The hyperbole of Steve Jobs as a tech visionary

If there is one thing you can say about tech bloggers it is that they have this predilection to swallow tech hype without even stopping to burp. This is especially evident when we start taking about the various smart and extremely talented CEOs of the biggest tech companies.

However if there is one person where this is sometimes over the top it has to be Steve Jobs. No don’t get me wrong, the man deserves all the recognition in the world for saving the company he helped to start from disappearing into oblivion. He has also been the man responsible for changing our perceptions of what our computing devices should look like.

The thing is that because of these successes the Apple faithful hold him up as some sort of genius who has this uncanny ability to figure out where technology is heading.

Well let’s set one thing straight – no-one and I mean no-one knows where technology is headed. Hell some parts of our technological world can change within a day; but you can be assured that no-one knows where we will be a year from now when it comes to our technology.

Louis Gray in a post this morning trotted out this typical line of Steve Jobs as a master visionary which in the case of Apple products might be correct but in terms of technology going forward – well no more so than any other tech CEO. The second part of Louis’ statement about Jobs being a master salesman is right on the money and in that aspect Jobs reigns supreme.

In a world where technology is undergoing constant change Jobs is a visionary but only within the framework of Apple products. It is his vision that drives their products. Where he excels is as a incredible salesman trying to convince the world that Apple products are the future; and in this regard he has no peers.

That doesn’t make him any different from any other tech company CEO though who also has a vision of the company’s future and what their products will look like. It is then their job – just as it is Steve Jobs’ – to convince the world that their vision is the right one.

To claim though Steve Jobs has a lock on exactly what our tech future is going to look like is carrying the hype just a little too far.