WHAT IS IT ABOUT STEVE JOBS AND APPLE?

Genius? Magic? How is it that one company out of all the tech companies builds the really cool stuff, and the rest, while O.K., don't? Why didn't somebody come up with a better phone before the IPhone, which wasn't exactly a secret. It must be Steve; that seems obvious. But Steve didn't exactly set the world on fire with NeXt. Pixar, O.K., but not exactly fast and not with something that went into everybody's pocket. Sure, he proved he could be the neXt Disney, but somebody would have done that with computer animation. And, of course, we're talking about a developing phenom over a period of twenty years or more. Jobs at 25 wasn't Jobs at 40-something.

So is it Apple? Or Apple designers and engineers with Jobs behind them, whip-cracking? Or encouraging? Samsung's cool, but not that cool. Sony? Still makes cool things, but the mojo is pale by comparison. Creative? They're interesting, but not heroic, as Apple-Jobs seems to be.

Is this the kind of line of thinking that leads inevitably to character assassination? No. Somebody has to come up with another great thing. Who will that be? Are we doomed to sit around waiting for Steve's next act?