Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56 Steve Jobs, Apple's cofounder and former CEO, has died. He was 56 years old. His death was reported late Wednesday in a brief statement on Apple's website. Apple's homepage featured a black-and-white photo of Jobs with a closely trimmed beard bearing his name and the years 1955-2011. "Apple has lost a visionary and creative …
"Not a fan of Apple products/ethos, but massive respect for what Steve did with the company and what he helped do to the consumer tech market.
56 is far too young, and he clearly was very passionate about what he did."
Love or hate him and/or share-and-enjoy Gates, they made something available to us that was formerly in the hands only of large corporations, governments and the like, something that has empowered and entertained us so very much that it is almost arterial. I actually liked the NextStep computer, and found myself wishing he'd stay on his own. That's an irony, because I was already deeply embedded in the IBM compatible culture. SPSS in DOS and, later, Windows was one of the reasons. I will one day own a Mac and, oddly enough, last month I nearly bought an iPhone. (I got better though.)
In order to be "One of the greatest minds, businessmen of the era" you have to be "controversial at times". Non-controversial people can never attain the "greatest minds" status.
It should be "One of the greatest minds, businessmen of the era, _BECAUSE_ he was controversial at times".
"Often controversial, he was one of the greatest minds, businessmen of the era."
You got it backwards. While great minds are often controversial, just being controversial does not always indicate a great mind. It has made a few people famous, but still not great.
They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan.
In among all the sycophantic guff being poured out from all directions, I'm still trying to think of one positive innovation you could attribute to him.
Seems to me his greatest achievement was was raising gullible people's expectations about how much money they need spend just to get a cheap, tatty bit of consumer electronics like their mates have.
Sir Cosmo Bonsor:
"In among all the sycophantic guff being poured out from all directions, I'm still trying to think of one positive innovation you could attribute to him."
That's as may be. But sometimes something happens that makes the stark point that there is more to life than whether a particular shiny toy is the world-changing best-ever shiny toy, or an annoyingly disappointing shiny toy.
What people are doing here is holding off on the usual superficial bitching for a moment or two, on account of the fact that a well-known man - quite a personality, by all accounts, whatever you thought of him - has died unreasonably young. This is what people do when they're not sociopathic. Don't get me wrong: I don't generally agree with the current fad for massive outpourings of flamboyant, public grief. Most of us never knew the man, so it's weird, frankly, to act as though we've lost a brother, as some are - but it's human to empathise when someone dies, and to express sympathy, even if the person who's died is someone you didn't like very much.
And to dave 93: I hope that your passing, when it comes - and may that be a very great many years hence - is quick, dignified and without any suffering at all. Even though it seems I disagree with at least one opinion you hold.
"In among all the sycophantic guff being poured out from all directions, I'm still trying to think of one positive innovation you could attribute to him.
Sycophancy? Not possible, SJ would necessarily have to be alive:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/sycophantic?q=sycophant
As to innovation, there is nothing new. All 'new' things are merely the product of crossblending different rule sets. That's why people can frequently point to camouflage or communications techniques in 'nature' (other species) and say it happened before we did it. Overall, it began with binary fission.
Neither am I. Just goes to show you that the "faithful" are nothing but a bunch of Lemmings. Jobs tells/told them to buy...and they buy...regardless of need.
And yes...I do own Apple products, and have for many years (have 2 iMacs & 1 Macbook Pro in my home lab for bench testing purposes, and an iPod in my car), but do not think them superior to ANY computer...simply different. Somethings they do "better" than non-Apple machines...and somethings they do not.
He achieved a cheap, affordable and innovative smartphone that was comparatively light and much more user friendly than others available at the time.
At the time, no mobile phone operators in Australia offered smartphones on a $0 up front plan, and I didn't exactly make enough money to afford paying $800 up front for them.
The release of the iPhone did two things:
1. provided a smartphone for the masses that anyone (and i do mean anyone) could pick up and use without much prompting.
2. forced other companies to follow suit, leading to the genesis of the Android platform and its varied host hardware platforms.
I emplore the reader of this to stop for one second, discard all your preconceptions, prejudices and hubris and think what computing was like a mere 25 years ago. Once you have that image firmly in your mind, pull your smartphone out of your pocket and have a good hard look at it.
Like it or not, Steve Jobs influenced its creation in one form or another, so show some god damned respect!
But it'll be interesting to see how Apple gets on with out Steve Jobs as a crutch.
From what I've heard I wouldn't have wanted to work directly with him, but the world needs people like him to drive things, even if they're driving in an odd direction. He'll leave a big hole in the industry that won't be easily filled.
let me say this.
