This is really a silly article. I would really recommend that you guys read Gladwell's piece as it is at least well written. Gruber's Fireball is mostly thrown at straw-men.
Gladwell makes a distinction between "visionaries" who invent new things and "tweakers" who refine, perfect and make new inventions work. Gladwell proceeds to argue that Jobs falls into the tweaker category.
Gruber keeps talking about "innovations", a word Gladwell does not use, without bothering to explain what he means by it or how it is different from Gladwell's idea of "tweaks." But he has no problems claiming that Jobs "innovations" were not tweaks. He asks: "Does anyone really think Apple’s entry into the music industry was a 'tweak'?" Yes, according to Gladwell's definition of the term it was. It seems that Gruber did not bother to try to understand what Gladwell meant by the term "tweak."
The Gladwell article was a travesty. It was hastily written piece, basically copied and pasted from the Isaacson biography with a thin layer of crappy pop psychology on top.
The whole time I was reading it I was wondering why Gladwell didn't refer to any other material than the biography since they offered a deeper, more balanced picture of his work, but then I remembered they were probably trying to cash in on the Steve Jobs aura by putting his article on the cover.
Jeremy, as far as I could notice, Gladwell's article had no pop psychology. It's interpretation of "tweakers" was based on a paper by two economists, "The Rate and Direction of Invention in the British Industrial Revolution: Incentives and Institutions." Gladwell then argues that Jobs' contribution fall more in the "tweaking" category, which is not meant as a criticism or denigration. Remember that in this interpretation it is the tweakers who brought us the Industrial Revolution, not the visionary inventors.
Gladwell makes a distinction between "visionaries" who invent new things and "tweakers" who refine, perfect and make new inventions work. Gladwell proceeds to argue that Jobs falls into the tweaker category.
Gruber keeps talking about "innovations", a word Gladwell does not use, without bothering to explain what he means by it or how it is different from Gladwell's idea of "tweaks." But he has no problems claiming that Jobs "innovations" were not tweaks. He asks: "Does anyone really think Apple’s entry into the music industry was a 'tweak'?" Yes, according to Gladwell's definition of the term it was. It seems that Gruber did not bother to try to understand what Gladwell meant by the term "tweak."