Steve Jobs on Apple Is Software
What Jobs talks about
Jobs argues that Apple’s core advantage is software, not just hardware. He says the iPod, Mac, and iPhone all depend on software working across the device, the computer, and the cloud or store.
He contrasts Apple with consumer electronics companies that, in his view, could not build the software needed to compete in portable music. Apple’s success, he says, comes from seeing itself as a software company.
The point matters because it frames Apple’s products as integrated systems rather than boxes. That perspective helps explain how Apple approached the iPod, Mac OS X, and the iPhone.
Jobs speaks throughout.
In his words
“The iPod's really just software.”
“It's software on the PC or the Mac, and it's software in the cloud for the store.”
“What a Mac is, it's OS X.”
“Apple views itself as a software company.”
Key points
- The iPod exists because Apple could do the software others could not.
- Apple’s products are systems: device software, computer software, and store/cloud software.
- The Mac is not just hardware; it is OS X in a beautiful box.
- The iPhone, too, is fundamentally software.
- Apple sees itself as a software company.
Full transcript
If you look at the reason that the iPod exists and that Apple's in that marketplace, it's because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market for a long, long... invented it and owned it, couldn't do the appropriate software, couldn't conceive of and implement the appropriate software, because an iPod's really just software. It's software in the iPod itself, it's software on the PC or the Mac, and it's software in the cloud for the store. And it's in a beautiful box, but it's software. If you look at what a Mac is, it's OS X. It's in a beautiful box, but it's OS X. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be, it's software.
And so the big secret about Apple, of course, not so big secret maybe, is that Apple views itself as a software company.
Transcribed from the audio with OpenAI Whisper. Timestamps link to the video above. Errors are possible.