I hate Apple products.
I hate the legions of drooling fanbois who camp for days to get their latest iCrap product.
I hate Apples business practices of trying to stifle the opposition with patent lawsuits.
Having said all that.
RIP Steve, although I didn't care for your company or it's products, a lot of other people did and you brought that to them. 56 is a young age to go at and my condolences to your friends and famiy.
Pairs, cos she's sad too.
I agree with the personal sentiments, especially about his age. I sort of think you have a weird advantage if you can see the form of your death coming...
However, philosophically, I think the Jobs put profits ahead of freedom. The Apple II started with the philosophy of empowering people, but once the box was closed for the early Mac, the philosophy changed to 'inside is none of your business'. Microsoft adopted the same philosophy with Windows 95, and once again, I disagree with the philosophy but I can't deny that the business model makes sense...
"my sentiments exactly, it's uncouth to qualify condolences." at no point did he qualify his condolences, I'm not sure how you even would.
He stated he was a fan of Apple or the way it was run, but then offered condolences to Steve's family and friends. That to me speaks of giving more respect, I'm sure there will be some very mean comments coming from some quaters of this world.
I have to agree, I'm not a fan of Apple, or the blind following it seems to bring out in some people (some of my friends included). But that does not mean I can't sympathise with Steve Jobs family at this very tough time for them, knowing someone is goign to die in no way makes it any easier when they do.
sweeping statement there, are you somehow taking the moral highground by calling someone you don't know a fucking dork......
Just because you say you hate something doesn't mean you are hateful.
I hate cancer and many other nasty things, does that make me hateful?
Anyway, have a nice day on your high horse. Just be careful you don't fall off....
where am I? I guess you are not asking geographically, but rather trying to say I'm trying to be morally superior? Well I suppose I am, I was trying to make a point without resorting to childish name calling.....
As I said above, I feel it is perfectly fine to dislike the way someone went about their business and still offer condolence at that persons untimely death.
Oh, and nice joke on my handle there. Very funny.
is that a tumbleweed I see....
is all I can say.
Love him or loathe him (I sat in between, I have an iphone and had 2 macbook airs, but also have had probably 3 dozen PCs in my time and 20 nokia phones) you've gotta give the guy credit for literally shaping the world in his image in the past decade.
I really do wonder what Apple will do over the coming years. I simply can't see them staying at this level without Jobs at the keel.
No other company has successfully changed from "committee corporate" culture to "Steve's way".
Steve's way was "No committees, my way or the highway" where the word of the person _RESPONSIBLE_ for a particular item was final and mandatory down the command chain.
In your average corporate you have the headless beast known as the committee "responsible" for every decision at every step. Other companies look at Apple, have a committee driven reorganisation to attempt to imitate it and perform a musical chairs committee rehash to result in another committee structure which is not any closer to Apple's.
The only other big company with top-bottom "my way or the highway" culture out there is Oracle where it predates Steve's second reign at Apple.
Apple did not shape the world in its image. It has shown the world a shape it can attain. The world however is nowhere near attaining it. Also, the bets are still off if Cook possesses the Cenghiz Khan syndrome necessary to continue to run Apple the same way. If he does not, Apple will descend back to where it was in the interregnum when the MBA committee's ruled the way it was run.
I think he was at the helm, rather than the keel, as the latter is the structural element upon which the hull is built.
Never liked Apple products, but that's a matter of personal taste and in no way detracts from a completely non-grudging admission that they're very good pieces of kit. Jobs changed the entire market, and will be greatly missed.
As an ex-Apple fan (the only product I have now is an iPhone 3GS), I have been viewing their direction with increasing dismay.
However, this news saddens me greatly. Steve Jobs may have been more showman than hardcore technologist. But his legacy in the tech world in general is undeniable. He is one of those rare people with that "X-factor" which is unquantifiable.
RIP. You are gone too soon.
I was reading an article on Tim Cook and it caused me to wonder about how much longer SJ would be around.
I hoped it would be quite some time so It saddens me to find out only minutes later that he had passed away.
R.I.P. Steve, I doubt I will see a visionary and businessman of your caliber within what remains of my own lifetime.
<- Divine being icon for obvious reasons
I'm not into Apple at all (more a *nix/WIndows guy) but this is still a sad development. One can just hope that he had some good fun in the last months of his live and wasn't the type of guy who is fully occupied by work and ends up "empty handed" when you quit that job.
A very sad day indeed.
Windows user; not out disrespect but because that is my preferred OS of choice.
Not a fanboi, never purchased any Apple devices for myself.
