Surprise: Apple Loves Steve Jobs and the iPhone

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Glassdoor collects data on how much employees love their boss and love their products. They also seem to collect data on the wicked obvious, at least where Apple is concerned. Flabbergasting: 91% of employees love Steve Jobs and on a scale of 1 to 5, think Apple's products rate a 3.8 (we're guessing MobileMe cost them a full point there).

To give some frame of reference GigaOm provides further details: Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is loved by 44%, Palm's Ed Colligan by 36%, and RIM's co-CEO's by 70% (does that mean 35% each?). Products vary far less, with almost everyone at the same level as Apple (RIM), a bit below (Microsoft at 3.7) or so (Palm at 3.2)

Biggest loser was Motorola with a whopping 10% and 2.6 rating. Could have been worse, however -- they could have been off the list.

So how much do you love Steve Jobs and the iPhone? And how does that compare to your boss and your products/services? Or should we rather rate the raters? Gigaom and Glassdoor, how are they doing?

(Tip o' the handset to Phil from WMExperts for sending this our way!)

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

18 Comments
  • Steve Jobs: 100%
    Products: 5.0
  • I'm quite fond of Steve jobs. I hope he gets better can't imagine what's going wrong in his life. I feel for him, and the iPhone wouldn't be here today if he wouldn't have single handindly resurrected Apple inc. His image is the image of Apple to me.
  • Jobs: 500%
    Products: 500%
    LOL thanks "Steve" good point! :)
  • Jobs: 100 % he brought the company back from near death to become a giant again. Products: 4.2 I owns lot of apple products and I love them but the definitely do have some mis-ques
  • I love Steve, Apple, and the iPhone much more than my boss and our products. Don't tell our clients though. I would happily dump my boss for Steve. I wish my loving the iphone and apple would get me paid. Then it would really be a match made in heaven.
  • Steve Jobs 100%, products 4.5. iPhone battery life cost them half a point, alongside the MobileMe problems.
  • Yes, I could do with another decade or two of Steve Jobs behind the Apple helm. Can't even imagine what he'd show off at WWDC 2017.
  • Jobs: 50%. Too controlling. The man is a control freak. (And you thought Gates was bad).
    Iphone 80%. Its biggest problem: See above. Can you imagine what this device could do if Steve would get out of the way!?!
  • Matt, I need you in my office NOW
  • @icebike: Jobs is a double-edged sword, without him there would be no iPhone to do more. Even some of the more interesting, more open phones we're just beginning to see are clearly influenced by the iPhone. (And then there's WinPho 6.5...)
  • Steve Jobs is probalbly the best CEO a company could have. He gets 100% for bringing the company back and leading the mighty Apple into the future with 5.0 products.
  • Without Steve Jobs to guide and nuture Apple, I don't think we would have the iphone, macbooks, ipods, etc.
  • Jobs- 5.0 for his work. -1 for greed(greed "corrodes the soul" mr.jobs) -.5 for control = 3.5...not bad.
    Products- I would give them a 5 but I believe apple can do better so 3.5 the iPhone is far from perfect it's still missing essential features this is not their best. Jailbroken iPhone/dev team/3rd party developers =5.0 + 1
  • @Rene @MikeD:
    Agreed. The iPhone sprung from the engineers hired by Jobs. And Apple is the leader for the time being in the smart phone arena. (Crackberry Kevin might disagree, and at PreCentral they lie in wait).
    That's not my issue with either Jobs or the iPhone, or Apple in general. (But I suspect you knew that).
    Its just think Apple and the iPhone could be much much more if Apple would just stop worrying about the Dev Team, and deliver on things long promised. Heck, Apple should embrace the Dev team, mention their software as an alternative platform (sans warranty of course), and use them as an incubator.
    I understand that stability is more important than new features. But there is no reason to stand in the way of things the hardware can already do. (Video, bluetooth file transfer, yadda yadda).
  • @icebike:
    Apple pretty much turns a blind eye to AppleTV hacking. I suspect the carrier contracts conflict with the yellowsn0w initiative of the Dev Team, otherwise they may not officially worry about that much either.
    Re: Apple engineers. Microsoft and Google likely have more engineers. Really smart ones as well. Jobs can pick products, however, and drive them by force of will. That's increasingly rare in consumer electronics. (Remember, he's just as proud of what Apple hasn't released -- Microsoft would have benefitted immensely just from not releasing many of their projects).
  • to my boss, before you start in on this I quit, apple made me an offer you can't match
  • I love Steve Jobs, but I love Apple Fanboys more.
    Seriously, how is this even a story?
  • In comparison to other companies, Apple products are a 5.0.