Steve Jobs Has Died

[TheDrowningMan]

He didn't invent it. He took something unusable (didn't tell you that in Wikipedia) and added much more to it: Menu bars and windows and window function (you know, the basis of what every single operating system now uses), and then he made it usable and took it to the mass market. Technology is useless if it doesn't work and can't be sold.

 

I think the main problem here is that people haven't been following Apple for 20 years and don't actually know - beyond the hearsay of tossers saying he was 'just a salesman' - what he did.

 

I think this is the thing. The story of how, for instance, Apple computers came to use the mouse is fascinating and really, that's Jobs all over.

 

If it were once, it would be easy to convincingly deconstruct the impact he had on computer technology.

 

As it is, it's been making the PC relatable and saleable to the mass market with fantastic judgment of what is needed in a UI, it's been bundling the mouse with that, it's been steering Pixar as they became pioneers of a type of film that is now a genre unto itself, it's been bringing portable music players to the mass market - and with a proper amount of storage at that - it's been absolutely annihilating the previous consensus of what a 'smart phone' is; just check the 2007 iPhone conference while reading through any number of online threads made at the time, it's been, after more than a decade of miserable failure, getting the tablet right and bringing it to more than a tiny smattering of people.

 

Jobs was the driving force behind Apple's design sensibility, and I think that a lot of people don't realise that. To cast him as nothing but a salesman par excellence is an assertion disproved by more or less any actual account of his role, and I think this is why it's going to be crucial that the people are in place to carry that through; Apple in the early to mid 1990s was not a pretty sight.

[G Richards]

He left his first wife and child on welfare, whilst he himself was moneyed. Not heard much about him being philanthropic apart from closing such activities.

 

Maybe Murdoch needs to hang out with Bono.

 

Yep, I'm aware of those things, and some other flaws in the man too. I'm certainly not putting him on a pedestal, but I do plan to use a pertinent clip as it is topical with his passing this week. The talk I am giving is to do with taking action, and whatever else he was, Steve Jobs was a man of action who left his mark.

[dennis tooth]

Jesus. Some daft Guardian tributes in here. Oooh, someone rich has died, the fawn of man.

Look he just wasnt that ace. He's gone get over him. Bill Gates had a well bigger impact, theres a lot of people out there who had a bigger impact, some in the background and some not. I was shocked when I seen some Apple fanboy I know on FB saying 'RIP steve Jobs', then it got worse. I cant even beleive this thread exists to be honest never mind some of the dribble. He was the Jay Z of computers, overhyped, overplayed, 'gamechanger' bullshit. Oh pixar, my dear god, fucking cartoons. Watched by sad adults. Yeah gamechanging. Where do people get this shit? A web server, a fucking web server, servicing requests. Well you'd think it would have been inevitable given the nature of the preceding developments. Well you say 'he did it' yeah but it would have been useless without the bits before and since. There are a few things he did have a big impact on of course: Turtle necks, black ones. Polo necks, black ones, he also made pretentious people cool and literally random bantering their way through life, thanks to him. 'His' devices collect data on people's movements without their knowledge, perhaps to preserve his eyebrows in frosted glass is going a bit far. Cut them off and bury him I say, we can always discuss what to do with his eyebrows later. Every day we wake up from this moment we must list his acheivements out loud and feel the connection, identify with this man, it is your destiny if you want to feel freedom, if you say it enough times if we all do, he will have changed the world forever, like the man who decided to fashion his laces cross ways and now we can all follow this visionary, every day, when doing up our laces, out there, breaking boundaries, smashing barriers, live your life like one day you may die and who knows what shite someone may one day associate with you, who knows what the man who cross laces his trainees may have gone onto achieve if he had not fell face first into a pile of beer crates and hard his heart peirced by a shard of plastic? He died penniless and unaware of the impact his innovation would have on the world.

I hear the guy who invented the blackberry has got a cough today, as has his wife, please include him in your prayers. Not her though, she is just a simple dinnerlady, blindly following the overhand soup ladle technique that was taught to her on her first day in the job all those years ago, no innovation, no thought, just doling out soup, day after day, living with the results of other people's thinking. Spluttering up flegm now though bitch arent ya?

Feel that sadness now. Pangs dunnit? I've got more respect for the guy who invented the skip. Innovative genius my elbow!

[stevebaby]

Superb rantage there Dennis. Well said.

[dennis tooth]

If I had my time again Id take out the Jay Z reference, it doesnt quite sit right with me.

[The Special One]

Been doing the rounds on Facebook. Looks fake to me. For those who don't want to watch it, it's supposedly him collapsing during his last business meeting.

 

 

Edit: Watched it a second time. Definitely a fake. Waste of time posting this. Apologies.

[Phoenix]

Jesus. Some daft Guardian tributes in here. Oooh, someone rich has died, the fawn of man.

Look he just wasnt that ace. He's gone get over him. Bill Gates had a well bigger impact, theres a lot of people out there who had a bigger impact, some in the background and some not. I was shocked when I seen some Apple fanboy I know on FB saying 'RIP steve Jobs', then it got worse. I cant even beleive this thread exists to be honest never mind some of the dribble. He was the Jay Z of computers, overhyped, overplayed, 'gamechanger' bullshit. Oh pixar, my dear god, fucking cartoons. Watched by sad adults. Yeah gamechanging. Where do people get this shit? A web server, a fucking web server, servicing requests. Well you'd think it would have been inevitable given the nature of the preceding developments. Well you say 'he did it' yeah but it would have been useless without the bits before and since. There are a few things he did have a big impact on of course: Turtle necks, black ones. Polo necks, black ones, he also made pretentious people cool and literally random bantering their way through life, thanks to him. 'His' devices collect data on people's movements without their knowledge, perhaps to preserve his eyebrows in frosted glass is going a bit far. Cut them off and bury him I say, we can always discuss what to do with his eyebrows later. Every day we wake up from this moment we must list his acheivements out loud and feel the connection, identify with this man, it is your destiny if you want to feel freedom, if you say it enough times if we all do, he will have changed the world forever, like the man who decided to fashion his laces cross ways and now we can all follow this visionary, every day, when doing up our laces, out there, breaking boundaries, smashing barriers, live your life like one day you may die and who knows what shite someone may one day associate with you, who knows what the man who cross laces his trainees may have gone onto achieve if he had not fell face first into a pile of beer crates and hard his heart peirced by a shard of plastic? He died penniless and unaware of the impact his innovation would have on the world.

I hear the guy who invented the blackberry has got a cough today, as has his wife, please include him in your prayers. Not her though, she is just a simple dinnerlady, blindly following the overhand soup ladle technique that was taught to her on her first day in the job all those years ago, no innovation, no thought, just doling out soup, day after day, living with the results of other people's thinking. Spluttering up flegm now though bitch arent ya?

Feel that sadness now. Pangs dunnit? I've got more respect for the guy who invented the skip. Innovative genius my elbow!

 

Good stuff.

[dennis tooth]

Another tech pioneer, Dennis Ritchie, passes - Opinion - Al Jazeera English