Much respect for the way Steve Jobs changed the bland dirty white or black computers in to objects of art.
Original iMac - Genius, something even Apple has not really surpassed.
Don't like the business ethics, but have to respect the Jobs effect.
RIP
My coat's the one with no Apple devices....
I'm not a huge Apple fan despite the old Powermac under my desk. I don't like the way they do business, doubt they really have consumers' best interests at heart and am heartily sick of Windows bashing when Apple uses a predefined hardware configuration and doesn't have the necessity to maintain backwards compatibility.
Still, 56 is far too young to die, neither the operating system or mobile phone market would be in the state they currently are now without competition (from all sides, including Apple) and Steve Jobs had admirable marketing and business skills. For that he deserves to be remembered.
>am heartily sick of Windows bashing when Apple uses a predefined hardware configuration
>and doesn't have the necessity to maintain backwards compatibility.
That's a strategy windows chose - to go after the mass market. The probably figured that they
can make more money that way and thereby afford more engineers to support a variety of configurations - first part of which is correct as well. And they have a lot of engineers as well.
If they are not able to do that, it's their fault. Their strategy to throw people at problems of software engineering failed. Its not Apple's fault that their greedy rival (in PC biz) can not deliver a high quality product due to their (poor?) strategic decisions. M$ owned (still does?) the personal computing platform for 2 decades. They could have done anything with it had they fired the tunnel visioned middle management and hired some fresh blood. They didn't. Their FAIL.
If you'd used a windows pc in the last decade you'd know windows has been a high quality product all that time. But that wasn't enough to end the meme in the apple cult that windows crashes all the time. I've used all sorts of hardware and software, plugged in many cheap devices, and found that it just works.
I was using apps on a touch screen smartphone for years before the iphone. What I see now is eulogies from people who couldn't see the future I saw except with Apple's guidance. It's weird to me to see all that stuff about how Jobs changed the world, or even people's lives.
agree
I've had a windows 2000 server PC's run literally 450 days non stop on the internet (as a web, FTP, and e-mail server) without a reboot or shutdown. Actually the only reason it did go down was we lost power for 2 days... Came right back up, and stayed on another 200 days till a drive failed. Al the while it was being hammered non-stop by people trying to brute force the FTP server. I've had the same experience with XP, and 7... (Will admit 95, and 98 had a nasty memory leak that took a few weeks of being left running non-stop to rear its ugly head...)
Only time I have EVER had stability issues was when a hardware company screwed up a driver(was a $5 fire wire card), running a poorly written program, or the computer had more viruses on it than a $10 crackhead hooker has STDs. I do not attribute any of those blue screens to Microsoft though. I'll be honest I think they do a damn good job at keeping as much backwards compatibility as they do
"If you'd used a windows pc in the last decade you'd know windows has been a high quality product all that time."
Seriously? After using Windows since 3.1, it was the dog that is Vista that finally pushed me over to the 'dark side'.
Now lets get back on topic! RIP Steve. You will be missed!
I sold my iPhone, given to me as a birthday gift, in order to be free of the walled proprietary gardens created by corporations such as Apple. Yet every other day I use the Apple sponsored CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) to print from my free operating system. It's a funny old world. Goodbye Mr. Jobs, and all the best.
I am conflicted... pancreatic cancer is a horrible way to die, and his passing at such a young age is surely a loss for his family and friends. But I am almost equally saddened to see a man with such a complicated past, and a reputation as a ruthless competitor, compared in all seriousness to Jesus Christ. A great man is not always a good man.
Very sad news. Whatever people think of Apple as it is now, its products or its ethos, it's hard to argue there are many people who will have such a profound impact on the technology we use and the way we perceive it as Steve Jobs did. I think his long term legacy will be the now entrenched understanding that good design and usability are not at odds with packing in plenty of functionality - not a bad mark to leave on the world.
RIP and thanks.
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For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And remember my IT friends: Tomorrow check the Apple stocks. Let's see if the predictions are true.
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Nicely written. I was, for many years, a Mac fanatic. Although in the last decade I went in other directions and have only acquired an iPod nano and a Touch, my own work and design ethos has been formed from my experiences with Apple products. May every Mac ever made issue a chime for Steve Jobs.
That is very sad news and whilst I'm not a fan of the present day Apple business practices I am very sorry to hear he has died. I am old enough to remember the first Apple computers and I can't help remembering back to those early days now. He has been there in the news, throughout my whole time in (and memory of) the computer industry. Right back to the early home computer pioneering days back in the early 1980's when I was just a kid, preparing to get into the industry. Steve Jobs influence on the Industry has always been there. So its hard to believe he is no longer here, that he has died. It feels like the end of an era and what an era it has been and I can't help wondering what more could he have done in the years to come, if only he had not been so ill and had lived. 56 was way too young to die. :(
I feel very sorry for his family and it is very sad for his kids that they have lost their father so young in their lives.
