CNET

File:Cnetlogo.png
URL	cnet.com Also Known as download.com and upload.com
Slogan	"For a life gone digital"
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Technology & Journalism
Registration	Optional
Owner	CBS Interactive
Launched	March 5, 1994; 18 years ago  (1994-03-05)
Alexa rank	100 (June 2012[update])[1]
Current status	Online

CNET (stylized as c|net) is a tech media website that publishes news, articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition in 2008.^[2][3][4][5] CNET originally produced content for radio and television in addition to its website and now uses new media distribution methods through its Internet television network, CNET TV, and its podcast and blog networks.

History[link]

Origins[link]

In 1994, with the help from Fox Network co-founder^[6] Kevin Wendle and former Disney creative associate Dan Baker,^[7] CNET produced four pilot television programs about computers, technology, and the Internet. CNET TV was composed of CNET Central, The Web, and The New Edge.^[8][9]CNET Central was created first and aired in syndication in the United States on the USA Network. Later, it began airing on USA's sister network Sci-Fi Channel along with The Web and The New Edge.^[8] These were later followed by TV.com in 1996. Current American Idol host Ryan Seacrest first came to national prominence at CNET, as the host of The New Edge and doing various voice-over work for CNET.^[10]

In addition, CNET produced another television technology news program called News.com that aired on CNBC beginning in 1999.^[7]

From 2001 to 2003, CNET operated CNET Radio on the Clear Channel-owned KNEW (910) in the San Francisco Bay Area, WBPS (890) in Boston and on XM Satellite Radio. CNET Radio offered technology-themed programming. After failing to attract a sufficient audience, CNET Radio ceased operating in January 2003 due to financial losses.^[11]

Acquisitions and expansions[link]

As CNET Networks, the site made various acquisitions to expand its reach across various web platforms, regions, and markets.

CNET acquired the Swiss-based company GDT in 1997. GDT was later renamed to CNET Channel.^[7] In 1998, CNET granted the right to Asiacontent to set up CNET Asia and the operation was brought back in December 2000.^[12][13]

In January 2000, the same time CNET became CNET Networks, they acquired comparison shopping site mySimon for $700 million.^[14]

In October 2000, CNET Networks acquired ZDNet for approximately $1.6 billion.^[15][16] In January 2001, Ziff Davis Media, Inc. reached an agreement with CNET Networks, Inc. to regain the URLs lost in the 2000 sale of Ziff Davis, Inc. to SoftBank Corp. a publicly traded Japanese media and technology company.^[17] In April 2001, CNET acquired TechRepublic Inc., which provides content for IT professionals from Gartner, Inc., for $23 million in cash and stock.^[18] On July 14, 2004, CNET announced that it would acquire Webshots, the leading photography website for $70 million ($60 million in cash, $10 million in deferred consideration).^[19]

In July 2004, CNET Networks acquired Webshots, an online photo sharing site for $70 million.^[20] However, in October 2007, they sold Webshots to American Greetings for $45 million^[21]

On March 1, 2007, CNET announced the public launch of BNET, a website targeted towards business managers. BNET was launched in 2005 in beta form.^[22]

On May 15, 2008 it was announced that CBS Corporation would buy CNET Networks for US$1.8 billion.^[3][23][24] On June 30, 2008, the acquisition was completed.^[25] Former CNET properties are now part of CBS Interactive. CBS Interactive now owns many domain names originally created by CNET Networks, including download.com, downloads.com, upload.com, news.com, search.com, tv.com, mp3.com, chat.com, computers.com, help.com, shopper.com, radio.com, and com.com. In addition CNET currently has region-specific portals for Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, South-East Asia, Turkey, Taiwan, and UK.

Criticism[link]

In 2011, CNET and CBS Interactive were sued by a coalition of artists (led by FilmOn founder Alki David) for copyright infringement by promoting the download of LimeWire, a popular peer to peer downloading software.^{[26] [27]} Although the original suit was voluntarily dropped by Alki David he vowed to sue at a later date to bring "expanded"^[28] action against CBS Interactive. In November 2011, another lawsuit against CBS Interactive was introduced, claiming that CNet and CBS Interactive knowingly distributed LimeWire, the file sharing software.^[29]

In 1998, CNET was sued by Snap Technologies for its use of the snap.com domain.^[30]

In 2005, Google blacklisted all CNET reporters for an entire year ^[31][32] after CNET published Google's CEO Eric Schmidt's salary, named the neighborhood where he lives, some of his hobbies and political donations.^[33] All the information had been gleaned from Google searches.

