A very great loss. I’ve been using Macs for twenty years, and wrote my first book on one. Wouldn’t want to use anything else. He leaves a remarkable legacy. It’s not often that technology is married to visual elegance, classical purity, even.
A very sad day. Apple won’t be the same without his driving vision, and the saddest thing is that he should have been around for another 20 or 30 years to see where all his innovations lead (and to continue innovating).
Yet another addition to the pantheon of giants, upon whose shoulders you lesser mortals can aspire to stand.
Some would argue that the status of giant, has been attained with the help and talent of many, ‘lesser mortals’. True or no, Apple under his leadership have noticeably, raised the bar for both innovators and imitators alike. Twill be interesting to see if they continue to do so.
Sincere condolences to Steve’s family and friends.
Fluff
I had one chance to meet Steve Jobs, on a visit to NeXT in the early 90s, but he failed to show that day.
On another occasion he was the showman, giving a first demo of a scanner, which sent the crowd wild.
And finally, he gave a talk that I attended: first a slide show, and then a Q & A with the crowd. He was looking to encourage students to apply for jobs at Apple. One remark he made stuck with me:
“I am looking for people who have not only ideas, but the ability to manufacture them. If you don’t have a passion for building your ideas, we will never get along.”
We may be mourning not only the loss of a colorful individual, but the spirit of daring and freedom that characterized his generation. He was the oddest combination of counter-culture hippy and shrewd entrepreneur; those two types rarely exist in the same person.
You can hear it in this line from his 2005 address at Stanford: “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
Google has put “Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011” beneath the default search form with a simple link to apple.com. Some things level all the fences (for a spell).
So terribly sad. I’ve been an Apple user since the days when the Apple IIc was the state-of-the-art in computers, and a customer since the Mac Plus days. So many amazing innovations. Steve was truly a man of tremendous vision, passion, and commitment - qualities I think we can all aspire to.
The best Steve Jobs quote, I think, and one remarkably apropos today, came from his famous 2005 Commencement speech at Stanford. Steve said, in part:
That’s why I do the things I do, and why I’m working toward generating enough income from the work I love to stop doing the work I don’t love.