Steve Jobs shot Desktop Pictures for OS X Leopard

AppleInsider

An ex-Apple software designer claims that Steve Jobs personally shot several of the images presented as desktop pictures for 2007's Mac OS X Leopard.

"Grass Blades," reportedly photographed by Steve Jobs to be a desktop picture in OS X Leopard (source: TechReflect)

A new blog post claims that OS X Leopard wallpaper, or desktop pictures, including "Grass Blades," "Rock Garden," and "Golden Palace" were photographed by Steve Jobs. The blogger, going only by the name "Cricket," says he spent nearly 20 years at Apple.

"It shouldn't surprise anyone that Steve Jobs liked to take pictures," says "Cricket" in a blog post. "He was even taking a picture the last time I saw him. However, many people might not know that some of his photos shipped as Desktop Pictures in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard."

"Cricket" shows five OS X Leopard images shot by Jobs. He also shows a further three Jobs images "that I was unable to confirm (or remember) ever made it into a Mac OS X release."

Four more images reportedly shot by Steve Jobs for OS X Leopard (source: TechReflect)

AppleInsider has independently confirmed that "Cricket" worked at Apple, and has reached out for more information.

Steve Jobs did not receive credit for the use of his photography in OS X Leopard.

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beats

This man continues to amaze years after his death.

elijahg

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

edited April 2021

sflocal

Steve Jobs brought art and beauty into not only its hardware, but in the software as well.  If it weren't for him, we'd probably still be in the beige-box PC era.

Even 10 years later, I still miss the guy.  Every so often, I still think of where things would have evolved had he still been at the helm.

sbdude

This is the kind of detail and obsessive involvement from the top that’s been missing from Apple. Perhaps the scourge of the butterfly keyboard (and a few other oversights) would not have been loosed upon the world of Jobs were still around. RIP Steve.

tenthousandthings

I have a copy of the Ryōan-ji (“Rock Garden”) image from a Leopard beta that is cropped differently from the one used for the final release. It has a row of the ends of floorboards sticking up along the bottom edge, providing what is to my mind crucial context/scale/perspective for the photograph. When I saw they had cropped the floorboards out in the final release, I went back and did a clean install of that beta (this was back when they sent you install discs for the betas) just to get the original image, and I’ve used it ever since. [I’m an art historian who studies East Asia.] Nice to know it’s a Jobs photograph — a new layer of meaning!

I’d be happy to post it somewhere for download ...

EDIT: Okay, so I started to do this for posterity and now I see that the original photo was not simply cropped a bit differently in the final release, as I had always assumed — in fact the final image is not cropped, it is “Photoshopped” — the foreground floorboards are covered over with gravel. Honestly, it’s a pretty dumb thing to do to an image of an iconic historical and religious site and important work of art, and I’m not so sure that the Ryōan-ji itself would be altogether happy about it. 

I have to go do something now and I probably won’t be back in time to upload the evidence before my ability to edit this comment times out, but I’ll follow up below. I’ll also contact the blogger who first posted this story, and give it to him. 

The Kinkaku-ji (“Golden Temple”) image must have been taken on the same trip to Kyoto.

edited April 2021

lkrupp

elijahg said:

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

It was Jobs’ interest in Calligraphy while at Reed college that resulted in the birth of desktop publishing, along with the invention of the laser printer.

lkrupp

sflocal said:

Steve Jobs brought art and beauty into not only its hardware, but in the software as well.  If it weren't for him, we'd probably still be in the beige-box PC era.

Even 10 years later, I still miss the guy.  Every so often, I still think of where things would have evolved had he still been at the helm.

The rest of the world still IS in the beige-box PC era. Walk into any Best Buy or Micro Center and see the abominations on the shelves. Just the other day stood in front of one that was a black plastic tower with sharp angles and had three multi-colored fans spinning and changing colors every second on the front of the box. I thought I was in a hookah lounge. All it needed was burning incense next to it.

edited April 2021

auxio

lkrupp said:

sflocal said:

Steve Jobs brought art and beauty into not only its hardware, but in the software as well.  If it weren't for him, we'd probably still be in the beige-box PC era.

