Steve Jobs: One Last Thing (2011)

Touches You

I'll tell you why so serious

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

PBS made an one-hour in-depth documentary about the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs that is entitled "Steve Jobs: One Last Thing". It interviewed people who were close to the man that takes a look at his both controlling and charming personality that happens to be a contradiction that led the company - Apple Computer - to great heights as being the most valuable company in the world. The producers talked to people who were close to the guy like Ronald Wayne, co-founder of Apple Computer, Co.; Bill Fernandez, who is credited with introducing Jobs to Wozniak and was also Apple Computer's first employee; Robert Palladino, calligraphy professor at Reed College; Walt Mossberg, who covered Jobs as the principal technical journalist for The Wall Street Journal; Dean Hovey, who designed the mouse for Apple; Robert Cringley, who interviewed Jobs for his documentary Triumph of the Nerds; and Dr. Alvy Smith, co- founder of Pixar Animation Studios, which Jobs acquired.They all analyzed on qualities that made him tick and successful.In addition to that,interviews made with Job were also provided a year before we lost him to pancreatic cancer on his philosophies towards life.The documentary does not really provide anything new as the facts and information presented were basically widely known by many whether they use Apple products or not.Also,the people who were interviewed does not provide anything new with regards to the personality of Jobs as well.If there is something worthwhile in this documentary,it is the appreciation of Jobs with regards to his contribution to many industries from personal computers,internet,phone industry and motion picture industry including those that aren't mentioned such as tablet computing industry,retail store industry and digital publishing.

Very recently I watched the movie "iSteve" with Justin Long, plainly a parody of a bio-pic on the life and times of Jobs. So I was fortunate to run across this one, quite accidentally, on Netflix streaming movies. It is reasonably short, under one hour, and includes clips and interviews with the actual people who knew him and worked with him.I like to muse about this sort of thing, what if Steve Jobs had never been born? What would our computing, music, and communications world look like today? We would probably be OK, but I suspect it would look a lot different. Just as our world would be a lot different if Thomas Edison or the Wright Brothers had never been born.Steve Jobs was an enigma of sorts, brilliantly creative but ruthless when he thought he needed to be. After being mostly responsible for the success of Apple, he quit in frustration, Apple almost went bankrupt without him, and he rejoined the company to lead it to even greater success. No matter what one thinks about Steve Jobs, there is no way to get around the profound ways our daily lives are different because of him and his vision. I wonder if the next great visionary is stepping up yet, Jobs has been gone for almost two years.

PBS took an unflinching and in-depth look at the influences on Steve Jobs' character and career in the one-hour documentary Steve Jobs — One Last Thing.It features interviews with, among others: Ronald Wayne, co- founder of Apple with Jobs and Steve Wozniak; Ross Perot, who invested in NeXT Computer when Jobs was running out of money; Walt Mossberg, principal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, who interviewed Jobs every year from 2003-2010; will.i.am, front man and producer for The Black Eyed Peas, whose "I Gotta Feeling" currently ranks as the most downloaded iTunes song ever; Dean Hovey, designer of the original mouse for Apple; Robert Cringely, writer and host of the PBS series Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires; Robert Palladino, calligraphy professor at Reed College, whose classes Jobs credited with inspiring his typography design for the Mac; and Bill Fernandez, who introduced Jobs and Wozniak in Sunnyvale, where the three hung out in his father's garage and tinkered with electronics.Aside from that,it also includes footage from a never-before-broadcast interview with Jobs in 1994, when he shared his philosophy on life: "You tend to get told that the world is the way it is, but life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you.Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."The documentary was advertised to provide something significant about Steve Jobs after he passed away.It was a rehash of many information that has already been known especially those who are familiar with him like Apple Computer enthusiasts among others. But nevertheless,it was a fair and remarkable portrayal of the man who have definitely made an impact in all four namely:the computer industry,the music industry,the movie industry and the phone industry.Aside from that,people will get to appreciate a view of the man from the good,the bad,the ugly and the insanely great from people interviewed who have interacted with him.Overall,the viewer will get to know the man behind Apple Computer from many different perspective.Watch it!!!!!

This documentary really doesn't give much insight to Steve Jobs. Oh wait, he liked to take walks. Wow! What a revelation. This whole thing was a badly put together mish-mash of people talking about Steve Jobs, with a couple of snippets of Jobs talking about various things. It was more or less in chronological order, but was rarely given much of a context. Hmmm, one guy remembers a raging argument with Jobs but can't remember what it was about. Probably the most interesting thing in the whole long slog of the documentary was the guy talking about trying to build a prototype of a mouse.This documentary should have either focused on the technologies that Jobs pushed into being or more about the person that Jobs was, what he believed in, what the corporate culture at Apple was like, and what affect he had on the people around him.Unfortunately, it really did neither, and basically left me with more questions and fewer answers about Jobs than I had before. A really dissatisfying documentary, poorly made and rushed.Give it a pass.