A very sad day. :(
RIP
Thanks for all the cool products and all those "one more things".
Oh and why do people need to say "I never bought your products", what difference does that make? Finally good to see the retards are here too. Wouldn't be a reg forum if there weren't some dickheads posting the kind of crap above.
It is indisputable that Jobs was good at running Apple and making lots of money, but I do object to him being labelled a creative Genius, with at least one observer likening him to a modern Edison. Just what is it that Steve invented? It was Steve Wozniak that designed the Apple II, but there were microcomputers around before that. The iPod was not the first mp3 player by any stretch of the imagination. Nor was the iPad the first tablet. The MACos uses the Mach micro kernel which jobs had nothing to do with, and the BSD Unix kernel - again no Jobs involvement with that. Software for the Mac is written in Objective-C - not a Jobs invention either. The windows and mice GUI paradigm that entered the market with the first MAC was not invented by Jobs either - that was done at Xerox PARC.
That he was really good or perhaps even brilliant at seeing a business opportunity and heading up a large corporation, does not make him an inventive Genius in the mold of an Edison or the many other real inventive geniuses that built the technology which Jobs used to make apple products.
Its sad to see anyone die of course, and its always nice to find some good words to say about someone, but inventive genius? Not the correct accolade for this person.
Steve Jobs' talent was in putting together the whole package, not necessarily developing the individual pieces. When other large companies put a product together, they frequently stop short of defining the whole experience, leaving irritating holes in the functionality or making the way things work blatantly inconsistent. Although Apple products also suffer from similar misfeatures - something not typically acknowledged by those wanting to assert the notion of Apple's superiority in "design" - it is clear that the company's engineers spend a bit more effort than others would, maybe at the insistence of a corporate culture laid down by Jobs himself.
It is, of course, sad to hear of the loss of the life of another human being, and I hope that everyone is able to continue the man's legacy by acknowledging and being inspired by those contributions they feel Steve Jobs made during his life to the benefit of human society.
(And with regard to Edison, I don't think that it helps to put the man on a pedestal. It is widely known and documented that the man had his talents, and can also be regarded to have had broad ambitions, but he also had many failings and a questionable ethical record.)
First off my true condolences to Steve's Wife and his children. It is a terrible thing to watch a loved one grow sick before they leave you for good, and I hope they can find some healing in the outpouring of love that comes from the Press and the Apple community. As a long time dis-liker of Apple and his business practices, I can say without any bias or motive, that he was a right decent Human being, and was a great productive member of our society. For anyone to put him down personally, or bring up stupid windows/apple arguments in this forum is without taste, and shows a remarkably low quality of character.
The one fly in the ointment for me is the demagoguery and idolatry that the press seems determined to practice for a story. On the radio this morning I heard Steve get credit for making the first personal computer, founding Pixar, and introducing the world to the mouse and GUI with his McIntosh, then returning to apple to create the Imac, Ipod and other wonders. Wozniak, the engineers that really made the mouse and GUI out at Xerox's Palo-Alto research center, the geniuses who really sold the first home PC kits that brought computers to the home (even if you did have to bit a soldering yourself: Atari, Amiga and dozens of nameless) and all the intelligent people who engineered and designed products for Apple over the years have their due credit taken from them when this type of idolatry is practiced, they are the ones damaged, and my heart goes out to them as well. Giving him credit for making Pixar, when he only invested money in it, takes away the glory from the nameless group of founders and animators that made it a reality. It is perhaps fitting to compare him to Edison though, like Edison, Steve had the smarts to higher brilliant people to work for him, and Edison hardly invented anything, the labs that he ran and funded however did, so he does deserve that credit at least.
Steve was a great businessman, a visionary business leader, extremely wealthy, and as mentioned above, a decent human being a productive contributor to our society in many significant measurable ways. Let him stand on his own merits, and appreciate him for who he was and his real accomplishments.
Requiesce in pace Steve.
Love or Hate Apple, toast to Steve and his Family tonight
I think the best way to describe his role was as a conductor - he knew how to get the right team around him and motivate them to deliver his vision. And it was a multifaceted vision - produce easy to use good looking stuff, make a ton of money and keep complete control. Sure the technology wasn't always innovative as he claimed and the approach to business was sometimes a tad unethical but somehow the package was often much more than the sum of the parts.