Even 10 years later, I still miss the guy.  Every so often, I still think of where things would have evolved had he still been at the helm.

The rest of the world still IS in the beige-box PC era. Walk into any Best Buy or Micro Center and see the abominations on the shelves. Just the other day stood in front of one that was a black plastic tower with sharp angles and had three multi-colored fans spinning and changing colors every second on the front of the box. I thought I was in a hookah lounge. All it needed was burning incense next to it.

I actually built a custom PC like that for my son.  It's the PC-gamer aesthetic.  Not my tastes, but to each their own.  He's enjoying programming the lights to do all sorts of interesting effects, so at least there's something to be learned from it.  Even Jobs "wandered" before finding his path.

edited April 2021

davgreg

The photos (IDK remember which OS release) that had the origami in B&W with strongly directional light to cast neat shadows has always been my favorite.

maciekskontakt

Beats said:

This man continues to amaze years after his death.

No he does not. If someone missed that he was above his times with vision and creativity at his times. He was jacka$$  to his family an toxic outside business, but he was type that pushed this world forward. So do not mix few things about Jobs while being amazed by him. I am missing his ways from Apple because that was the time that Apple quality, support and directions towards technology accomodating person was what made me left from Microsoft and other companies and conveinced family to move too. Now the company is not the same as in Jobs' times so pay attention. People like myself notice that and leave Apple. Direction is unclear and there is no hard demanding person with vision like Jobs was. There are so-so and half aestetic solutions that I am not even sure if Johnatan Ive would approve if he was at helm of what he was years ago.

You can consider Elon Musk the similar type and mark my words what happens in next 10 years with Musk's ideas. There are only few in this world like Jobs and Musk who turned this world to advanced technologically and close to human needs and behaviors with that technology.

tommikele

Jobs shot some pictures? Wow, wow, wow.

Why does anyone care?

The blubbering and drooling in some of the comments above is unreal.

tommikele

lkrupp said:

elijahg said:

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

It was Jobs’ interest in Calligraphy while at Reed college that resulted in the birth of desktop publishing, along with the invention of the laser printer.

Other than Jobs going to Reed, almost none of what you said is true.

Jobs had nothing to do with the invention of the laser printer. or the birth of desktop publishing. Pure fiction.

A gentleman named Gary Starkweather is universally credited as the inventor/leader of the Xerox team that invented the process. It happened at Xerox in the very late 60s/early 70s.

Desktop publishing was initiated in 1985 (were you born by then?} with the introduction of PageMaker software from Aldus. It did run on Macs and Apple's early printers were the means by which people were able to print when professional quality output was not required. If anything adoption of Adobe's postscript made it possible to  use  the Macintosh GUI and bring to individual users and small organization. By 1987 it ran on PCs. Without Pagemaker, Jobs development of laser printers for retail buyers would not have mattered until someone else developed similar software and it didn't take too long for that to happen. Adobe bought Aldus andiron after it was dead.

We all know Jobs place in the history of desktop and mobile computing and how his work and leadership opened up creative avenues for everyone, but please, stop slobbering over the ghost of Steve Jobs and making stuff up.

edited April 2021

tenthousandthings

Okay, so here is the original “Rock Garden” photograph, now attributed to Steve Jobs (old news, actually — the Tech Reflect blog post is dated May 2020), from the early betas of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (file dated August 14, 2007 at 7:35 PM):

http://chinesemac.org/downloads/10.5-Rock-Garden-original.jpg

If you compare it to the version used in the release of Leopard, you’ll see they brightened it a bit and Photoshopped over the floorboards along the bottom. I find this decision utterly abhorrent, practically sacrilege, but that’s just me. I do understand why they did it — it gives it a cleaner feel, less busy and more “Zen” — but it doesn’t work for me. It destroys the perspective of the photograph, creating a false view of a major work of art/architecture.

edited April 2021

fastasleep

lkrupp said:

elijahg said:

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

It was Jobs’ interest in Calligraphy while at Reed college that resulted in the birth of desktop publishing, along with the invention of the laser printer.

