Matthew Belinkie thinks Steve Jobs' greatest achievement was fusing brand and personal loyalty:
Some folks in the tech press viewed [Tuesday's] iPhone 4S announcement as a disappointment. But if that’s true, then it’s an awesome testament to just how far Steve had raised the bar. Poor Tim Cook got up there and demonstrated Suri, a new voice recognizing “personal assistant.” You ask it to remind you to buy milk when you arrived at the grocery store, and it WILL. You ask it for good burger joints in the neighborhood, and it will FIND THEM. You can now have a conversation with your phone, which used to be something that only Tony Stark could do… The term [Reality Distortion Field] was coined in 1981 (30 years ago!) to describe Jobs, and it’s dead on. Because let’s face it: the iPhone, at the end of the day, is just a phone. But you wouldn’t know that from the people who waited in line for days to get one. I sympathize with every other technology company out there. They can try (and even succeed) at making better technology than Apple, but they can’t design anything people will shower with as much love. Under Steve Jobs, Apple designed legitimately amazing things, but his greatest skill was making people feel those products were even MORE amazing.
Earlier thoughts on Jobs' legacy here. Reax here.
(Image via Will Adler.)
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