Steve Jobs
I somehow feel it would be wrong to write a weekly tech column and not acknowledge the passing of Grand Master Steve Jobs. Not that I can add anything to the many things said about, and by, him. He was a profound and clever speaker, along with all his other remarkable gifts.
Being busy yesterday, I somehow missed the news until late in the day I finally got on my computer and discovered the news - and I have never seen such an outpouring of sentiment from so many sources.
Whether you agreed with his approach to technology or not - and I admit to having a foot in both camps - he was an innovator par excellance - and original thinker, a person who "got it" on a deep level.
I've argued for a long time that many of us who were PC people actually liked the fact that they could be difficult, crabby, and argumentative. Yeah, Macs just "worked," but that wasn't nearly as much fun as solving a problem with a missing dll file, and being victorious. Macs... well, you could edit video and audio, and at least in the old days Photoshop ran so much more easily on a Mac. They were definitely cool looking, if you cared about such things. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but even the keyboard click had a better sound, and you better believe that Steve Jobs knew that and aimed for it. It had a rewarding, delicate little click to it that just made you feel you were being creative.
And let's not forget that iconic 1984 Superbowl commercial. A brightly clad young woman, swinging a hammer, run through a crowd of all-the-same drones, staring at a Big Brother type screen. She tosses the hammer, shattering his image. Buh-bye IBM.
Well, of course it didn't quite happen that way, but it did open windows (no pun intended), doors, and poke holes through walls, and that's what Steve Jobs was all about. Opening the doors of perception. Pixar? iPhone. iPad. Who knows what might have followed?
The man was a 21st century da Vinci. And that's saying a lot.
As so many around the Internet are saying, RIP, Steve Jobs. And thanks.
Being busy yesterday, I somehow missed the news until late in the day I finally got on my computer and discovered the news - and I have never seen such an outpouring of sentiment from so many sources.
Whether you agreed with his approach to technology or not - and I admit to having a foot in both camps - he was an innovator par excellance - and original thinker, a person who "got it" on a deep level.
I've argued for a long time that many of us who were PC people actually liked the fact that they could be difficult, crabby, and argumentative. Yeah, Macs just "worked," but that wasn't nearly as much fun as solving a problem with a missing dll file, and being victorious. Macs... well, you could edit video and audio, and at least in the old days Photoshop ran so much more easily on a Mac. They were definitely cool looking, if you cared about such things. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but even the keyboard click had a better sound, and you better believe that Steve Jobs knew that and aimed for it. It had a rewarding, delicate little click to it that just made you feel you were being creative.
And let's not forget that iconic 1984 Superbowl commercial. A brightly clad young woman, swinging a hammer, run through a crowd of all-the-same drones, staring at a Big Brother type screen. She tosses the hammer, shattering his image. Buh-bye IBM.
Well, of course it didn't quite happen that way, but it did open windows (no pun intended), doors, and poke holes through walls, and that's what Steve Jobs was all about. Opening the doors of perception. Pixar? iPhone. iPad. Who knows what might have followed?
The man was a 21st century da Vinci. And that's saying a lot.
As so many around the Internet are saying, RIP, Steve Jobs. And thanks.
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