RIP Steve Jobs

@evildictaitor: Let's not forget the teams behind the person. It's not like he did all this on his own.

Also, he did not invent many of the things he get's credit for, he perfected them. Where his competitors had products that scored 6 out of 10, Apple's products always scored 10 out of 10.

That to me is his big achievement, taking the consumer seriously and putting the consumer central in his strategy. Coming up with new ideas using existing technology. Hell, they created a whole lifestyle around their products. This sort of focus is what I miss in almost any other company. I hope they keep the innovation up and stop with these rediculous lawsuits.

As we on this forum know more about computers than average people I'm sure you've experienced people mention to you that they don't understand how computers work. When you try to explain that it's not them as the computers shouldn't necessarily be that hard to use and it's the design that is systematically wrong it's too easy to feel like a conspiracy theorist. So many times Steven provided us with proof that the industry was in fact wrong. There's no doubt that there are many flaws in Apple products, but he also did away with large flaws that were widely shared among his competition. Jobs followed Einstein's advice - iPad is as simple as it could be but not any simpler. iPad doesn't need instructions, it is intuitive. And I think it should be used as an example to how software should be done and this example will be his legacy.

RIP Steve. 

I'll miss Steve's presentations and his style - he has charisma and knows how to deliver a presentation, he could sell you Windows 3.1 if he thought it would do you any good.

As long as Apple maintains the "we don't ship crappy products" rule that Steve imposed when he returned then no harm will come to the company - but Tim Cook will need to work on being more distinctive. Steve was instantly recognisable: a distinctive voice and wardrobe, whereas everyone else (Cook, Johnson, Mansfield, etc) all look the same: greying-haired people in blue suit shirts and slacks. Unless you already know them well you couldn't tell once set of vocal chords from the other (except Jony Ive, of course).

Tim Cook as the replacement CEO was a good call, but he should have made Ive the replacement company spokesperson - he is more instantly recognisable (though I appreciate Ive prefers to stay out of the limelight).

I'm surprised, but I actually got seriously upset when I heard about this. The computer industry will not be the same without Steve Jobs.

@Bass: I am not surprised, it was expected, but feel immensely sad nevertheless.

There are all but a handful of people that change the rules of a Game, and he will always contend for the top seat.

I've heard it said before, and I tend to agree... Jobs was not an "inventor" comparable to those such as Edison, but he was a product/market visionary and is reasonably comparable to Howard Hughes.

1 day ago, Charles wrote

His was the art of making computing a human experience.

C

There you have it. When he is remembered as an inventor, I feel people get it wrong. What he did was just as important. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, you can't have one without the other, as much as fanboys from both sides like to deny it.

Come to think of it, he might have been an inventor, in this case of the human experience of computers. As I said: just as important as the invention of computers and the invention of computers in the home.

9 hours ago, elmer wrote

I've heard it said before, and I tend to agree... Jobs was not an "inventor" comparable to those such as Edison, but he was a product/market visionary and is reasonably comparable to Howard Hughes.

That's fair enough. His talent was having a clear long-term vision for what people wanted before they knew they wanted it, then to drive and inspire others to deliver that vision.

And speaking of long term, the Times (I think) said that Jobs and his team still have about four years worth of product releases to carry that vision forward.

A huge loss and, as Bass said, very saddening.

Don't forget the CUBE. Steve Jobs was also on the forefront of advanced server and network hardware architecture at a time when people did not even know about laptops or mobile phones. He put 10, 100, 1000 and Bluetooth on old G4 laptops. He pioneered the hardware side of the Industry and was the only American entrepreneur who made a dent. He foresaw the distributed computing side of the market and understood the artistic selling points better than anyone else because he was one himself. iTunes made Apple and pushed the entire World into wireless network upgrades from old phone systems, leading to video, laptops, smart phones and now iPads and other flat touch UI. He paved the way. Imagine what he might have accomplished in the next 25 years had his energetic life not ended so soon! He was also very kind to other entrepreneurs, very human. He was full of ambitious plans when he left Apple and created NEXT. It seems his only real vacation was the few weeks when he was not working while dying of cancer. To the young boy in overalls working in his garage, may your journey into the other side be as exciting as your life was.

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/68434141@N04

This website just hates mobile. I tried to paste a url 5 times in android, and it never works. There is some mobile hating javascript that disables the box when it loads on page init.

I took these pictures a few minutes ago on my way home from the beach because you know, I write all my code on the sand on my Apple Macbook Pro now and stuff. My office is the beach now. As most of you know I do stuff simply because I can.

So these are from the Santa Monica Apple store about 30 minutes ago.

iLitter

@ComeOnBeer: Why do tacky people feel obligated to leave slime trails behind them, as if they were some vomit leaking mollusk? I guess there is no accounting for taste.

-Josh

@ComeOnBeer: I don't get the flowers at the Apple Store thing.

What are these people trying to say? What does that tell us about them?

I could understand if you wrote a letter to the family, about how he affected your life, because previously you owned another type of computer, phone or mp3 player and that you feel very sorry for their loss.

But flowers at the Apple Store? It's a store, you buy stuff there! It almost feels like the Apple Store is considered somekind of place of worship or something.

Seems like they forget that Steve is a person first and head of a company second.

Just confuses the hell out of me.

@Maddus Mattus: Ever been to an Apple store? It's more a place of worship than a shop (apparently they don't even have sales targets) so I'm not really surprised that folk have left flowers there. Might leave a card myself if I'm passing.

Are those half-eaten apples?

@Ray7: looks like it

Been there once, I felt out of place, old, could not operate the products, I am not a hipster..