On October 11, 2006, Shelby Bonnie resigned as chairman and CEO as a result of stock options backdating scandal that occurred between 1996 and 2003. Neil Ashe was named as the new CEO.^[34]

CNET's CEO and two other executives resigned ^[35] in 2006 because of a options backdating scandal which caused the firm to restate its financial earnings over 1996 through 2003 for $105 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission later dropped an investigation into the practice.^[36]

CNET got in trouble^{[clarification needed]} in 2007 after it was revealed by former Gamespot editors that CNET corporate staff had directed the firing of a Gamespot editor. Furthermore, CNET was involved in altering the strict editorial policies that Gamespot and CNET reviewing staff once had. Indeed, CNET was considered complicit in its support of products regardless of their quality.

Some software applications freely downloadable from the internet are also offered for download by CNET. Some of these "CNET versions" are actually wrapped inside other applications that install other pieces of software, for which the user has to specifically opt out, and the opt-out option is not clearly or immediately visible.^[37]

CNET.com sections[link]

CNET is divided into five major sections: reviews, news and blogs (News.com), downloads, CNET TV, and How To. The Reviews section of the site is the largest part of the site, and generates over 4,300 product and software reviews per year. The Reviews section also features Editors’ Choice Awards, which recognize products that are particularly innovative and of the highest quality.

CNET News (formerly known as News.com), launched in 1996, is a news website dedicated to technology, and was one of the first news sources to help define technology reporting in the age of the internet. CNET News has won several prestigious awards, including the National Magazine award.^{[citation needed]} Content is created by both CNET and external media agencies as news articles and blogs, including Webware (Web 2.0 topics) and Crave (gadgets).

With a catalog of more than 400,000 titles, the Downloads section of the website allows users to download popular software, generating approximately 3.5 million downloads per day.^{[citation needed]} CNET download.com provides Windows, Macintosh and mobile software for download. CNET maintains that this software is free of spyware. The site also offers free MP3 music files for download (mostly by independent artists), however recently, the music section of the site is now merged with last.fm. This meant that all the music downloads were deleted without warning.^[38]

CNET TV is CNET's Internet video channel offering a selection of on-demand video content including video reviews, first looks and special features. CNET TV plays various videos, including CNET video reviews. CNET editors such as Molly Wood, Brian Cooley and Brian Tong host shows like Car Tech, Buzz Report, Quick Tips, CNET Top 5, Loaded, The Apple Byte, Digital City, The Digital Home, Inside CNET Live, Mail Bag, video prizefights, and others, as well as special reports and reviews. On April 12, 2007, CNET TV aired its first episode of CNET LIVE, hosted by Brian Cooley and Tom Merritt. The first episode featured Justin Kan of justin.tv.^[39][40]

Officially launched August 2011, How To is the learning area of CNET providing tutorials, guides and tips for technology users.

Personalities[link]

In December 2006, James Kim, an editor at CNET, died in the Oregon wilderness. CNET hosted a memorial show and podcasts dedicated to him.

References[link]

External links[link]

• CNET

Brian Cooley is an Editor at large for CNET and their senior pundit, seen frequently on CNN, ABC News, CNBC as well on the TV screens in most major tech retailers around the U.S. He also hosts CNET's Car Tech podcast,^[2] a common co-host of Buzz Out Loud, and a co-host of a number of other CNET TV programs.

In 1984, Cooley obtained a BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and then matriculated to Northwestern University, where he pursued and obtained a masters degree in journalism. In 1986, the year he graduated from Northwestern, Cooley began his career in radio. He reported news and commentary for such stations as KFRC, KMEL and KPIX AM/FM in San Francisco and KKBT "The Beat" in Los Angeles. His deep baritone voice helped him land a job at the launch of CNET Radio in 1995. Cooley often adds his humor and tech insights to the Buzz Report on CNET TV and also hosts his own CNET TV show, Car Tech Video. He has a postcast called Car Tech Live, which he hosts with fellow Car Tech Editors Antuan Goodwin and Wayne Cunningham.

On August 1, 2009, Cooley began doing Car Tech segments on Car News with Dan Rosenberg on KFWB News Talk 980 in Los Angeles.

