Steve Jobs

**Steven Paul Jobs** (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was a co-founder and CEO of Apple Computer.

## History

In early 1992, Steve Jobs called MacroMind co-founder Marc Canter, who had left MacroMind-Paracomp right before it became Macromedia. Jobs, who himself had left Apple and founded NeXT, asked Canter to develop for their new system. However, Canter declined because NeXT only had monochrome computer models that did not support color at the time.

### Jobs and Macromedia

Jobs returned to Apple Computer in December 1996 and soon became the acting CEO. He was received with a standing ovation during his keynote speech at the 8th annual Macromedia User Conference in October 1997, when he presented QuickTime 3.0 and VR Authoring Studio.

As interim CEO, Jobs expressed interest in Macromedia's Final Cut project after it had been shown at the 1998 NAB Show. Jobs had also asked Adobe Systems to provide a consumer version of its Adobe Premiere video editor that could be bundled with the upcoming iMac DV, code named *Kihei*. However, as Apple had been financially struggling at the time, Adobe declined and focused Premiere on the Windows platform. In response, Apple acquired the source code and development team of Final Cut from Macromedia on May 4, 1998. Adobe then met with Apple's management, seeking to shut down the Final Cut project. However, Jobs made a case that Final Cut was different than Premiere and would be beneficial to the overall desktop computer market. It was released as Final Cut Pro in April 1999.

In April 2010, Jobs wrote an open critique of Flash to justify his refusal to support the technology on Apple's successful iOS line, which included the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. An Apple engineer later stated that Jobs was offended that Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen would not take his phone calls for what he perceived to be "mere engineering problems".

Kevin Lynch, the chief technology officer of Adobe at the time (and former chief software architect of Macromedia), responded with a rebuttal to Jobs and even co-starred in a parody video in which he participated in the destruction of an Apple iPhone. Jobs then attempted to secretly recruit Lynch, who later did join Apple in 2013 to lead development of the Apple Watch.

## References

1. ↑ What Are Some Great Stories About Steve Jobs?, *Forbes*. 2011-10-06.
2. ↑ Jobs wows Macromedia conference crowd, ZDNet. 1997-10-10.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 How Final Cut Ended up at Apple: an Excerpt from John Buck's 'Timeline: a History of Editing' by Ryan Koo, No Film School. 2011-12-08.
4. ↑ Apple buys Macromedia tools, CNET. 1998-05-04.
5. ↑ Adobe asked Apple to shut down Final Cut by Peter Wiggins, FCP. 2011-11-11.
6. ↑ Thoughts on Flash by Steve Jobs, Apple. 2010-04-29.
7. ↑ Apple engineer reveals the real reason Steve Jobs didn’t allow Flash on the iPhone by Yoni Heisler, Boy Genius Report. 2016-12-12.
8. ↑ Kevin Lynch, Macromedia. Archived 2003-10-05.
9. ↑ Kevin Lynch says Steve Jobs tried recruiting him to Apple after Flash debate by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac. 2015-12-28.

## External links

* Steve Jobs at the Adobe Wiki
* Steve Jobs at the Apple Wiki
* Steve Jobs at the NeXT Wiki
* Steve Jobs at the Pixar Wiki
* Steve Jobs at Wikipedia
	+ Thoughts on Flash