Steve Jobs Interview - 8/14/1998 - iMac Satellite Tour

1998-08-1410:28English

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

Hi, Bob.
Hey, how are you?
I'm good.
Are you related to Judy?
No, I wish I were.
Oh, got it.
A couple of quick questions for you on this launch of iMac.
I want to get a good sense from you exactly what this means to Apple.
How much stock are you putting into this release of iMac?
Is this the make or break for your company as some analysts?
You know, I don't know.
I think it's really important for Apple.
Apple wants to reenter the consumer market,
which Apple originally pioneered years ago, as you know.
And I think iMac is turning out to be a great product to do that with.
So I think it's pretty important for us.
Yeah.
People say that Apple really needs to break back into the consumer area
because they've been falling down on you in recent years.
This is the big consumer product for everyone.
Yes, I think so.
This is Apple's re-entry into the consumer market in a pretty big way.
I think we've got a very strong product, a product that's much better than anything else out there,
and we're going for it.
You seem like you're hedging a little bit when you say it's a very strong product.
Is it not everything that you had hoped it would be?
Is it not what everyone's making it out to you?
Oh, it's not what I hoped it'd be.
It's more, actually.
It came out better than I hoped.
Yeah.
And the product is killer.
Have we started yet?
Oh, I'm sorry.
You didn't tell me that.
I'm sorry.
I thought we were just shooting the shit.
You want to start again?
Got it.
You founded this company.
You did extremely well.
You left the tank.
You came back and you covered, I think,
From an Apple user and a shareholder standpoint, the big question is, are you going to stay?
Uh-huh.
Are you?
Oh, you know, I decided about, probably about nine months ago, that that wasn't my problem.
So I stopped thinking about it, and I stopped worrying about it.
And other people may worry about it, but I don't worry about it.
I just focus on what I'm doing right now, which is trying to get the iMac launched
and trying to make as many as we can.
Well, we're making tons of them.
And whether that's going to be enough, I don't know.
But we've got factories around the world making them,
so we're going to have a lot of supply.
We have tens of thousands on dealer shelves for the launch tomorrow.
And so we're making a hefty quantity of them,
and it may or may not be enough.
The demand seems to be pretty strong out there,
so we'll have to see.
Is this a breakthrough product?
Oh, yeah.
Is this a breakthrough?
And if it is, what's that?
Well, I think, you know, what iMac was designed to do
was to do for the Internet what the original Macintosh did for personal computing,
which was to make it easy.
And, you know, the iMac is an amazing piece of technology.
I don't know if you know this, but the iMac is faster.
The iMac at $1,299 is faster than the fastest PC you can buy for any amount of money.
You can spend $5,000 on a Compaq with a 400 MHz Pentium 2 in it, and an iMac is faster at $1,299.
So it's an amazing computer, and yet its greatest power, I think, is that you can take it home, take it out of the box, and be cruising the Internet within 10 minutes.
And that's not something you can do on any other computer we know of.
So we think the iMac is pretty special.
Not only for Apple's installed base of, you know, of Apple's 25 million users,
10 million of them are in homes.
But in addition to that, there's, you know, the analysts are saying there's 5 to 10 million new users
that are going to enter the market this year, and their primary reason is to get onto the Internet.
And so those are the kind of people we think iMac is the perfect computer for.
Is it a question that people really don't need that much power that they've been getting?
You know, we hear the opposite from customers.
We hear that a lot of the consumer PCs on the market are kind of last year's oatmeal,
and they want something a lot better than that.
Getting back to Apple, is this the product that they need to get back on their new?
Well, you know, I'm not the one to judge that.
We're just doing the best we can to come up with some really great products
and tell the world about them, and we'll find out what the demand is.
But I think this is going to be a very strong product for Apple.
Is this, somebody told, said that you actually looked at the Jetsons, referred to the Jetsons cartoon when you were conceptualizing the product, is that true?
Yeah.
What did that have to do with this computer?
You know, I think, well, you've seen most computers, you know what they look like, right?
You kind of have to hide them when you're looking at the computer.
when company comes.
So we wanted to do something that was really different than that
and really was fun and really was great design.
And so we looked to all sorts of resources
to find ideas and feelings about what we wanted to capture.
Why the jets? Why not the 2001 Space Launch?
You know, because we wanted to have more fun.
And I think the iMac's turned out, it's really fun.
The big complaint about the iMac that we're hearing, the trade press anyway, there's no floppy disk.
I use this as well. People still use floppy disks.
But is that in there? Is that going to be a big problem?
You know, actually, we got a lot of research that says maybe 15% or so of the people out there use floppies.
They're going away pretty fast.
You know, software used to come on floppies, but now it all comes on CD-ROMs, right?
So that was one of the biggest uses for a floppy that's obsolete.
The second thing was people used to back up their hard disks with floppies, but it's
pretty hard to back up a 4 gigabyte hard disk with floppies.
You'd need 4,000 of them.
And nobody does that anymore.
And the third is the sort of what we call sneaker net.
And most people are using the internet for that now.
So the floppy is fading away.
And generally the people that want removable storage are buying zip drives or iMation
Super drives and things like that which hold 100 megabytes or more and all of those things
are available for the iMac you can just plug them right in so I think people have a much
greater choice of what they want they can get the storage device that fits really what they
want if indeed they need one at all and we think most people won't. What are the latest

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

Hi, Bob.

