From Steve Jobs’ biographer, more about the Steve’s sense of design.
Steve Jobs interest in design began with his love for his childhood home. It was in one of the many working-class subdivisions between San Francisco and San Jose that were developed by builders who churned out inexpensive modernist tract houses in the 1950s for the postwar suburban migration. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wrights vision of simple modern homes for the American everyman, developers such as Joseph Eichler and his imitators built houses that featured oor-to-ceiling glass walls, open oor plans, exposed post-and-beam construction, concrete slab oors and lots of sliding glass doors.
“Eichler did a great thing,” Jobs told me on one of our walks around his old neighborhood, which featured homes in the Eichler style. His houses were smart and cheap and good. They brought clean design and simple taste to lower-income people. His appreciation for Eichler-style homes, Jobs said, instilled his passion for making sharply designed products for the mass market. I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesnt cost much, he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the Eichlers. It was the original vision for Apple. Thats what we tried to do with the first Mac. Thats what we did with the iPod.