Steve Jobs Technology Quotations

Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them.

I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.

So let's not use a stylus. We're going to use the best pointing device in the world. We're going to use a pointing device that we're all born with - born with ten of them. We're going to use our fingers. We're going to touch this with our fingers. And we have invented a new technology called multi-touch, which is phenomenal. It works like magic.

The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.

I think it's brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television - but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

The over-all point is that new technology will not necessarily replace old technology, but it will date it. By definition. Eventually, it will replace it. But it's like people who had black-and-white TVs when color came out. They eventually decided whether or not the new technology was worth the investment.

It takes these very simple-minded instructions - 'Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it's greater than this other number' - but executes them at a rate of, let's say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that.

I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.

To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.

It's not a faith in technology. It's faith in people.

The reason that Apple is able to create products like the iPad is because we've always tried to be at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.

Music companies are not technology companies any more than technology companies are music companies. They're really different from each other.

The technology companies don't understand creative things at all. Silicon Valley's view of the creative process in Hollywood is a bunch of guys in their young thirties sitting on a couch, drinking beer, and thinking up jokes.

One of the failures of technology companies is that they build technologies thinking everything else will work out.

The creative industries tend to dismiss technology as just something to buy and not understand how hard it is and how creative it can be as well.

It's understandable that the music companies that are comprised of people that are successful by making good creative decisions - they have to decide which out of fifty artists is the next hot one, with no data to go from. It's an intuitive process, and that's what they do well when they're successful. They don't understand technology.

I'd say we [Apple Inc.] are the most creative of the technology companies and definitely the most artist-friendly. Almost everyone in the music business uses a Mac and everyone has an iPod.

The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television - but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet - and no one's gonna shut down the Internet.

You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to sell it.

If you view computer designers as artists, they're really into more of an art form that can be mass-produced, like records, or like prints, than they are into fine arts. They want something where they can express themselves to a large number of people through their medium, and their medium is technology and manufacturing.

With our technology, with objects, literally three people in a garage can blow away what 200 people at Microsoft can do. Literally can blow it away. Corporate America has a need that is so huge and can save them so much money, or make them so much money, or cost them so much money if they miss it, that they are going to fuel the object revolution.

I'm one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline.

The best way to create value in the 21st century is to connect Creativity with Technology

The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.

It's like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there's some fundamental technology shift, it's just over.

The reason that Apple is able to create products like iPad is because we always try to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both.

digital hub (center of our universe) is moving from PC to cloud - PC now just another client alongside iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, ... - Apple is in danger of hanging on to old paradigm too long (innovator's dilemma) - Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven't quite figured it out yet - tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem

My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have the same rules... That's because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I've seen it in myself, I don't want to see that happen to my kids.

An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iPhone! Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here it is.

Technology alone is not enough.

We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make "me too" products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream.

Pixar is the most technically advanced creative company; Apple is the most creatively advanced technical company.

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.

I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.

We limit how much technology our kids use at home.

The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.

It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.

You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology - not the other way around.