Five of Steve Jobs' less successful moments

Even the best minds have their off days. We take a look at the moments that helped Steve Jobs to become the success he was

You might think it's in bad taste to bring up five negatives on a day when the world has lost a brilliant man, but we are sure Steve himself would probably attest to an important fact of life: it's usually the imperfections we remember most fondly.

What's made Steve Jobs so fascinating, so famous, so successful, wasn't just an eye for detail, a visionary outlook on tech, the ability to understand consumers and a persona that strives for perfection in design, no - it was more than that. It was a potent mix of sheer determination and an attitude to never give up, even when faced with life's worst challenges such as ill-health.

That's why we've decided to look at what you could say were his worst moments - the times when Steve got it wrong - because it's these moments that remind you he was only human. A family man. A man who loved technology and shared his vision with the world.

Stood at the pearly white gates, no doubt Steve Jobs will proudly look back at his life, both the bad and the good, knowing there was something to be learnt from everything.

You're fired
You can make billions, create an army of loyal fans, but nobody is safe from being fired as Steve Jobs found out in 1986.

At the time, Apple was being run by John Sculley, a former Pepsi executive. Sculley had been drafted in because Apple was struggling and investors wanted to see results. This didn't go well with Steve Jobs' vision for home computing, when the industry was still in its infancy, because his ideas would've sounded risky - and so he was fired.

Sculley later admitted in an article in The Week Jobs should've been the one calling the shots and that Apple's success wasn't down to him: 'My sense is that it probably would never have broken down between Steve and me if we had figured out different roles. Maybe he should have been the CEO and I should have been the president...'

Jobs maintained being fired was a blessing, because it allowed him to be freed of the success and pressure of being a CEO, which meant he could effectively start again and focus on nurturing his vision for computing.

Apple Pippin
People often forget Steve Jobs was involved in video games quite early on, and it's less well known he actually had a punt at gaming before the App Store's rise to fame.

Known as the Apple Pippin, this multimedia device rocked a not-so-impressive 66-MHz PowerPC 603e processor and a Mac-lite operating system. It looked a little like a video player with a few squares of colour thrown in for good measure.

Steve Jobs was a master of timing, but the Apple Pippin was a masterclass in how not to do it. When it was released, it was trodden on by the PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and even Sega's ill-fated Saturn console. It sold just 42,000 units in its short life and was forgotten by pretty much everyone.

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