Jobs was a master at asking the Simple idea. He did it twice (well, maybe three times, but the Macintosh was basically inspired by what he saw at Xerox Parc). The genius was in asking these Big, Simple questions, but as Edison said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Jobs focused his entire company on executing the Big, Simple idea right.
Big, Simple question #1: Why can't I take all my music with me?
Anyone who remembers the day of 256k MP3 players remembers how much of a pain it was to keep changing the music you stored on them. You could only fit 2, maybe 3 albums on the player. The iPod changed all that.
But it was more than just having a big storage capacity: iTunes made it ridiculously easy to get your music on the iPod, and to get new music (and podcasts) from Al Gore's Intarwebz.
Big, Simple question #2: Why can't I have the Internet in my pocket?
When the iPhone was introduced, everyone said "it's a phone and an iPod." Well, yeah, but this wasn't the big deal. Safari on the iPhone actually made the Internet usable from a phone. Not just email - RIM did that long before. Browsing, and Twitter, and Facebook - because of the App Store. Before, it was remote email and MP3s; after, it was everyone is always online. Always.
Simple ideas, but ideas where Jobs had to push his company to invent brilliant new processes to make it actually work. The iTunes Store. The "pinch". Loadable Apps, and a way to distribute them.
Nobody ever did Big and Simple like Steve Jobs. Rest in peace.
UPDATE 6 October 2011 20:03: The Silicon Greybeard acts as Yang to my Yin (or vice versa, not that there's anything wrong with that).
UPDATE 6 October 2011 20:10: And this is interesting:
Is this a Big, Simple idea that is something that the market won't - can't - fund? Somehow I think I hear the ghost of Steve Jobs whispering that it will all be about a laser like focus on execution ...
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