Every thing you want...: For all of his years in the spotlight at the helm of Apple, Steve Jobs in many ways remains an inscrutable figure — even in his death. Fiercely private, Jobs concealed most specifics about his personal life, from his curious family life to the details of his battle with pancreatic cancer — a disease that ultimately claimed him on Wednesday, at the age of 56. While the CEO and co-founder of Apple steered most interviews away from the public fascination with his private life, there's plenty we know about Jobs the person, beyond the Mac and the iPhone. If anything, the obscure details of his interior life paint a subtler, more nuanced portrait of how one of the finest technology minds of our time grew into the dynamo that we remember him as today. 1. Early life and childhood Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955. He was adopted shortly after his birth and reared near Mountain View, California by a couple named Clara and Paul Jobs. His adoptive father — a term that Jobs openly objected to — was a machinist for a laser company and his mother worked as an accountant. Later in life, Jobs discovered the identities of his estranged parents. His birth mother, Joanne Simpson, was a graduate student at the time and later a speech pathologist; his biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, was a Syrian Muslim who left the country at age 18 and reportedly now serves as the vice president of a Reno, Nevada casino. While Jobs reconnected with Simpson in later years, he and his biological father remained estranged. Reed College 2. College dropout The lead mind behind the most successful company on the planet never graduated from college, in fact, he didn't even get close. After graduating from high school in Cupertino, California — a town now synonymous with 1 Infinite Loop, Apple's headquarters — Jobs enrolled in Reed College in 1972. Jobs stayed at Reed (a liberal arts university in Portland, Oregon) for only one semester, dropping out quickly due to the financial burden the private school's steep tuition placed on his parents. In his famous 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University, Jobs said of his time at Reed: "It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple." Breakout for the Atari 3. Fibbed to his Apple co-founder about a job at Atari Jobs is well known for his innovations in personal computing, mobile tech, and software, but he also helped create one of the best known video games of all-time. In 1975, Jobs was tapped by Atari to work on the Pong-like game Breakout. He was reportedly offered $750 for his development work, with the possibility of an extra $100 for each chip eliminated from the game's final design. Jobs recruited Steve Wozniak (later one of Apple's other founders) to help him with the challenge. Wozniak managed to whittle the prototype's design down so much that Atari paid out a $5,000 bonus — but Jobs kept the bonus for himself, and paid his unsuspecting friend only $375, according to Wozniak's own autobiography. 4. The wife he leaves behind Like the rest of his family life, Jobs kept his marriage out of the public eye. Thinking back on his legacy conjures images of him commanding the stage in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans, and those solo moments are his most iconic. But at home in Palo Alto, Jobs was raising a family with his wife, Laurene, an entrepreneur who attended the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton business school and later received her MBA at Stanford, where she first met her future husband. For all of his single-minded dedication to the company he built from the ground up, Jobs actually skipped a meeting to take Laurene on their first date: "I was in the parking lot with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, 'If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?' I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town and we've been together ever since." In 1991, Jobs and Powell were married in the Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park, and the marriage was officiated by Kobin Chino, a Zen Buddhist monk. 5. His sister is a famous author Later in his life, Jobs crossed paths with his biological sister while seeking the identity of his birth parents. His sister, Mona Simpson (born Mona Jandali), is the well-known author of Anywhere But Here — a story about a mother and daughter that was later adapted into a film starring Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon. After reuniting, Jobs and Simpson developed a close relationship. Of his sister, he told a New York Times interviewer: "We're family. She's one of my best friends in the world. I call her and talk to her every couple of days.'' Anywhere But Here is dedicated to "my brother Steve." Joan Baez 6. Celebrity romances In The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, an unauthorized biography, a friend from Reed reveals that Jobs had a brief fling with folk singer Joan Baez. Baez confirmed the the two were close "briefly," though her romantic connection with Bob Dylan is much better known (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). The biography also notes that Jobs went out with actress Diane Keaton briefly. 7. His first daughter When he was 23, Jobs and his high school girlfriend Chris Ann Brennan conceived a daughter, Lisa Brennan Jobs. She was born in 1978, just as Apple began picking up steam in the tech world. He and Brennan never married, and Jobs reportedly denied paternity for some time, going as far as stating that he was sterile in court documents. He went on to father three more children with Laurene Powell. After later mending their relationship, Jobs paid for his first daughter's education at Harvard. She graduated in 2000 and now works as a magazine writer. 8. Alternative lifestyle In a few interviews, Jobs hinted at his early experience with the psychedelic drug LSD. Of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs said: "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." The connection has enough weight that Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who first synthesized (and took) LSD, appealed to Jobs for funding for research about the drug's therapeutic use. In a book interview, Jobs called his experience with the drug "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." As Jobs himself has suggested, LSD may have contributed to the "think different" approach that still puts Apple's designs a head above the competition. Jobs will forever be a visionary, and his personal life also reflects the forward-thinking, alternative approach that vaulted Apple to success. During a trip to India, Jobs visited a well-known ashram and returned to the U.S. as a Zen Buddhist. Jobs was also a pescetarian who didn't consume most animal products, and didn't eat meat other than fish. A strong believer in Eastern medicine, he sought to treat his own cancer through alternative approaches and specialized diets before reluctantly seeking his first surgery for a cancerous tumor in 2004. 9. His fortune As the CEO of the world's most valuable brand, Jobs pulled in a comically low annual salary of just $1. While the gesture isn't unheard of in the corporate world — Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt all pocketed the same 100 penny salary annually — Jobs has kept his salary at $1 since 1997, the year he became Apple's lead executive. Of his salary, Jobs joked in 2007: "I get 50 cents a year for showing up, and the other 50 cents is based on my performance." In early 2011, Jobs owned 5.5 million shares of Apple. After his death, Apple shares were valued at $377.64 — a roughly 43-fold growth in valuation over the last 10 years that shows no signs of slowing down. He may only have taken in a single dollar per year, but Jobs leaves behind a vast fortune. The largest chunk of that wealth is the roughly $7 billion from the sale of Pixar to Disney in 2006. In 2011, with an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion, he was the 110th richest person in the world, according to Forbes. If Jobs hadn't sold his shares upon leaving Apple in 1985 (before returning to the company in 1996), he would be the world's fifth richest individual. While there's no word yet on plans for his estate, Jobs leaves behind three children from his marriage to Laurene Jobs (Reed, Erin, and Eve), as well as his first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. [Image credit: Ben Stanfield, Heinrich Klaffs] This article originally appeared on Tecca

