Steve Jobs: Person that Contributed Greatly to the Broadcasting Industry - Essay Example

?Report on a person that contributed greatly to the broadcasting industry: Steve Jobs The media business has undergone a revolutionary change with the efforts of Apple in general and Steve Jobs in particular. Today, the impact of Apple on the video business is felt by everybody as the iPad and the iPhone have risen in popularity all over the world. Steve Jobs changed the method of production of newspapers and magazines. In the last two decades of the 20th century, the number of characters that could be adjusted into the headline of a newspaper used to be measured with the help of pica wheels, and pages of the newspapers were designed with the help of paper-strips cut to shape that were than pasted over the pages using wax. Today, as a result of sustained efforts of Steve Jobs, newspapers have been replaced with the digital formats in their entirety. People are able to access these digital formats over their computers, tablets, and cell phones. After a series of innovative products, next in line in the Apple’s vision is to allow the customers access to live television on the set-top box. A device having this feature is able to break all records in the broadcasting industry and if it happens, it will bring a revolutionary change in the traditional way of television consumption all over the world. “The device would seemingly blur the lines between on-demand content and live television as it would store entire episodes of shows in iCloud”. 1 The best thing about this innovative feature is that it would provide the users with an opportunity to rewind the live broadcast so that it can be seen right from the start even if actually it had started quite a while ago. In addition to that, everything would be made available to the users on demand which obviates the need to schedule the recordings by the users. Another feature that would distinguish the devise from the conventional on-demand services offered on the set-top box is that the users would be able to view both previous and current seasons’ episodes of their favorite television shows. Apple would make the user interface on the device similar to that of the iPad so that the users can easily navigate. Furthermore, the users would be able to use other iOS devices to approach the content from the box. The innovative feature that Apple is trying to introduce in the device is fundamentally attributed to Steve Jobs since he had discussed it with Walter Isaacson few days before his death in these words, “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it” (Jobs cited in Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found). Nevertheless, creation of this device is not easy as it requires many big players belonging to the television industry to participate, and so it remains a challenge for Apple. Most of the latest technology that has provided the people with digital access to the broadcasting media has been introduced by Apple and the person working behind everything was mainly Steve Jobs. This is evident from the fact that Apple was at the verge of downfall in the years when Steve Jobs had left the company after an unsuccessful attempt of gaining the company’s control from 1985 to 1997. In 1993, when Steve Jobs was not there, Apple launched the Newton, its first every handheld device. Users found that Apple had over-promised the power of the device. Things remained almost stagnant until Steve Jobs revisited Apple to wind up some devices to enhance the usability of the Newton including iPhone and iPad. Technology before the tools designed by Steve Jobs was nerdy. All thanks to Steve Jobs for his contributions in the development of tools of social networking. Over the years, the tools introduced by Steve Jobs like iPads and the iPhones have become so popular amongst the users all across the globe that they are understood as fashion accessories in the present age, and people use them to accessorize their pictures and generate the message to their social circle that they are connected to them 24/7. Steve Jobs took leaps in the technology as a challenge, which not only made his status as a true innovator clear in the public eye but also helped the social media society thrive over the years. Pixar is a movie studio that has generated a continuous streak of hit movies that include but are not limited to Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Ratatouille. Pixar’s animation wizards have taken over the entire firm industry and have brought a revolutionary change in the way films are made in Hollywood today as well as the amount of business each movie consequentially does. This was impossible to achieve without Steve Jobs. In the years when Steve Jobs left Apple, the company that benefited from his immaculate talent and capabilities was Pixar. “Brandishing a $5 million check, the Apple founder--by then kicked out of his own company--bought Pixar on January 30, 1986, setting in motion a string of events that would generate some of the best-loved films of the late 20th century and result in Disney's 2006 acquisition of Pixar for $7.4 billion”. 2 The initial purchase price worth $5 million paid by Steve Jobs, along with another $5 million that he invested in Pixar not only made Steve Jobs the largest shareholder of Disney but also one of the most influential figures in the Hollywood film industry. Karen North, Director of the USC Annenberg Program on Online Communities wrote her views for CNN upon the impact of Steve Jobs upon the social media. In her writing, North attributed the success of social media to Steve Jobs because of the facility provided by the iPhone to its users of socializing and interacting with their friends and family members while they are away from their computers at homes or workplaces. She further wrote, “Would Facebook be the mobile phenomenon that it has become without the iPhone making it possible to for us to view content, upload photos and interact from any location at any time? Without the iPhone, would Twitter have become so dominant a communications tool?” (North cited in 3). The associate director of curatorial affairs, David K. Allison, said about Steve Jobs, “How he has been able to mix business savvy and design sensibility, by making his technology something that is really cool and seen as being very appealing to own, for so long with so many different products is, to me, the success of the company” (Allison cited in 4). Steve Jobs passed as soon as the iPad, his latest device started changing people’s way of watching television. The impact of the iPad upon the cable industry was evident in the CTAM convention organized in October 2011 in which the “cable networks are demonstrating iPad apps that use automatic content recognition technology to synch live TV content on TV to an iPad” 5. Steve Jobs passed away on 5 October 2011. It is obviously sad that Steve Jobs is with us no more, but the utter magnitude of his accomplishments and the impact of his death on different kinds of industries in general and the broadcasting industry in particular would take some time to be fully realized. References: Donohue, Steve. “Remembering Steve Jobs' impact on media and video” Online. Home page on- line. 6 October 2011. Available from http://www.fiercecable.com/story/remembering-steve-jobs-impact-media-and-video/2011-10-06; Internet; accessed 28 September 2012. Knight, Shawn. “Is this Steve Jobs' plan to revolutionize the television industry?” Tech Spot Online. Home page on-line. 17 Aug. 2012. Available from http://www.techspot.com/news/49818-is-this-steve-jobs-plan-to-revolutionize-the-television-industry.html; Internet; accessed 28 September 2012. “The Many Contributions of Steve Jobs (1955-2011).” Smithsonianmag.com Online. Home page on-line. 6 October 2011. Available from http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2011/10/the-many-contributions-of-steve-jobs-1955-2011/; Internet; accessed 28 September 2012. Terdiman, Daniel. “With Pixar, Steve Jobs changed the film industry forever” Online. Home page on-line. 6 October 2011. Available from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20116912-37/with-pixar-steve-jobs-changed-the-film-industry-forever/; Internet; accessed 28 September 2012. Zech, Jessica. “Karen North op-ed on Steve Jobs’ impact on social media” Online. Home page on-line. 10 October 2011. Available from http://blog.uscannenberg.org/?p=1285; Internet; accessed 28 September 2012. Read More