I am writing this on a MacBook Air that you all bought for me, but I could be typing it on my iPhone, or CabinGirl’s iPad, or her MacBook Pro, or her iPhone. Steve Jobs is dead. That’s a technical term. In reality, he lives on through his creations. His vision has so infused how we go about our lives that he doesn’t seem dead at all. Thank you, Steve.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I joke all the the time that the three most important entities are God, family and IPhone, in no particular order. And if you were to ask the people who know me best what matters most to me they would tell you their worst fear is if their life depended on me choosing between them and my IPhone.
I’ve never owned an Apple product, but I’ve spent my adult life in Silicon Valley in the tech business, and Jobs was one of the real notables. He helped make the valley a special place to live and work. And he was the only boss in the computer business to care about good design.
Yes, Apple must have been an exciting place to work, under him. The world is poorer without him.
Immediate family member works there and has for nearly 20 years. Exciting and challenging place to work. Everyone is mourning.
Yes, I am a firm anti-Apple person, but regardless of what you buy, you either buy the Apple product, or you buy the derivative. He is beyond question the most important innovator of consumer electronics in the last 20 years. Everything he touched, he turned to gold. An absolutely amazing man. I never met him, of course, but remain impressed.
Yesterday afternoon, I was pulling in the driveway when my iPhone rang. I looked down and saw that it was BooMan calling me, but when I answered, it was Finny chattering away on the other end. He had absconded with Daddy’s iPhone (again), moved the slider across, and dialed mommy.
The thing I have always loved about Apple was that they worked, and in a simple and easy way that made sense. RIP, Steve – you made the world think different.n
How about when he took your iPad, moved the slider to open it, opened your email, opened a new email, typed a subject header, tabbed to the main text section, typed a long bit of gibberish, and sent it to our friend Russell?
We only knew what he wrote back to Finny to tell him he totally agreed.
He has sent tweets on my computer.
The man loves his Macs.
I’m guessing not many CEO get an actual statement from the POTUS upon his passing?
President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs: “He changed the way each of us sees the world.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/05/president-obama-passing-steve-jobs-he-changed-way-each-us-
sees-world
I luv my IPOD and my IPHONE (soon maybe the IPAD). I can honestly say it has expanded my musical taste and library.
I guess I’m bi-…too. I use a laptop at home and I also have a desktop PC, but my phone and my music player are Apple
I don’t know how much input Jobs had in the advertisements for IPod, but not only did IPod change the way we listen to music, but damn if those IPod commercials are pop culture history…
One of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CPab8U5zTU
It is literally the reason why I bought this single from Jet. And I’m glad for it.
it’s interesting because even if you don’t have an apple product or you “hate apple”, it’s amazing how it just kinda seems like everyone feels like they were “personally” acquainted with Steve Jobs.
It’s also interesting that his death came so soon after the announcement yesterday of the IPhone 4S, especially since so many people felt it was a letdown.
Whenever you mention MacIntosh or Apple, you can start a bit of a “flame-war”, but Like the man or not, like the company or not, you can’t deny that Apple under Steve Jobs not only changed computing and the way we now listen and archive music, but it also paved a lot of ground in the field of consumer marketing.
Shit, I’ve never owned a Mac computer, they are honestly a little too pricey for me even with my income, it would count as a big purchase that I have to justify, contrast that with my HP notebook which cost me about $700 (about $150 of which was actually insurance from Wal-Mart), but who doesn’t remember seeing this video and not thinking “that was cool, I kinda want that..”
1984 Apple’s Macintosh Commercial
At the very least, the man deserves some due for creating and co-founding the company that has done all of this.
I’m typing this on my personal $999 macbook – one year old.
Yes, it’s a little more expensive than the equivalent Windows laptop – at first. On the other hand: 1) it doesn’t require a ton of anti-virus and system cleanup software, 2) it doesn’t require re-installing the OS every year or two because Windows has slowed down to a crawl, and 3) for some reason it just keeps working without some sort of software or hardware repair, unlike very windows laptop I’ve ever had.
I bought this because my current company started enforcing a long-neglected policy of not using your work laptop for anything personal. No, I wasn’t dumb enough to have porn anything like that on it – but they objected to Quicken and other personal software, and I found that they were backing up my personal files and putting them on lightly secured servers.
But I chose the Mac for one reason – it works. I have 5 other people in my house, all with some sort of computer. 2 years ago I was the house IT guy, and spent on average 2 hours per week fixing stuff. Virus, software needing reinstall, hardware failure, you name it. One really bad week I’d had it. I went down to the Apple Store and bought 4 Mac Minis for the kids ($599 – a tiny desk top that works with your existing monitor, mouse, keyboard), one macbook for my wife, a 5-license copy of iWorks, a wireless HP printer, and a Time Capsule (Wifi router with a 2TB drive for backups).
Not one of those people needed any help from me to get their systems started and configure. Nor did they need help getting the autobackups to the time capsule (which worked so much better than our other router that I moved over to it as well).
The final kicker? 2 years later and I have yet to spend ONE MINUTE doing IT support for any of those 5 Macs. And everyone still loves their Macs.
Yeah, they are slightly more pricey up front. But there is a reason these machines are selling so fast.
Yeah, no doubt.
My main objection to moving over from the PC was simple. I like the PC keyboard a LOT better. But I’m over it. That is literally the only thing I like better about PCs. I can’t even describe how much less stress I have, although you’ve done a fine job of explaining it for me.