He was an early adopter of the Zune, of which he has in brown, although more recently he is frequently seen connecting "[his] iPod Touch" to a vehicle to test its audio system on Car Tech, signifying he might have switched to the competing platform. He also is a huge fan of 007 movies and is Chief of Staff of "The Commanders Club" a James Bond movie fan club.^[3]

Cooley is married, lives in the Bay Area and is always on the prowl for garages in which to store his collection of highly original Ford automobiles which he considers to be "examples of Detroit's last great era, the late 1960s."

As of May 2010, Cooley became the host of the CNET Top5 show replacing Tom Merritt.^{[citation needed][4]}

References[link]

External links[link]

• CNET Editor Profile
• KFWB Car News with Dan Rosenberg\

This article about an American journalist born in the 1960s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Steve Jobs
Jobs holding a white iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010
Born	Steven Paul Jobs (1955-02-24)February 24, 1955[1][2] San Francisco, California, U.S.[1][2]
Died	October 5, 2011(2011-10-05) (aged 56)[2] Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Pancreatic cancer
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Syrian, German[3]
Alma mater	Reed College (dropped out)
Occupation	Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc. Co-founder and CEO, Pixar Co-founder and CEO, NeXT Inc.
Years active	1974–2011
Board member of	The Walt Disney Company[4] Apple Inc.
Religion	Zen Buddhism
Spouse	Laurene Powell (1991–2011, his death)
Children	Lisa Brennan-Jobs Reed Erin Eve
Relatives	Mona Simpson (sister)
Signature

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)^[5][6] was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution^[7][8] and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.

In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. During this period he also led efforts that would begin the desktop publishing revolution, notably through the introduction of the LaserWriter and the associated PageMaker software.^[9]

After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar.^[10] He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006,^[11] making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at seven percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.^[12][13]

After difficulties developing a new Mac operating system, Apple purchased NeXT in 1996 in order to use NeXTSTEP as the basis for what became Mac OS X.^[14] As part of the deal Jobs was named Apple advisor. As Apple floundered, Jobs took control of the company and was named "interim CEO" in 1997, or as he jokingly referred to it, "iCEO". Under his leadership, Apple was saved from near bankruptcy, and became profitable by 1998.^[15][16] Over the next decade, Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and on the services side, the company's Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store.^[17] The success of these products and services, providing several years of stable financial returns, propelled Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.^[18] The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by many commentators as one of the greatest turnarounds in business history.^[19][20][21]

In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Though it was initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance, underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined.^[22] On medical leave for most of 2011, Jobs resigned as Apple CEO in August that year and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died of respiratory arrest related to his metastatic tumor on October 5, 2011.

Jobs has received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries. He has widely been referred to as "legendary", a "futurist" or simply "visionary",^{[23][24][25][26]} and has been described as the "Father of the Digital Revolution",^[27] a "master of innovation",^[28][29] and a "design perfectionist".^[30][31]

Early life and education[link]

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955 to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian-born Abdulfattah "John" Jandali (Arabic: عبدالفتاح جندلي‎), who were both unmarried at the time.^[32] Jandali, who was teaching in Wisconsin when Steve was born in 1955, said he had no choice but to put the baby up for adoption because his girlfriend's family objected to their relationship.^[33] The baby was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986), an Armenian-American^[3] whose maiden name was Hagopian.^[34] Later, when asked about his "adoptive parents," Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs "were my parents."^[35] He stated in his authorized biography that they "were my parents 1,000%."^[36] Unknown to him, his biological parents would subsequently marry (December 1955), have a second child Mona Simpson in 1957, and divorce in 1962.^[36]

The Jobs family moved from San Francisco to Mountain View, California when Steve was five years old.^[1][2] The parents later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul was a machinist for a company that made lasers, and taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.^[1] The father showed Steve how to work on electronics in the family garage, demonstrating to his son how to take apart and rebuild electronics such as radios and televisions. As a result, Steve became interested in and developed a hobby of technical tinkering.^[37]

Clara was an accountant^[35] who taught him to read before he went to school.^[1] Clara Jobs had been a payroll clerk for Varian Associates, one of the first high-tech firms in what became known as Silicon Valley.^[38]

Jobs's youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. At Monta Loma Elementary school in Mountain View, he was a prankster whose fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal his parents declined.^[39]