Friday, October 7, 2011

For all of his years in the spotlight at the helm of Apple, Steve Jobs in many ways remains an inscrutable figure — even in his death. Fiercely private, Jobs concealed most specifics about his personal life, from his curious family life to the details of his battle with pancreatic cancer — a disease that ultimately claimed him on Wednesday, at the age of 56. While the CEO and co-founder of Apple steered most interviews away from the public fascination with his private life, there's plenty we know about Jobs the person, beyond the Mac and the iPhone. If anything, the obscure details of his interior life paint a subtler, more nuanced portrait of how one of the finest technology minds of our time grew into the dynamo that we remember him as today. 1. Early life and childhood Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955. He was adopted shortly after his birth and reared near Mountain View, California by a couple named Clara and Paul Jobs. His adoptive father — a term that Jobs openly objected to — was a machinist for a laser company and his mother worked as an accountant. Later in life, Jobs discovered the identities of his estranged parents. His birth mother, Joanne Simpson, was a graduate student at the time and later a speech pathologist; his biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, was a Syrian Muslim who left the country at age 18 and reportedly now serves as the vice president of a Reno, Nevada casino. While Jobs reconnected with Simpson in later years, he and his biological father remained estranged. Reed College 2. College dropout The lead mind behind the most successful company on the planet never graduated from college, in fact, he didn't even get close. After graduating from high school in Cupertino, California — a town now synonymous with 1 Infinite Loop, Apple's headquarters — Jobs enrolled in Reed College in 1972. Jobs stayed at Reed (a liberal arts university in Portland, Oregon) for only one semester, dropping out quickly due to the financial burden the private school's steep tuition placed on his parents. In his famous 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University, Jobs said of his time at Reed: "It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple." Breakout for the Atari 3. Fibbed to his Apple co-founder about a job at Atari Jobs is well known for his innovations in personal computing, mobile tech, and software, but he also helped create one of the best known video games of all-time. In 1975, Jobs was tapped by Atari to work on the Pong-like game Breakout. He was reportedly offered $750 for his development work, with the possibility of an extra $100 for each chip eliminated from the game's final design. Jobs recruited Steve Wozniak (later one of Apple's other founders) to help him with the challenge. Wozniak managed to whittle the prototype's design down so much that Atari paid out a $5,000 bonus — but Jobs kept the bonus for himself, and paid his unsuspecting friend only $375, according to Wozniak's own autobiography. 4. The wife he leaves behind Like the rest of his family life, Jobs kept his marriage out of the public eye. Thinking back on his legacy conjures images of him commanding the stage in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans, and those solo moments are his most iconic. But at home in Palo Alto, Jobs was raising a family with his wife, Laurene, an entrepreneur who attended the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton business school and later received her MBA at Stanford, where she first met her future husband. For all of his single-minded dedication to the company he built from the ground up, Jobs actually skipped a meeting to take Laurene on their first date: "I was in the parking lot with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, 'If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?' I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town and we've been together ever since." In 1991, Jobs and Powell were married in the Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park, and the marriage was officiated by Kobin Chino, a Zen Buddhist monk. 5. His sister is a famous author Later in his life, Jobs crossed paths with his biological sister while seeking the identity of his