Yes, ergonomic things like keyboards are highly personal. That is one advantage of the Windows world – there is a lot more variety for laptop keyboards.
Interestingly, though, I know two people who bought their first Mac laptop because of the keyboard. Similarly, I’m not thrilled with the Macbook touchpad (but I almost always use an external mouse so it’s not a big deal). However, my son loved it so much that he saved up for an external touchpad for his Mini to replace his mouse.
Honestly, if you find the money for a Mac and AppleCare to go with it, you will almost definitely wind up saving money and saving a few days of your life from less computer-related stress.
We’ve had them honor an expired warrantee because they can tell we own a lot of their products. Their employees are empowered to do shit like that.
Yeah, one of my daughters broke her iphone-3. I told my wife to take it to the Apple Store, not the ATT store, to see if they could help. They replaced it free (but warned her not to do it again).
I wasn’t exaggerating when I said they are #1 in customer satisfaction. In the customer loyalty industry they are legendary.
I like this part of Obama’s statement:
“POTUS:There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented…”
I never have and never will own an Apple device. I can’t stand them.
That being said, Apple is one of few companies out there that is beloved by its employees, its customers, and its shareholders. Steve Jobs deserves a lot of the credit for that, and I salute him for it.
I agree. I have never bought an Apple product nor will I ever. However, all of us today are defined by Apple. We either buy the iPhone or the android based tool, which is an iPhone derivative. Without the iPhone, the android tools would either not exist, or be different.
If you’ve never had one, how can you know you can’t stand them?
Heh, any time I think of Jobs’ genius, I think back to this Q/A session from 1997. What a smart answer, in the face of an insulting question. I wish I were that intelligent.
thanks for posting this.
I cried when I bought my first PC.
Macs are the best. Period.
thank you Mr. Jobs.
you changed the world.
His was a company I always wanted to work for.
Back in the 1970s, pre-Reagan, it was common for founders of companies, especially in silicon valley, to compete with each other to see who could treat their employees the best. Keep in mind this was the birthplace of Hewlett-Packard, which for a long time was a great place to work until the board decided to hire an outsider as CEO. So they had to do a lot to top H-P.
And they did. Tandem, Silicon Graphics, Apple – just to name a few. All REALLY special places to work (I spent half my career at one of those).
Poor Apple did have some rough times during the years that Jobs wasn’t there. I lived 3 blocks from their main HQ could see the old Apple Day Care outside my back window looking onto Portal Park — that is, until they sold it off in one of an endless stream of cost-cutting moves. You could slowly see the place turning into, as one of my friends called my own employer, “just another shit company”. The management was definitely herd mentality – as shown by the idiotic joint venture that they started with IBM called Taligent.
But Jobs came back and low and behold, the magic returned. Yeah, they made great product. And Jobs was the leader who made that happen. But it wasn’t because he thought of every innovation himself – it’s because he created a culture that thrived on innovation, and that started with treating employees like people. When we sold our house in 2005 it was to an Apple employee who absolutely loved working there. Sigh — I was jealous — I remember loving the company I worked for a long time ago, and it’s a great feeling.
Those of you who don’t like Apple products, try this. First, get yourself into the most open mind you possibly can, then go to the nearest Apple Store. Best to avoid nights and weekends as these places are extremely popular. You’ll see why Apple is the tops in the world in customer satisfaction. And that, too, was a huge part of Jobs’ vision – treat people well and, well, magic happens.
I’ve been a macbot since the 80’s. We have PCs in the house too, which I have to periodically scrub fro viruses. Never a problem with the macs. So easy to use, so beautifully designed. Jobs married technical skill and artistry. He will be greatly missed. RIP.
PS, I use the term macbot because I value quality and I know quality when I see it.
The last year of his life his products helped Arab Spring to come to life and now his devices are bringing OWS to life. So in the end among the many wonders of his legacy may be that he gave the common man a way to gain representation.
His devices brought design, curiosity, education and smiles to a an entire globe and we are better for his passing our way.
the only computers i’ve ever owned were from apple. as computer-curious artist, they had me with macpaint. i still have both a copy of the program and a working macplus to run it on …
iic (1984)
mac plus (1986)
performa 600 cd (1992)
power mac 8500 (1996)
powerbook lombard (2000)
powerbook g4 (2001 & 2005)
ipod g3 (2003)
ipod g5 (2006)
macbook pro (2010)
It’s a little annoying seeing this “genius” and even “messiah” stuff about Jobs. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that mass media is incapable of nuance. Seems like most if not all of the ideas that Apple is credited with pioneering were around for some time beforehand.And this is typical of almost every person in any field who is credited with world changing originality. And Jobs wasn’t a circuit head as far as I can tell. He had brilliant engineers and scientists helping him. I don’t say that to denigrate the man or the company. To me it seems like where Jobs was extraordinary was not in having totally original ideas, but in having simply the very best taste in consumer computing, and having the organizational and communication skills to create a company that could create products that have a deep and broad appeal to their users. He had a vision of the totality of the product and the actual user experience that should be the model for all consumer electronics but constantly gets left aside for a million reasons of short term expediency. This ability to see the whole product and everything that it signified meant that he was genuinely brilliant at positioning Apple’s products as not only second to none in user experience but, increasingly, inevitable and inescapable as soon as they were introduced. He was sort of like history’s most successful mass-market artist.