I like the tweaker v innovator perspective. I agree that Jobs, and Apple in general perfect rather than innovate. E.g. they didn't invent mp3 players, they just made a really good one. They didn't invent phones with browsing capabilities, they just made them really easy to use and nifty.
Innovation is not the same as invention. It's an extremely common misconception, but they are different things. Tweaking is far more analogous to innovating than innovating is to inventing. From the Oxford English Dictionary definition of innovate;
To bring in (something new) the first time; to introduce as new; to bring in or introduce novelties; to make changes in something established; to introduce innovations. Sometimes const. on or upon (also with indirect passive).
Whereas invent;
To come upon, find; to find out, discover; to find out or produce by mental activity; to devise, contrive; to plan, plot; to compose as a work of imagination or literary art; to treat in the way of literary or artistic composition; to devise something false or fictitious; to fabricate, feign, ‘make up’; to originate, introduce, or bring into use formally or by authority; to found, establish, institute, appoint.
and tweak;
An act of tweaking; a sharp wringing pull; a twitch, a pluck; a small modification or adjustment made to improve the efficiency of a mechanism. colloq.
"I agree that Jobs, and Apple in general perfect rather than innovate. E.g. they didn't invent mp3 players, they just made a really good one. They didn't invent phones with browsing capabilities, they just made them really easy to use and nifty."
<cynicism on>
I agree that no company ever had innovated: when someone created mp3 players there were already Walkmans, so mp3 are Walkmans without tape, and digital instead of analog, before Walkmans there were other portable tape recorders and players.
Before Nokia created cell phones there were already analog phones( I have one that weights 2Kgs or 4 pounds), and before that there were "portable" (backpack) radios.
<cynicism off>
Some people had pushed the envelope of what is possible, and some people instead of recognizing that prefer to diminish what they had done so they could feel better about their small accomplishments on life.
My point wasn't to use the word "perfect" to "diminish what [Jobs] had done". At the end of the day there's a reason I prefer Apple to Microsoft and it has nothing to do with who innovated and everything to do with who perfected. I don't like Apple products because they do something new -- if they do, awesome, I just don't care. I like Apple products because they work well.
I just don't see how that was diminishing what Jobs did?