Hey, how are you?

I'm good.

Are you related to Judy?

No, I wish I were.

Oh, got it.

A couple of quick questions for you on this launch of iMac.

I want to get a good sense from you exactly what this means to Apple.

How much stock are you putting into this release of iMac?

Is this the make or break for your company as some analysts?

You know, I don't know.

I think it's really important for Apple.

Apple wants to reenter the consumer market,

which Apple originally pioneered years ago, as you know.

And I think iMac is turning out to be a great product to do that with.

So I think it's pretty important for us.

Yeah.

People say that Apple really needs to break back into the consumer area

because they've been falling down on you in recent years.

This is the big consumer product for everyone.

Yes, I think so.

This is Apple's re-entry into the consumer market in a pretty big way.

I think we've got a very strong product, a product that's much better than anything else out there,

and we're going for it.

You seem like you're hedging a little bit when you say it's a very strong product.

Is it not everything that you had hoped it would be?

Is it not what everyone's making it out to you?

Oh, it's not what I hoped it'd be.

It's more, actually.

It came out better than I hoped.

Yeah.

And the product is killer.

Have we started yet?

Oh, I'm sorry.

You didn't tell me that.

I'm sorry.

I thought we were just shooting the shit.

You want to start again?

Got it.

You founded this company.

You did extremely well.

You left the tank.

You came back and you covered, I think,

From an Apple user and a shareholder standpoint, the big question is, are you going to stay?

Uh-huh.

Are you?

Oh, you know, I decided about, probably about nine months ago, that that wasn't my problem.

So I stopped thinking about it, and I stopped worrying about it.

And other people may worry about it, but I don't worry about it.

I just focus on what I'm doing right now, which is trying to get the iMac launched

and trying to make as many as we can.

Well, we're making tons of them.

And whether that's going to be enough, I don't know.

But we've got factories around the world making them,

so we're going to have a lot of supply.

We have tens of thousands on dealer shelves for the launch tomorrow.

And so we're making a hefty quantity of them,

and it may or may not be enough.

The demand seems to be pretty strong out there,

so we'll have to see.

Is this a breakthrough product?

Oh, yeah.

Is this a breakthrough?

And if it is, what's that?

Well, I think, you know, what iMac was designed to do

was to do for the Internet what the original Macintosh did for personal computing,

which was to make it easy.

And, you know, the iMac is an amazing piece of technology.

I don't know if you know this, but the iMac is faster.

The iMac at $1,299 is faster than the fastest PC you can buy for any amount of money.

You can spend $5,000 on a Compaq with a 400 MHz Pentium 2 in it, and an iMac is faster at $1,299.

So it's an amazing computer, and yet its greatest power, I think, is that you can take it home, take it out of the box, and be cruising the Internet within 10 minutes.

And that's not something you can do on any other computer we know of.

So we think the iMac is pretty special.

Not only for Apple's installed base of, you know, of Apple's 25 million users,

10 million of them are in homes.

But in addition to that, there's, you know, the analysts are saying there's 5 to 10 million new users

that are going to enter the market this year, and their primary reason is to get onto the Internet.

And so those are the kind of people we think iMac is the perfect computer for.

Is it a question that people really don't need that much power that they've been getting?

You know, we hear the opposite from customers.

We hear that a lot of the consumer PCs on the market are kind of last year's oatmeal,

and they want something a lot better than that.

Getting back to Apple, is this the product that they need to get back on their new?

Well, you know, I'm not the one to judge that.

We're just doing the best we can to come up with some really great products

and tell the world about them, and we'll find out what the demand is.

But I think this is going to be a very strong product for Apple.

Is this, somebody told, said that you actually looked at the Jetsons, referred to the Jetsons cartoon when you were conceptualizing the product, is that true?

Yeah.

What did that have to do with this computer?

You know, I think, well, you've seen most computers, you know what they look like, right?

You kind of have to hide them when you're looking at the computer.

when company comes.

So we wanted to do something that was really different than that

and really was fun and really was great design.

And so we looked to all sorts of resources

to find ideas and feelings about what we wanted to capture.

Why the jets? Why not the 2001 Space Launch?

You know, because we wanted to have more fun.

And I think the iMac's turned out, it's really fun.

The big complaint about the iMac that we're hearing, the trade press anyway, there's no floppy disk.

I use this as well. People still use floppy disks.

But is that in there? Is that going to be a big problem?

You know, actually, we got a lot of research that says maybe 15% or so of the people out there use floppies.

They're going away pretty fast.

You know, software used to come on floppies, but now it all comes on CD-ROMs, right?

So that was one of the biggest uses for a floppy that's obsolete.

The second thing was people used to back up their hard disks with floppies, but it's

pretty hard to back up a 4 gigabyte hard disk with floppies.

You'd need 4,000 of them.

And nobody does that anymore.

And the third is the sort of what we call sneaker net.

And most people are using the internet for that now.

So the floppy is fading away.

And generally the people that want removable storage are buying zip drives or iMation

Super drives and things like that which hold 100 megabytes or more and all of those things

are available for the iMac you can just plug them right in so I think people have a much

greater choice of what they want they can get the storage device that fits really what they

want if indeed they need one at all and we think most people won't. What are the latest