LOL what? This isn't even remotely true. Laser printing was invented at Xerox PARC in the 70's. Apple's LaserWriter came out in like 1985 and used engines developed by Canon. Apple sure had its part in the democratization of desktop publishing with their personal computers, but they sure as hell didn't invent it. It's bizarre how wrong this is considering how angry you get at people who misrepresent things in this forum.

fastasleep

tenthousandthings said:

Okay, so here is the original “Rock Garden” photograph, now attributed to Steve Jobs (old news, actually — the Tech Reflect blog post is dated May 2020), from the early betas of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (file dated August 14, 2007 at 7:35 PM):

http://chinesemac.org/downloads/10.5-Rock-Garden-original.jpg

If you compare it to the version used in the release of Leopard, you’ll see they brightened it a bit and Photoshopped over the floorboards along the bottom. I find this decision utterly abhorrent, practically sacrilege, but that’s just me. I do understand why they did it — it gives it a cleaner feel, less busy and more “Zen” — but it doesn’t work for me. It destroys the perspective of the photograph, creating a false view of a major work of art/architecture.

It's not even a good photo to begin with, it's clearly the worst of the whole bunch. Terrible lighting and exposure. 

georgebmac

tommikele said:

lkrupp said:

elijahg said:

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

It was Jobs’ interest in Calligraphy while at Reed college that resulted in the birth of desktop publishing, along with the invention of the laser printer.

Other than Jobs going to Reed, almost none of what you said is true.

Jobs had nothing to do with the invention of the laser printer. or the birth of desktop publishing. Pure fiction.

A gentleman named Gary Starkweather is universally credited as the inventor/leader of the Xerox team that invented the process. It happened at Xerox in the very late 60s/early 70s.

Desktop publishing was initiated in 1985 (were you born by then?} with the introduction of PageMaker software from Aldus. It did run on Macs and Apple's early printers were the means by which people were able to print when professional quality output was not required. If anything adoption of Adobe's postscript made it possible to  use  the Macintosh GUI and bring to individual users and small organization. By 1987 it ran on PCs. Without Pagemaker, Jobs development of laser printers for retail buyers would not have mattered until someone else developed similar software and it didn't take too long for that to happen. Adobe bought Aldus andiron after it was dead.

We all know Jobs place in the history of desktop and mobile computing and how his work and leadership opened up creative avenues for everyone, but please, stop slobbering over the ghost of Steve Jobs and making stuff up.

Carnegie did not invent the process that made mass production of low cost, high quality steel possible, Bessemer did.  But Carnegie made it work and changed the country and changed the world by making long bridges, steel rails and skyscrapers possible.

Neither did Steve "invent" the modern GUI.   Xerox PARC did.  They simply didn't know what to do with it.   Steve took it and, with his vision, made it work and changed the world.

The same is true of desktop publishing and the laser printer.   Xerox invented it.  Steve made it work.

georgebmac

Few understand how expansive and complex a person Steve was.   Instead they try to reduce him down to being a business man, technician, inventor, or engineer -- or some other limited persona.

Like Thomas Jeffereson, he covered a LOT of territory and had a wide band of interests and knowledge.

fastasleep

GeorgeBMac said:

tommikele said:

lkrupp said:

elijahg said:

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

It was Jobs’ interest in Calligraphy while at Reed college that resulted in the birth of desktop publishing, along with the invention of the laser printer.

Other than Jobs going to Reed, almost none of what you said is true.

Jobs had nothing to do with the invention of the laser printer. or the birth of desktop publishing. Pure fiction.

A gentleman named Gary Starkweather is universally credited as the inventor/leader of the Xerox team that invented the process. It happened at Xerox in the very late 60s/early 70s.

Desktop publishing was initiated in 1985 (were you born by then?} with the introduction of PageMaker software from Aldus. It did run on Macs and Apple's early printers were the means by which people were able to print when professional quality output was not required. If anything adoption of Adobe's postscript made it possible to  use  the Macintosh GUI and bring to individual users and small organization. By 1987 it ran on PCs. Without Pagemaker, Jobs development of laser printers for retail buyers would not have mattered until someone else developed similar software and it didn't take too long for that to happen. Adobe bought Aldus andiron after it was dead.

