back to article Apple's Mr Havisham: Tim Cook says dead Steve Jobs' office has remained untouched

Despite Apple cofounder Steve Jobs being dead nearly three years now, current Apple CEO Tim Cook has left Jobs' fourth-floor office at Apple untouched since his passing, a new interview has revealed. Cook made the revelation during a wide-ranging talk with broadcaster Charlie Rose that will air on the PBS TV network in the US …

  1. Mitoo Bobsworth

    "I literally think about him every day."

    Possible translation - "I don't know what to do next - please come back!"

    1. Mark 85

      Re: "I literally think about him every day."

      Another possible one: "If he were still alive, he would have fired my ass."

      1. Hipsterina

        Re: "I literally think about him every day."

        ... and after my mule had left the building he would have fired me, too, including my arse, elbows, feet, face...

        1. David Lawton

          Re: "I literally think about him every day."

          You do know Tim was running apple for years while steve was alive?

          1. h3

            Re: "I literally think about him every day."

            Jobs never cared about perfection.

            He cared about deliberately being incompatible with everything else.

            Being quite easy to use. (itunes is hardly logical it is a mess).

            I used to think it was just the Windows port of itunes that instead of working properly with parts of Windows that already did better what they wanted they reimplemented loads of stuff (Certainly not perfectly though). Its not that good on a Mac either which really surprised me.

            Even its primary function is not perfect. (Compare to Foobar 2000).

          2. Mitoo Bobsworth

            Re: "I literally think about him every day."

            @ David Lawton

            Running, yes. Leading - debatable.

    2. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: "I literally think about him every day."

      The press seems to do it too.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. h4rm0ny

    Morbid.

    The photo is clever but it's a little mean to mock someone for keeping a memento of a late friend and colleague, isn't it?

    I don't really get the cult of Jobs (maybe if it was Woz - he's a brilliant and extremely skilled person), but I'd be pretty upset if I opened a tech news site and saw an article saying "ha ha! h4rm0ny still misses dead friend".

    1. messele

      Re: Morbid.

      I don't think Tim Cook is weird. What I do think is weird is somebody having the thought in their head of producing that piece of artwork and then taking the time to actually sit down and live out their fantasy.

      That's REALLY creepy.

      I'll be sure to point Luca Cordero di Montezemolo this way so he can cleanse the DNA of the company in his stewardship and clear out Enzo Ferrari's office (preserved since 1988) to appease you weirdos.

    2. VinceH

      Re: Morbid.

      "The photo is clever but it's a little mean to mock someone for keeping a memento of a late friend and colleague, isn't it?"

      Most people would consider a memento to be a small keepsake, perhaps something to put on a desk, a wall, or in a cabinet.

      An office, kept as it was, is not a memento. It's a shrine.

      I can understand, say, parents keeping a late child's room as it was - but keeping a shrine to a late friend or colleage could be seen as a little weird. Given Jobs' history with the company, though, in this case it's probably less so.

      However, it's the move to the new Fruit Loop building that will, IMO, reveal on which side of the line it truly fits - whether it's understandable, or whether it's definitely in the weird camp. It depends whether they recreate the shrine in the new building, describing it as his office, when it quite blatantly wasn't, since it didn't exist when he was alive.

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: Morbid.

        >>"Most people would consider a memento to be a small keepsake, perhaps something to put on a desk, a wall, or in a cabinet. An office, kept as it was, is not a memento. It's a shrine."

        Well it would be a big ask for me to do it, but if you own a huge headquarters, not wanting to clear out one office and install someone else in it is not such a big deal. What would be a difficult gesture for the individual can be a trivial one for a company with a market cap of $600 billion.

        And it's still just mocking someone for grieving. Poor taste, imo.

    3. Jeff Lewis

      Re: Morbid.

      A photograph is a memento.

      A locket is a memento.

      A entire office is a shrine.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Morbid.

      What do you expect from the culture that invented fish-and-chips and dogging!

  4. M0untebank

    So it's true, Murdoch has bought the Reg?

    1. h4rm0ny
      Thumb Up

      >>"So it's true, Murdoch has bought the Reg?"

      Ouch!

  5. jake Silver badge

    Gut feeling?

    "It remains to be seen whether Cook will have the contents of Jobs' office transferred to the spaceship-like building and reinstalled in place."

