I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should deliberately avoid using any of Apple's products or achievements as an example for anything because I might end up having to mention Jobs? That seems extreme, but it's the natural conclusion of your reaction...
Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple, not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a lot more bang for the buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper and more hackable than contemporary Macs. The Jackintosh was the first machine to deliver 1Mb of memory for under $1000. I just think we need to keep things in the proper perspective. Apple made and indeed makes some great products. But it's also true that they smothered technically superior but not as well commercially managed competitors. History is written by the winners.
The C64 was released in 1982 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 ), a whole 5 years after the Apple II in 1977 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series ), so I damn well hope that it gave more bang for the buck.
Anyway, my point is not to take anything away from Apple or Jobs, but it's a stretch to say that they were so far ahead of everyone else. If you need a hero for rhetorical purposes, try Jack Tramiel :-)
(IIRC the one time we spoke on Twitter I was also offering some vague criticism so I don't want you to think I'm some faceless internet critic. I'm actually a big fan of your blog).
I agree with the people that say that future generations will see Steve Jobs as revolutionary a businessman as Henry Ford. But this hagiography has got to stop.
Let's put things in perspective. Steve Jobs made really good products that sold at a high-margin and made a lot of money. But hang on -- another way to see it is he focused on the features customers really did care about: nice UX, beautiful cases -- and ignored the features they said they cared about but didn't really: processing power, durability. That's it. He found a management style that worked for him, and it's worth looking at how he did it, but Apple and Steve Jobs had a bunch of flaws which are worth looking at as well.
What annoys me is that people can see the awesome parts, or they can see the flaws, but few people manage to see both. Even people like Isaacson (his biographer) who note both these sides don't really analyse it in a deep way. It would be interesting to read the history books of a 100 years time to see how Steve Jobs has been remembered after his impact has been put into proper perspective.
(Though another thing that annoys me is when the top of HN comment threads become dominated by an off-topic discussion. Sorry swombat!)