Jobs then attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California.^[2] At Homestead, Jobs became friends with Bill Fernandez, a neighbor who shared the same interests in electronics. Fernandez introduced Jobs to another, older computer whiz kid, Stephen Wozniak (also known as "Woz"). In 1969 Woz started building a little computer board with Fernandez that they named “The Cream Soda Computer”, which they showed to Jobs; he seemed really interested.^[40] Jobs frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Wozniak as a summer employee.^[41]

Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Reed was an expensive college which Paul and Clara could ill afford. They were spending much of their life savings on their son’s higher education.^[40] Jobs dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes, including a course on calligraphy.^[42] He continued auditing classes at Reed while sleeping on the floor in friends' dorm rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.^[43] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."^[43]

Early career[link]

This section may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (March 2012)

Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter, September 1976

In 1974, Jobs took a job as a technician at Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.^[44] He traveled to India in mid-1974^[45] to visit Neem Karoli Baba^[46] at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, an early Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted as Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973.^[44] Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Hariakhan Baba. In India, they spent a lot of time on bus rides from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh and back, then up to Himachal Pradesh and back.^[44]

After staying for seven months, Jobs left India^[47] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke.^[44] Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved and he wore traditional Indian clothing.^[48][49] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".^[50] He also became a serious practitioner of Zen Buddhism, engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US.^[51] He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.^[52] Jobs would later say that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.^[50]

Jobs then returned to Atari, and was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. At that time, Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.^{[further explanation needed]} According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.^[53] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.^[54]

In the early 1970s, Jobs and Wozniak were drawn to technology like a magnet. Wozniak had designed a low-cost digital "blue box" to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. Jobs decided that they could make money selling it. The clandestine sales of the illegal "blue boxes" went well, and perhaps planted the seed in Jobs's mind that electronics could be fun and profitable.^[55]

In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed their own business, which they named “Apple Computer Company” in remembrance of a happy summer Jobs had spent picking apples. At first they started off selling circuit boards, but eventually they produced a complete computer prototype.^[56] Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in 1975.^[2] He greatly admired Edwin H. Land, the inventor of instant photography and founder of Polaroid Corporation, and would explicitly model his own career after that of Land's.^[57][58]

Career[link]

Apple Computer[link]

Home of Paul and Clara Jobs, on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California. Steve Jobs formed Apple Computer in its garage with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. Wayne stayed only a short time, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the primary co-founders of the company.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. In 1976, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple computer in the garage of Jobs's parents in order to sell it.^[59] They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer Mike Markkula.^[60]

In 1978, Apple recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO for what turned out to be several turbulent years. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"^[61]

In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa. One year later, Apple employee Jef Raskin invented the Macintosh.^[62][63]

The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984". At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium".^[64]

Apple logo in 1977, created by Rob Janoff with the rainbow color theme used until 1998.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. Disappointing sales caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley and it eventually became a power struggle between Jobs and Sculley.^[65] Jobs kept meetings running past midnight, sent out lengthy faxes, then called new meetings at 7:00 am.^[66]

Sculley learned that Jobs—believing Sculley to be "bad for Apple" and the wrong person to lead the company—had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup, and on May 24, 1985, called a board meeting to resolve the matter.^[65] Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties as head of the Macintosh division.^[67][68] Jobs resigned from Apple five months later^[65] and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.^[66][69]

In a speech Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, he said being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him; "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." And he added, "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it."^[43][70][71]

NeXT Computer[link]

A NeXTstation with the original keyboard, mouse and the NeXT MegaPixel monitor

After leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985, with $7 million. A year later, Jobs was running out of money, and with no product on the horizon, he appealed for venture capital. Eventually, he attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot who invested heavily in the company.^[72] NeXT workstations were first released in 1990, priced at $9,999. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive by the educational sector for which it was designed.^[73] The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on a NeXT computer at CERN.^[74]

The revised, second-generation NeXTcube was released in 1990, also. Jobs touted it as the first "interpersonal" computer that would replace the personal computer. With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. "Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionize human communications and groupwork", Jobs told reporters.^[75] Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube's magnesium case.^[76] This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.^[77] The company reported its first profit of $1.03 million in 1994.^[72] In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for Web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store,^[77] MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

Pixar and Disney[link]

In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.^[78]

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, with Jobs credited as executive producer,^[79] brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); The Incredibles (2004); Cars (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up (2009); and Toy Story 3 (2010). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.^[80]

Steve Jobs on computer graphics Steve Jobs on computer graphics. Interview excerpt from 1995.[81]

In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership,^[82] and in early 2004, Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract with Disney expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company's stock.^[12] Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7 percent, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about one percent of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner — especially that he soured Disney's relationship with Pixar — accelerated Eisner's ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger and also helped oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses from a seat on a special six-person steering committee.^[83] Upon Jobs's death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.^[84]

Return to Apple[link]

Logo for the Think Different campaign designed by TBWA\Chiat\Day and initiated by Jobs after his return to Apple Computer in 1997.