birth parents. His sister, Mona Simpson (born Mona Jandali), is the well-known author of Anywhere But Here — a story about a mother and daughter that was later adapted into a film starring Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon. After reuniting, Jobs and Simpson developed a close relationship. Of his sister, he told a New York Times interviewer: "We're family. She's one of my best friends in the world. I call her and talk to her every couple of days.'' Anywhere But Here is dedicated to "my brother Steve." Joan Baez 6. Celebrity romances In The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, an unauthorized biography, a friend from Reed reveals that Jobs had a brief fling with folk singer Joan Baez. Baez confirmed the the two were close "briefly," though her romantic connection with Bob Dylan is much better known (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). The biography also notes that Jobs went out with actress Diane Keaton briefly. 7. His first daughter When he was 23, Jobs and his high school girlfriend Chris Ann Brennan conceived a daughter, Lisa Brennan Jobs. She was born in 1978, just as Apple began picking up steam in the tech world. He and Brennan never married, and Jobs reportedly denied paternity for some time, going as far as stating that he was sterile in court documents. He went on to father three more children with Laurene Powell. After later mending their relationship, Jobs paid for his first daughter's education at Harvard. She graduated in 2000 and now works as a magazine writer. 8. Alternative lifestyle In a few interviews, Jobs hinted at his early experience with the psychedelic drug LSD. Of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs said: "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." The connection has enough weight that Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who first synthesized (and took) LSD, appealed to Jobs for funding for research about the drug's therapeutic use. In a book interview, Jobs called his experience with the drug "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." As Jobs himself has suggested, LSD may have contributed to the "think different" approach that still puts Apple's designs a head above the competition. Jobs will forever be a visionary, and his personal life also reflects the forward-thinking, alternative approach that vaulted Apple to success. During a trip to India, Jobs visited a well-known ashram and returned to the U.S. as a Zen Buddhist. Jobs was also a pescetarian who didn't consume most animal products, and didn't eat meat other than fish. A strong believer in Eastern medicine, he sought to treat his own cancer through alternative approaches and specialized diets before reluctantly seeking his first surgery for a cancerous tumor in 2004. 9. His fortune As the CEO of the world's most valuable brand, Jobs pulled in a comically low annual salary of just $1. While the gesture isn't unheard of in the corporate world — Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt all pocketed the same 100 penny salary annually — Jobs has kept his salary at $1 since 1997, the year he became Apple's lead executive. Of his salary, Jobs joked in 2007: "I get 50 cents a year for showing up, and the other 50 cents is based on my performance." In early 2011, Jobs owned 5.5 million shares of Apple. After his death, Apple shares were valued at $377.64 — a roughly 43-fold growth in valuation over the last 10 years that shows no signs of slowing down. He may only have taken in a single dollar per year, but Jobs leaves behind a vast fortune. The largest chunk of that wealth is the roughly $7 billion from the sale of Pixar to Disney in 2006. In 2011, with an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion, he was the 110th richest person in the world, according to Forbes. If Jobs hadn't sold his shares upon leaving Apple in 1985 (before returning to the company in 1996), he would be the world's fifth richest individual. While there's no word yet on plans for his estate, Jobs leaves behind three children from his marriage to Laurene Jobs (Reed, Erin, and Eve), as well as his first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. [Image credit: Ben Stanfield, Heinrich Klaffs] This article originally appeared on Tecca

