Steve Jobs’ gift to the advice industry

It struck me on my walk into the office this morning that many forward-thinking financial advisers will be…

It struck me on my walk into the office this morning that many forward-thinking financial advisers will be the beneficiaries of Steve Job’s last big hit.
The iPad has struck a chord like nothing else I have seen, certainly from any other device, in the almost five years I have been with InvestmentNews.
I was also struck by a memory I had from years ago at PC Magazine.
Sadly the year is fuzzy but it was 2003 or ’04 I believe when our editor in chief Michael Miller called all of us into his large office.
He was excited about receiving the first Microsoft Tablet PC, a fairly bulky looking convertible; its touch screen was on a twisty hinge that hid a keyboard and hard drive etc. beneath.
It had pretty accurate handwriting recognition software so you could take notes but that is the extent of my memory really.
It did not take off with consumers.
Then a few years later Mr. Jobs and his talented team at Apple Inc. roll out the iPad with a flourish of showmanship.
It is elegant, not bulky, has a sensitive touch screen that had already been proven on the extraordinarily successful iPhone, quite a few applications and games you could easily download without having to install them and suddenly everyone wanted a device they would not have thought they needed a short time before.
It was his combination of amazing intuitiveness and recognition of design and ability to then market it in the most masterful of ways or at least guide those that did which made his second reign at Apple so successful.
Now the question becomes whether there is another visionary-in-waiting that can emulate his success in bringing everything together.
That first period at Apple without him does not inspire confidence.
There were no big hits like those first few Macintosh computers and certainly nothing like what we have seen the last few years.
Personally, the first computer I owned came from that period, an Apple Performa. The hardware was nothing to brag about in terms of speed or beauty (in fact I called it the pizza box) but it worked and I loved the Apple software and operating system.
So now we will get to see whether the hits keep on coming.
There were plenty of reasons cited for that first downfall of his at Apple, that he was a terrible manager in terms of the day-to-day minutiae of running a business, he had a hard time delegating and managing people etc.
However, there was no doubt upon his return that there was just something about that visionary quality he had that brought everything together in terms of design that went beyond elegance to incorporate functionality in not only devices but the software running them.
I hope the initially lukewarm reception announcing the iPhone 4S is not portending anything depressing, the guts are a significant improvement and why the rush to roll out a new case design when the last one continues to be so successful?
I wonder, what would Steve have done?