“The flurry of tributes to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, continued to pour in [this week] as industry leaders, Apple fans and others gauged his impact on the modern world,” David Moin and Amy Wicks report for Women’s Wear Daily. “Many of those tributes focused on how Jobs had a hand in creating the world in which we live. But he also helped revolutionize both retailing and magazine publishing through the creation of the Apple stores and the launch of the iPad tablet.”
Moin and Wicks report, “Allen Questrom, former chairman and ceo of J.C. Penney, Federated Department Stores and Barneys New York, said, ‘He was probably the most outstanding merchant in our history. As a retailer and technology guy, he had the ability to combine it all and had what most of his peers did not have — an ability to understand what customers want. He got people who aren’t technocrats entertained by the product and wanting to buy another product. He made a computer easy and understandable for the average Joe to use. The stores are very ingenious, but that’s not what it’s all about. He designed a fashionable product people want to buy.'”
Moin and Wicks report, “Barbara Kahn, professor of marketing and director of Jay H. Baker Retailing Center, concurred, saying, ‘Steve Jobs revolutionized retail. Everyone is talking about store experience, but he nailed it. Aside from the obvious attention to design, to technology, he had the idea that the store should be a wonderful experience. He figured out how pressure points in the retail environment could be eliminated. You can pay through the iPad and get your receipt e-mailed to you, to avoid a checkout line. He proved that if you have a good idea, if you’re creative and innovative, you can get people to buy in bad economic times. It’s amazing how emotional people feel about this man. They’re paying homage by putting flowers by the stores. In terms of retail, Apple is the church.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brian” for the heads up.]
To be honest, he had to be convinced that retail stores would work. His VP Ron ( I can’t quite remember the name) tried several times, before Jobs got it. Thank God Ron stuck to his guns. Even Jobs gets myopia!
Is that true? Ron Johnson is the vice president of retail. Before working at Apple he was VP of merchandising at Target. The thing about your comment that doesn’t make sense to me is.. Why would they hire a VP of retail before they decide to do retail?
I heard that the concept of the Apple store was mostly his vision and that Steve Jobs needed to be convinced about the specific concept that Ron wanted, not that the store should exist in the first place.
Ron Johnson. Johnson made Target stores into what they are today before he went to Apple. Earlier this year, Johnson announced he would be leaving Apple to become CEO of J.C.Penney. That departure should be happening soon.
When his departure was announced, Johnson said it had long been his professional goal to be the CEO of a major retailer.
Don’t forget desktop publishing, AppleTalk networking, LaserWriter w/postscript, ImageWriter. Integrating Macs on Novell networks with TokenRing, etc. All of these changed publishing.
Desktop publishing has ruined publishing in many ways. Bad grammar, punctuation, spelling, and forgetting time proven publishing norms.
Huh? I don’t think it was desktop publishing that changed that. It’s still the person behind the keyboard. The software is not the culprit for adding bad grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.
Desktop publishing also can not be blamed for incomplete sentences.
Of course desktop publishing CAN be blamed for incomplet
Zing!
DTP made every person think they were a capable designer and writer. It was no longer left to the professionals to do a lot of the work because the product was “good enough” and most people didn’t notice. It happened in the same way that secretaries suddenly became artists and designers when using MSWord or Wordperfect because they could insert clip art and create text frames. And don’t forget about how many people actually think they are artists because they know how to use Illustrator on an intermediate level.
These apps may have empowered the little guy, the start up and the aspirant but there is often a serious downside to making people think the playing field has been leveled. Mediocrity and commoditization. Sorry, but it’s true.
Everyone forgets this. It was Steve who envisioned the publishing capabilities of the Mac, which is why he took a Canon print engine and combined it with Adobe’s Postscript. Of course it took a WYSISWYG application called Aldus PageMaker to really get the desktop publishing revolution moving.
I haven’t seen anyone cite Apple revolutionizing print in the 80s with the first laser printers and ‘desktop publishing’. Remember ‘desktop publishing’?