Here's some food for thought when considering the new iPhone model

Apple has unleashed all the juicy details on the newest member of the iPhone family, the iPhone 4S — and with it, a torrent of consumer angst over whether or not to buy the latest and greatest Apple smartphone when it launches October 14, or hold out for the inevitable iPhone 5.

Whether or not an iPhone 4S purchase makes sense for you will depend on a number of factors: are you currently under contract with an earlier iPhone model or other smartphone? Do you have the now last-generation iPhone 4, or the even older iPhone 3GS model? Are you hankering to switch cell carriers?

Read on for some advice on whether or not the iPhone 4S would be a good purchase, depending on which of the following camps you're currently in. The ultimate decision is all yours, and of course a very personal one: let us know what your gameplan is in the comments!

Current iPhone 3GS or earlier owners

If you bought the iPhone 3GS when it first came out back in June of 2009, or are still rocking either the iPhone 3G or the original iPhone, you should be clear of the 2-year contract you signed then, making the iPhone 4S a very sensible upgrade for you. In fact, Apple knows full well it needs to craft its phone hardware strategy around this typical 2-year cycle, and the arguably less than earth-shattering upgrades between the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and now the 4 and 4S, were actively designed to appeal to consumers two generations behind (you can check out a feature comparison of the latter three devices here).

If you picked up the iPhone 3GS sometime after it was released and are still under contract, you'll want to check out your current upgrade status — especially since new iPhone launches often prompt AT&T to "massage" your eligibility. You can do this by visiting att.com/wireless, dialing *NEW# (*639#) from your phone, calling customer service at 1-800-331-0500, or visiting a retail location.

AT&T Upgrade Advantage

Even if you haven't completed your contract, you may still be eligible for AT&T's Early Upgrade program, which still nets you a discounted price for the phone, although not quite as much of a discount as a fully-subsidized handset. If the difference seems worth it to you, go for it — or you could simply wait out the remaining months in your contract to get the subsidized iPhone 4S pricing (16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and a first-ever 64GB version for $399) in exchange for signing a new 2-year contract.

And of course, if you're still under contract with the iPhone 3GS, you have one other upgrade path open to you: switch cell phone carriers. Perhaps you're one of the many folks who've been frustrated with AT&T's service, or maybe one or more family members use a different carrier and you'd like to take advantage of free in-network calling or offered family plans. If you bought your iPhone 3GS before June 1, 2010, you're also lucky enough to be subject to a less onerous early termination feethan customers who bought iPhones after that date: you'll pay $175 minus $5 for each month of the 2-year contract you've completed so far.

Current iPhone 4 owners

iPhone 4

For current iPhone 4 owners, the "to upgrade, or not to upgrade" decision gets a bit more difficult. Unless you bought an unlocked phone, you're probably still under contract — but again, it's worth checking when your upgrade eligibility falls, and if you're on AT&T, whether or not you're eligible for Early Upgrade pricing as we mentioned in the previous section. If you're tempted by the iPhone 4S's new features but think you can wait out your contract without needing to snag the latest and greatest, you'll definitely be saving yourself some hard-earned money.

