in 1976, selling about 200. Apple was born, introducing the Macintosh computer less than a decade later, and more recently the iPod and iPhone.

Leander Kahney, news editor of Wirednews.com and author of Inside Steve’s Brain, calls Apple the “magic factory.” Trying to explain the mystique that still surrounds the company’s product launches, he says: “No one gets to peek behind the curtain — the products just seem to appear magically. The whole innovation process is mystical.”

As with many myths, the cult of Jobs and Apple (they are almost interchangeable) is a mix of fact and carefully preserved fiction. Jobs’ and Wozniak’s development of the Mac was a response to the launch by IBM, the dominant technology company at the time, of its own mass-market personal computer in 1981.

Kahney says: “He and Steve were hippy idealistic kids. There was a motivation to take on “the man.” IBM was the man and the Mac was the tool of empowerment. They believed that technology would give power to the people. They played this image up — but they probably believed it at the beginning.”

Jobs, a student of Buddhism and a vegetarian, was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 but the tumor was removed a year later and he has since made a full recovery. In 2005, he gave a moving speech to Stanford University students, apparently drawing on his brush-with-death experience: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” he said. “Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Kahney says Jobs remains very hands-on in the design of new products: “Everything has to go through his approval. He has his finger in all the pies.”

Former employees of Jobs say he is extremely demanding to work for, with very high standards. Gary Allen, who runs an Apple fan site, says his management style is like a good sports coach — “encouraging people to move past good performance and on to excellent performance.”