    The answer is "yes". Religions are funny that way.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Gut feeling?

      Or it will be packed in a case and hidden at the back of a giant warehouse.

      Where top people can study it, top people.....

  6. tony2heads

    This article wierds me out

    The image in particular.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: This article wierds me out

      Supernatural Horror in El Reg Reporting!

    2. Fungus Bob

      Re: This article wierds me out

      The image amused and entertained me.

      But I'm an asshole.

  7. Hipsterina

    It is weird.

    Have you seen Tom Cruise talking about Scientolgogy? Still on YouTube after multiple take-down campaigns by the cult.

  8. Breen Whitman

    As it turns out, parents did this for their daughter killed by a drunk driver 16 years ago and left her room as it was.

    A news channel was to run a story but Apple sued and stopped it on the grounds they have copyright on the concept. They went "themonuclear" on the parents and managed to get the house seized.

    The parents, in despair, threw themselves from a bridge.

    A happy ending for Apple all round.

  9. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Joke

    Scary

    So his Internet browser history is still there ,,, YouPorn, FaceBook and the nude cruise website that he kept wanting to take if only he could bring himself to take of than polo neck shirt.

    (icon selected for the humour impaired)

    1. Law

      Re: Scary

      (icon selected by the humour impaired)

      Fixed it for you. ;)

  10. Fink-Nottle

    Dead Steve Jobs

    Oh no ... another metaphorical grave for Reg writers to dance upon.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's always intensely funny when some sociopathic suit claim to have feelings and a soul

    Cook's spiel fools nobody. He's got less personality than Siri.

    Of course Jobs selected him precisely for this reason. A perfect corporate robot, unquestioning of Dear Leader. Steve didn't work well with those that had their own opinions.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: It's always intensely funny when some sociopathic suit claim to have feelings and a soul

      iBeediBeediBeed!

  13. Steve Evans

    Religion...

    Wow, and here I was thinking it was just the users which treated Apple as some kind of religion.

    Now we find it goes higher... Cook has a shrine!

    I wonder if they have any rituals on St Job's birthday?

    1. nematoad

      Re: Religion...

      This is not the only corporation also functioning as a quasi religion. You just have to look at the likes of Coca Cola to see that. At least with Apple their devotion is focused on a dead human. For Coke it's the "Dynamic Curve". You know the shape of the side of the Coca Cola bottle.

      I kid not.

  14. Jeff Lewis

    "Despite Apple cofounder Steve Jobs being dead nearly three years now, current Apple CEO Tim Cook has left Jobs' fourth-floor office at Apple untouched since his passing, a new interview has revealed."

    Welllll... nothing creepy about that.. nope nope...

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't get the hate

    Of course the people at Apple think highly of Steve Jobs, he made them all millionaires.

    I'd probably think the same if I hadn't been stupid enough to sell my Apple stock at $35 thinking it wouldn't go any higher (since then 14-1 stock split and current price at $100+, yeah, ouch!).

  16. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Joke

    The Smithsonian

    is where the office should be relocated.

    1. Omniaural

      Re: The Smithsonian

      This is what I was thinking.

      It's not uncommon that people who were well regarded in their lifetime end up with an office or study becoming a shrine/musuem such as Charles Dickens or Agatha Christie.

      Of course, their's were convienently situated in their home or other easily preservable environment whereas I'm not sure how you achieve the same with a corporate office, unless the old office becomes 'Appleland', kind of like Graceland for Elvis or a theme park based on Apple products and such like.

      1. Schlimnitz

        Re: The Smithsonian

        Quite. This can be conceived as a shrine, or as a particularly shrewd investment in a nostalgia market based on other people's hero worship.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

  17. Bitbeisser
    Devil

    And I thought what ever guy got the job to clean out SJ's office found an old Apple Pascal manual and thought it was a good idea of putting all the goodies in a "new" programming language called "Swift"...

  18. Jedit Silver badge
    Coat

    It's been more than three days, Tim

    He's not coming back.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Clear out Steve's office?

    Dammed if he does, dammed if he doesn't.

  20. James Pickett

    "I literally think about him every day."

    I think he means that he thinks about him every day. Unless there's a way of thinking figuratively that doesn't involve actual thinking.

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