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $427 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996,^[85] bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive in September.^[86] In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated a number of projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."^[87] Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.^[88] Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title "iCEO".^[89]

Jobs on stage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that "real artists ship".^[90]

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences. In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker.^[43] The banner read "Steve, don't be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste".

In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.^[91]

Resignation[link]

In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, but remained with the company as chairman of the company's board.^[92][93] Hours after the announcement, Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares dropped five percent in after-hours trading.^[94] This relatively small drop, when considering the importance of Jobs to Apple, was associated with the fact that his health had been in the news for several years, and he had been on medical leave since January 2011.^[95] It was believed, according to Forbes, that the impact would be felt in a negative way beyond Apple, including at The Walt Disney Company where Jobs served as director.^[96] In after-hours trading on the day of the announcement, Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares dropped 1.5 percent.^[97]

Business life[link]

Wealth[link]

Jobs earned only $1 a year as CEO of Apple,^[98] Jobs held 5.426 million Apple shares worth $2.1 billion, as well as 138 million shares in Disney (which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar) worth $4.4 billion.^[99][100] Jobs quipped that the $1 per annum he was paid by Apple was based on attending one meeting for 50 cents while the other 50 cents was based on his performance.^[101] Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010, making him the 42nd wealthiest American.^[102]

Stock options backdating issue[link]

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in 2007

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,^[103] though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.^[104]

On July 1, 2008, a $7-billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.^[105][106]

Management style[link]

Jobs was a demanding perfectionist^[107][108] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky

There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.^[109]

Steve Jobs announcing the transition to Intel processors in 2005.

Much was made of Jobs's aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he was "considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs".^[110] Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Michael Moritz's The Little Kingdom, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon. In 1993, Jobs made Fortune's list of America's Toughest Bosses in regard to his leadership of NeXT.

NeXT Cofounder Dan'l Lewin was quoted in Fortune as saying of that period, "The highs were unbelievable ... But the lows were unimaginable", to which Jobs's office replied that his personality had changed since then.^[111]

In 2005, Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.^[112] In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."^[113] Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France", alluding to Jobs's compelling and larger-than-life persona.^[114] Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.^[115]

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987 when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes".^[116] On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he ran then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."^[117] In 2006, Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.^[118]

Jobs was also a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.^[119]

Reality distortion field[link]

Apple's Bud Tribble coined the term "reality distortion field" in 1981, to describe Jobs's charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Macintosh project.^[120] Tribble claimed that the term came from Star Trek.^[120] Since then the term has also been used to refer to perceptions of Jobs's keynote speeches.^[121]

The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld to be Steve Jobs's ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything, using a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement, and persistence. Although the subject of criticism, Jobs's so-called reality distortion field was also recognized as creating a sense that the impossible was possible. Once the term became widely known, it was often used in the technology press to describe Jobs's sway over the public, particularly regarding new product announcements.^[122][123]

Inventions and designs[link]

His design sense was greatly influenced by the Buddhism which he experienced in India while on a seven-month spiritual journey.^[124] His sense of intuition was also influenced by the spiritual people with whom he studied.^[124]

As of October 9, 2011 (2011 -10-09)^[update], Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 342 United States patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages. Most of these are design patents (specific product designs) as opposed to utility patents (inventions).^[125][126] He has 43 issued US patents on inventions.^[127] The patent on the Mac OS X Dock user interface with "magnification" feature was issued the day before he died.^[128]

Applying his Triple F Model to Apple under Steve Jobs, Anand Kurian opines that Job's contribution in the area of pure ‘Function’ are less significant, but that his contribution in the areas of ‘Functionality’ and ‘Form’ are major and substantial.^[129]

Apple I Computer[link]

The first significant invention that Steve Jobs was involved in was the Apple I which came along in 1976. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who was at the time working for HP, scraped together some cash for printed circuit boards. Then they planned to sell the machine as a kit for $666.66. A store called the Byte Shop ordered 50 fully assembled devices, and sold them all.^[130] The Apple’s first computer was for hobbyists and engineers so it was made in small numbers.^[131]