We all know Jobs place in the history of desktop and mobile computing and how his work and leadership opened up creative avenues for everyone, but please, stop slobbering over the ghost of Steve Jobs and making stuff up.

Carnegie did not invent the process that made mass production of low cost, high quality steel possible, Bessemer did.  But Carnegie made it work and changed the country and changed the world by making long bridges, steel rails and skyscrapers possible.

Neither did Steve "invent" the modern GUI.   Xerox PARC did.  They simply didn't know what to do with it.   Steve took it and, with his vision, made it work and changed the world.

The same is true of desktop publishing and the laser printer.   Xerox invented it.  Steve made it work.

Wrong! I don’t understand why people are just making shit up here. Xerox made the first office laser printer.  Canon built the first consumer laser engine which was the foundation of mass produced consumer laser printers from HP (the LaserJet), Brother, IBM, and others a full year  before Apple released their LaserWriter using the same Canon engine. The only unique thing with the LaserWriter was that it was the first to use PostScript. Otherwise it was a Canon printer in an Apple-branded shell. 

“Steve made it work” my ass.  

georgebmac

fastasleep said:

GeorgeBMac said:

tommikele said:

lkrupp said:

elijahg said:

This is awesome. I'm surprised they are his, but then it makes sense as Jobs was - as we all know, one for design and artistry. His enjoyment of photography was probably why iPhone was so much better at photos than the competition after the 4.

It was Jobs’ interest in Calligraphy while at Reed college that resulted in the birth of desktop publishing, along with the invention of the laser printer.

Other than Jobs going to Reed, almost none of what you said is true.

Jobs had nothing to do with the invention of the laser printer. or the birth of desktop publishing. Pure fiction.

A gentleman named Gary Starkweather is universally credited as the inventor/leader of the Xerox team that invented the process. It happened at Xerox in the very late 60s/early 70s.

Desktop publishing was initiated in 1985 (were you born by then?} with the introduction of PageMaker software from Aldus. It did run on Macs and Apple's early printers were the means by which people were able to print when professional quality output was not required. If anything adoption of Adobe's postscript made it possible to  use  the Macintosh GUI and bring to individual users and small organization. By 1987 it ran on PCs. Without Pagemaker, Jobs development of laser printers for retail buyers would not have mattered until someone else developed similar software and it didn't take too long for that to happen. Adobe bought Aldus andiron after it was dead.

We all know Jobs place in the history of desktop and mobile computing and how his work and leadership opened up creative avenues for everyone, but please, stop slobbering over the ghost of Steve Jobs and making stuff up.

Carnegie did not invent the process that made mass production of low cost, high quality steel possible, Bessemer did.  But Carnegie made it work and changed the country and changed the world by making long bridges, steel rails and skyscrapers possible.

Neither did Steve "invent" the modern GUI.   Xerox PARC did.  They simply didn't know what to do with it.   Steve took it and, with his vision, made it work and changed the world.

The same is true of desktop publishing and the laser printer.   Xerox invented it.  Steve made it work.

Wrong! I don’t understand why people are just making shit up here. Xerox made the first office laser printer.  Canon built the first consumer laser engine which was the foundation of mass produced consumer laser printers from HP (the LaserJet), Brother, IBM, and others a full year  before Apple released their LaserWriter using the same Canon engine. The only unique thing with the LaserWriter was that it was the first to use PostScript. Otherwise it was a Canon printer in an Apple-branded shell. 

“Steve made it work” my ass.  

Sorry, but yes, Steve made it work.   He created an entire system that came together to make the whole thing work -- and, in the process began the elimination of an entire segment of the economy:  the secretary/typist.

As I pointed out, it is how most technological advances come to be:  Westinghouse did not invent AC electricity.  But he made it work and electrified the country -- along with a plethora of "labor saving devices" that eliminated another segment of the economy:   the housewife.