If the faster processor, increased storage size, better camera, and Siri voice assistant are just too much to resist, though, you still have options. Apple offers a fairly decent recycling program that could net you a significant amount of dough for your current iPhone. You could also sell your current handset to a friend, family member, or willing buyer on eBay or Craigslist to defray the cost of paying full price for a new iPhone 4S.

And as with current iPhone 3GS owners still under contract, you also have the option of switching carriers to try and save some upgrade cost. Now that AT&T and Verizon have both raised the early termination fees for smartphones to a pro-rated $350, it's certainly not going to be cheap; but depending on how many months you have left to go in your current contract, it could still be more cost-effective to pay an ETF and get the subsidized price for a new iPhone 4S than to pay the full cost for the phone. Be sure to check our guide to cell carrier ETFs to find out what you'd need to pay to escape the clutches of your current cell provider.

Yes, you're going to feel some upgrade angst all over again when the iPhone 5 does eventually hit — but if history is any indication, you'll probably have about a year's worth of happy ownership of the latest and greatest model before then. If your smartphone is a mission critical device in your life or business, it can be well worth going ahead with an upgrade now. Available storage space can be another important deciding factor: if you've managed to fill up your current iPhone 4 at any capacity, it's going to be hard to imagine living another year without getting any additional space... unless embarking on a big "iPhone Spring cleaning" project can keep you happy and spare you from spending the money it would take to upgrade.

Non-iPhone owners

Are you ready to upgrade?

If you don't currently own an iPhone but have been curious about joining the Apple smartphone faithful, it's a good time to pick up an iPhone 4S. Sure, the inevitable iPhone 5 will bring its own pang of buyer's remorse when it ends up launching, but remember that's probably going to be an entire year from now.

If you're not currently under 2-year contract and eligible for an upgrade with your carrier, you should feel good about picking up an iPhone 4S. If you're still under contract with your current phone, it's worth finding out from your carrier when you're next eligible for an upgrade, and whether or not you can pay a bit extra to get the iPhone 4S under an early upgrade plan. If you don't currently have a smartphone, your early termination fee might be fairly nominal — so switching carriers could be a reasonable upgrade path for you to consider as well.

Heavy data users

If you're a smartphone power user who tends to gobble a lot of data on the go, one of the more compelling reasons to upgrade to the iPhone 4S is its newfound availability on Sprint. As the last remaining U.S. cell carrier with an available unlimited data plan, it could be well worth shelling out some extra up front cost in order to avoid any potential monthly charges for using too much cellular data.

If you're either already on Sprint and not under 2-year contract, or out of contract on another carrier, upgrade away or sign a new contract with Sprint in good conscience. If you're on Sprint and still within your current contract, find out if you can wait it out until you become eligible for an upgrade, or decide whether or not it's worth paying the full, unsubsidized price of the phone. If you're under contract with another carrier, find out how much that pesky ETF is going to cost you to jump ship, and compare it to the cost of potential data overage charges you might face on your current carrier.

How to place your pre-order

If you're ready to commit to an upgrade, and have figured out exactly how much it's going to cost you to do so, placing your advanced order for the iPhone 4S couldn't be simpler. Apple's pre-order program begins at 12:00 AM EST on October 7. If you fancy staying up until the midnight hour, you can head right over to the iPhone home page to begin your order.

When placing your order, you'll be able to check your eligibility for AT&T and Verizon discounts right from Apple's website (Sprint support is coming soon). The system will show you the price that you qualify for and you can choose whether you would like to replace your current smartphone or add an additional line to your wireless plan. The 4S begins shipping on October 14, and when you receive your handset in the mail it will guide you through the steps to activating it without the need to visit a carrier location.

If you'd rather purchase your new 4S right through your carrier, you'll likely be able to place a pre-order through all three iPhone 4S service providers as well. Depending on your location, your local wireless outlet may or may not be accepting pre-orders, so it's always best to call ahead. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint haven't detailed their pre-order plans as well as Apple, but if history serves, they won't be far behind in offering to take your cash ahead of time.

No matter what you end up deciding, we want to know about it! Let us know your decision, and any tips you might have for other potential upgraders, in the comments below.

1 comment:

UnknownNovember 2, 2020 at 2:10 PM
I want one
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