Apple II Computer[link]

During 1976, Steve Wozniak began work on the Apple II, and left HP to join Apple computer. In March 1977, Apple Computer moved from Jobs's garage to an office in Cupertino. Apple Computer delivered its first Apple II system, for US$1295 in April 1977.^[132] Steve Jobs once said the Apple II could be described as an "appliance" computer. The Apple II was the first computer to be enclosed in plastic.^[133] Jobs insisted that molded plastic was essential to the computer as a consumer item. The Apple II was “elegantly styled" and it became compared to an "overgrown pocket calculator".^[134]

Ten months after its introduction, Apple Computer began work on an enhanced Apple II with custom chips, code-named Annie, in 1978. At the same year, they began work on a supercomputer named Lisa; it featured a bit-sliced architecture. After two and a half years, 50,000 Apple II units had been sold until 1979. Nearly one-third of Canadians credited the Apple II as the first personal computer which having the most impact on society.^[135]

The Macintosh Computer[link]

The Macintosh was introduced in January 1984. The computer had no “Mac” name on the front, but rather just the Apple logo.^[130] The Macintosh have a friendly appearance since it was meant to be easy to use. The disk drive is below the display, the Macintosh was taller, narrower, more symmetrical, and far more suggestive of a face. The Macintosh was identified as a computer that ordinary people could understand.^[136]

The NeXT Computer[link]

After Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985, he started a company that built workstation computers. The NeXT Computer was introduced in 1989. Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the world’s first web browser on the NeXT Computer. The NeXT Computer was the basis for today’s Macintosh OS X and iPhone operating system (iOS).^[137]

iMac[link]

Apple iMac was introduced in 1998 and its innovative design was directly the result of Jobs's return to Apple. Apple boasted "the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else's".^[138] Described as "cartoonlike" the first iMac, clad in Bondi Blue plastic, was unlike any personal computer that came before. In 1999, Apple introduced Graphite gray Apple iMac and since has switched to all-white. Design ideas were intended to create a connection with the user such as the handle and a breathing light effect when the computer went to sleep..^[139] The Apple iMac sold for $1,299 at that time. There was some technical revolutions for iMac too. The USB ports being the only device inputs on the iMac. So the iMac’s success helped popularize the interface among third party peripheral makers, which is evidenced by the fact that many early USB peripherals were made of translucent plastic to match the iMac design.^[140]

iPod[link]

The first generation of iPod was released October 23, 2001. The major innovation of the iPod was its small size achieved by using a 1.8" hard drive compared to the 2.5" drives common to players at that time. The capacity of the first generation iPod ranged from 5G to 10 Gigabytes.^[141] The iPod sold for US$399 and more than 100,000 iPods were sold before the end of 2001. The introduction of the iPod resulted in Apple becoming a major player in the music industry.^[142] Also, the iPod’s success prepared the way for the iTunes music store and the iPhone.^[131] After the 1st generation of iPod, Apple released the hard drive-based iPod classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, video-capable iPod Nano, screenless iPod Shuffle in the following years.^[142]

iPhone[link]

Jobs began work on the first iPhone in 2005 and the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. The iPhone created such a sensation that a survey indicated six out of ten Americans were aware of its release. Time magazine declared it "Invention of the Year" for 2007.^[143] The Apple iPhone is a small device with multimedia capabilities and functions as a quad-band touch screen smartphone.^[144] A year later, the iPhone 3G was released in July 2008 with the key feature was support for GPS, 3G data and quad-band UMTS/HSDPA. In June 2009, the iPhone 3GS, added voice control, a better camera, and a faster processor was introduced by Phil Schiller.^[145] iPhone 4 was thinner than previous models, had a five megapixel camera which can record videos in 720p HD, and added a secondary front facing camera for video calls.^[146] A major feature of the iPhone 4S, introduced in October 2011, was Siri, which is a virtual assistant that is capable of voice recognition.^[143]

Philanthropy[link]

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek magazine stated that "Jobs isn't widely known for his association with philanthropic causes", compared to Bill Gates's efforts.^[147] In contrast to Gates, Jobs did not sign the Giving Pledge of Warren Buffett which challenged the world’s richest billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity.^[148] In an interview with Playboy in 1985, Jobs said in respect to money that “the challenges are to figure out how to live with it and to reinvest it back into the world which means either giving it away or using it to express your concerns or values.”^[149] Jobs also added that when he has some time we would start a public foundation but for now he does charitable acts privately.^[150]

