Most Significant Contributions Steve Jobs Made to Apple

I was totally shocked when I heard the news that Steve Jobs resigned from Apple on Saturday. I'm not ready for that. He is a legend man who has incredible passion, vision and creativity in inventing amazing products for the world, which he breaks lots of old rules to keep ahead of his era. I can't imagine an Apple without Steve Jobs. And it just happened. Some may think he quit because of severe medical situation. Some thinks it was the best timing for Jobs to resign if he has to for health consideration. Well, to show our respect, let's recall the most significant contributions Steve Jobs has made to Apple.

1.Apple II, 1977

Apple Computer, Inc. was established on April 1, 1976 by Jobs, engineer Steve Wozniak and industry vet Ronald Wayne. At first Apple mainly sold computer kits as a motherboard. The company expanded very fast and soon invented their first computer Apple II along with color graphics and an open architecutre, which left the rivals behind.

2.Macintosh, 1984

We may think the Macintosh 1984 very ugly now. But it was the first computer to successfully integrate a graphical user interface and a mouse. This computer was considered to be the father of all the following personal PCs with less picture folders, trash and so on. Its debut was announced by the now famous massive media campaign spearheaded by a minute-long TV commercial (riffing on Orwell's 1984) that aired during the Super Bowl. It is considered a watershed event for Apple's success.

3.iMac, 1998

iMac 1998

Steve Jobs was forced to resign by the Apple's board of directors on early 1990s. Without Steve Jobs, Apple suffered big lose for several missteps. Jobs returned in 1996 and launched a complete re-write of the desktop PC – iMac two years later. It featured completely revolutionary all-in-one design without boring beige box of PCs past to the curb. This design is still generated by today's iMac. (Most notebooks are inspired by this iMac)

4. iPod, 2001

iPod 2001

iPod is definitely not the first portal media player with small size in the world. It just fully optimized user interface to deliver a $400 MP3 player with a 5-gigabyte hard drive and a mechanical scroll wheel as well as a touch screen. Thanks to Napster, music devices are highly demanded for enjoying musics without CD driver. Ease-of-use, convenience and sex appeal trump all other features made iPod boom and still highly sought after today.

5. Mac OS X, 2001

This is the first version Mac OS X that totally different one with earlier Mac operating system Apple delivered. As Jobs had promised, a true "next generation" OS. It appealed to novices fluent in Windows but it retained enough of its Unix guts and enough of Apple's well-established interface conventions to keep the Apple geeks interested.

6.iTunes Store, 2003

Without iTunes store, iPod won't be so popular. It shows another foresight of Steve Job, which is a good start to turn Apple into an independent company involves both hardware and software . After the impact Napster offered free music online, iTune Store makes large amount of musics available for people online with much competitive price. With it came the era of the single, easily downloadable for $0.99 and offering instant satisfaction. Apple is not a hardware company any more, it becomes a digital lifestyle hub which offers device as well as service.

7. iPhone, 2007

iPhone 2007

A revelutionary brand new designed smartphone or a cool phone. Again, huge hit. iPhone alerted Nokia and Blackberry that they were left behind to capture the new era and could only watch Apple swallow their marketshare without any defence. With sexy full touch screen and high-end design, iPhone completely changed our expectations of how a smartphone should look, feel and behave. Moreover, Job changed the normal way dealing with wireless carrier. They can't customize phones as they had done before. Well, now if they want the hottest phones, the carriers have to play ball.

8. App Store, iPhone SDK, 2008

It can be deduced that a new app store will come to service iPhone and other Apple devices like iTune, it can bring more value for Apple and keep the users rely on iPhone.

With the arrival of the iPhone SDK in 2008, developers could create their own native apps for the iPhone and sell them through the App Store built into iTunes. This not only set up a clean, centralized distribution model for apps, but also introduced a budget-minded pricing structure -- $1 and $2 apps -- that encouraged you to download as many apps as you wanted.

9 iPad 2010

iPad 2010

It's the device everyone wanted Apple to create, even though most of us weren't sure how it was going to fit into our lives once it got here. But Jobs got sentimental when showing off the first iPad in 2010. He said it was a culmination of years of work, starting with OS X, then iTunes, then the iPhone, then the App Store. The shockwaves are still evident over a year later as manufacturers race to catch up, pumping out their own tablets. But they can't match Apple's success.

With the iPad 2, Steve Jobs can retire knowing he went out on top, crossing the finish line well ahead of everyone else.

This article is written to respect the great man who inspire the world.

Mainly from: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/steves-greatest-hits/