Steve Jobs Impressed by Lytro
On the first episode of GadgetReport.TV, I said Lytro’s light-field camera was my favorite innovation of 2011. A new book called Inside Apple by Adam Lashinsky tells a story that suggest Steve Jobs may have thought the same thing.
The company’s CEO, Ren Ng, a brilliant computer scientist with a PhD from Stanford, immediately called Jobs, who picked up the phone and quickly said, “if you’re free this afternoon maybe we would could get together.” Ng, who is thirty-two, hurried to Palo Alto, showed Jobs a demo of Lytro’s technology, discussed cameras and product design with him, and, at Jobs’s request, agreed to send him an email outlining three things he’d like Lytro to do with Apple.
Who knows if Apple and Lytro reached a deal, but a Lytro can take an immediate photo without the need to focus so it makes sense that Apple would want that tech in future iPhones.
Adam Lashinsky’s new book about Apple is based on interviews with Apple insiders. In 2008 Fortune cover story, Lashinsky predicted Tim Cook would succeed Steve Jobs as Apple CEO. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.