After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs initially.^[151] Jobs’s friends told The New York Times that he felt that expanding Apple would have done more good than giving money to charity.^[152] Later, under Jobs, Apple signed to participate in Product Red program, producing red versions of devices to give profits from sales to charity. Apple has gone on to become the largest contributor to the charity since its initial involvement with it. The chief of the Product Red project, singer Bono cited Jobs saying there was "nothing better than the chance to save lives," when he initially approached Apple with the invitation to participate in the program.^[153] Through its sales, Apple has been the largest contributor to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, according to Bono.^[154]

Personal life[link]

Jobs's birth parents met at the University of Wisconsin. Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a Syrian Muslim,^[155] taught there. Joanne Carole Schieble was his student; they were the same age because Jandali had "gotten his PhD really young." ^{[156][157][158]} Schieble had a career as a speech language pathologist. Jandali taught political science at the University of Nevada in the 1960s, and then made his career in the food and beverage industry, and since 2006, has been a vice president at a casino in Reno, Nevada.^[159][160] In December 1955, ten months after giving up their baby boy, Schieble and Jandali married. In 1957 they had a daughter, Mona. They divorced in 1962, and Jandali lost touch with his daughter.^[161] Her mother remarried and had Mona take the surname of her stepfather, so she became known as Mona Simpson.^[157]

In the 1980s, Jobs found his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, who told him he had a biological sister, Mona Simpson. They met for the first time in 1985^[161] and became close friends. The siblings kept their relationship secret until 1986, when Mona introduced him at a party for her first book.^[35]

After deciding to search for their father, Simpson found Jandali managing a coffee shop. Without knowing who his son had become, Jandali told Mona that he had previously managed a popular restaurant in the Silicon Valley where "Even Steve Jobs used to eat there. Yeah, he was a great tipper." In a taped interview with his biographer Walter Isaacson, aired on 60 Minutes,^[162] Jobs said: "When I was looking for my biological mother, obviously, you know, I was looking for my biological father at the same time, and I learned a little bit about him and I didn't like what I learned. I asked her to not tell him that we ever met...not tell him anything about me."^[163] Jobs was in occasional touch with his mother Joanne Simpson,^[151][164] who lives in a nursing home in Los Angeles.^[157] When speaking about his biological parents, Jobs stated: "They were my sperm and egg bank. That's not harsh, it's just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more."^[36] Jandali stated in an interview with the The Sun in August 2011, that his efforts to contact Jobs were unsuccessful. Jandali mailed in his medical history after Jobs's pancreatic disorder was made public that year.^{[165][166][167]}

In her eulogy to Jobs at his memorial service, Mona Simpson stated:

I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I'd met my father, I tried to believe he'd changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people. Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.^[161]

Jobs's first child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, was born in 1978, the daughter of his longtime partner Chris Ann Brennan, a Bay Area painter.^[151] For two years, she raised their daughter on welfare while Jobs denied paternity by claiming he was sterile; he later acknowledged Lisa as his daughter.^[151] Jobs later married Laurene Powell on March 18, 1991, in a ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Presiding over the wedding was Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen Buddhist monk. Their son, Reed, was born September 1991, followed by daughters Erin in August 1995, and Eve in 1998.^[168] The family lives in Palo Alto, California.^[169]

Jobs demonstrating the iPhone 4 to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on June 23, 2010

In the unauthorized biography, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez. Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she "believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan" (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). In another unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time (41) meant it was unlikely the couple could have children.

Jobs was also a fan of The Beatles. He referred to them on multiple occasions at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. When asked about his business model on 60 Minutes, he replied:

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people.^[170]

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 singer Bono. Jobs never moved in.^[171][172]

In 1984, Jobs purchased the Jackling House, a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m²), 14-bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California. Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for almost ten years. According to reports, he kept a 1966 BMW R60/2 motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. From the early 1990s, Jobs lived in a house in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood of Palo Alto. President Clinton dined with Jobs and 14 Silicon Valley CEOs there on August 7, 1996, at a meal catered by Greens Restaurant.^[173][174] Clinton returned the favor and Jobs, who was a Democratic donor, slept in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House.^[175]