Any flexibility left in the final product is not because of Steve, it's in spite of Steve.
It starts with there is already something good and useful and unencumbered that engineers built for themselves.
It's good and useful, so it's saleable, and it's unencumbered, so it's free to be simply harvested like an apple (haha).
But then he takes that starting point and foundation, and tries to do the saleable part as much as possible and the useful part as little as possible.
He does invest a lot of further work, but most of that work other than the ux is not in service to the user.
Any flexibility left in the final product is not because of Steve, it's in spite of Steve.
It starts with there is already something good and useful and unencumbered that engineers built for themselves.
It's good and useful, so it's saleable, and it's unencumbered, so it's free to be simply harvested like an apple (haha).
But then he takes that starting point and foundation, and tries to do the saleable part as much as possible and the useful part as little as possible.
He does invest a lot of further work, but most of that work other than the ux is not in service to the user.