Whatever you think of the resulting products (I loved some of them, hated others) - I think the world is poorer for no longer having Steve in it.
I've used many computers in the last 20 years (Unix, Windows, SGI, Amiga, Mac) - but playing around with using MacDraw for DTP in 93 was when it clicked just how revolutionary computers could be as a creative tool. Before then my only experience had been DOS and WordPerfect - and so a tip of the hat to you, Steve, for providing the initial inspiration.
Polo neck is British, turtleneck is USAian. Same thing, don't own one myself as they tend to interfere with my beard.
Respects to Jobs and his grieving family, in all the fluff that will be puffed over the next few days we need to remember that, he and his contemporaries have indeed shaped our current technology, not because of any altruism but because they wanted to make money. No problem with that but don't make him out to be some great humanitarian, he was a motivated, clever, business man with a very large ego and a flair for success.
It used to appear that only saints and other totally good people ever died, because there were strong prohibitions against people who even dared to mention a tiny flaw in their comments about a recently dead person. I am glad that this tradition has been challenged a little recently so that a more rational and objective view of someone can be arrived at to avoid the rather over-the-top appearences of grief accompanying the death of someone who one didn't know and didn't even meet, except indirectly, when handing over money for a gadget marketed by a company headed up by the person who has died. By all accounts, Jobs was a businessman who knew what to market, how to market it, and how to retain control of it by aggressive (some might say combative) actions against other firms perceived to have infringed on "his company's" area of control. He engendered a fierce brand loyalty in certain people, so that those who want to put a more balanced view forward now may have to fight to get ourselves heard over the adulatory comments made in his favour. He was a man, an imperfect man, as we all are. He was not a creative genius on the same level as Edison (as another site would have us believe).
It is sad that he has died. It is particularly sad for his friends and family, but for most of the rest of us, if we can avoid being carried along by the hype, it is just another event that happens every day to some family in the world, and they all deserve our sympathy and compassion. However, we should not do his memory an injustice by making him our to be some kind of hero or genius, or saint when we express our sadness at this event.
The comments have mostly been quite balanced — see the large number of people saying essentially "great man, but his flaws stopped me from buying the company's products". Those struggling to be heard are the predictable pack of dogmatic knee-jerk critics, jumping on the death of a human being as another opportunity to pull out their soapbox and preach.
Adulatory comments aren't hard to come by but at least here they're by no means in the majority.
Apart from the obvious innovations and trend setters, he left an invaluable quote...
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
He'll be sadly missed indeed.
Steve Jobs, like him or loathe him changed to world and not many people are able to do that. Those of us who'd rather not use Apple kit understand that what he did forced others to innovate to keep up. Id vouch companies outside Apple owe him a lot more than they realise because of this, HTC for one.
Its not a nice way to go and it is too young so lets not argue over right or wrong and just silently raise a glass at the pub today for someone who really did think different.
Messenger: Steve Jobs is dead.
Octavius: [Quietly, stunned] Is that how one says it? As simply as that? Steve Jobs is dead. Steven Paul Jobs is dead! The soup is hot, the soup is cold, Steve Jobs is living, Steve Jobs is dead.
[He suddenly turns and begins to shout.]
Shake with terror when such words pass your lips, for fear they be untrue! And Steve cut out your tongue for the lie, if not true! For your lifetime boast that you were honoured to speak his name even in death! The dying of such a man must be shouted, screamed...it must echo back from the corners of the universe. Steve Jobs is dead! Steve Jobs of Apple lives no more!
I am a late convert to all things Apple and I'm glad I've made the move.
Steve had the ability to make even the most mundane tech seen new and exciting. To my mind he always put the "average" not "techy" user first and tried to make Apple products usuable by as many people as possible to the extent that my 2 year old can use an iPod! He gave people not so much what they wanted but made them want what they didn't even know they needed and had them enjoy whatever product they bought.
56 is way to young to die with a good 30 years ahead of him.
RIP Steve.
I have to say I have never been a fan of Steve, but it does leave the world that little bit poorer.
Love him or loathe him, the man saved Apple with the understanding what people want is a tool. And as we lose the really great innovators from the market place. Who do we really have that are the big polarising characters in our industry.
Steve, RIP in peace. You will be missed, for without polarising characters like yourself, I fear antipathy will set in.
Go with God, and my thoughts go with your family as any loss is one loss to many.
He brought to both the computer world and to the mobile world a new way of using technoligy and challenging the oppersition to do better than apple. I, for one, might have disagreed with some of the things that Steve Jobs said, but at the end of the day he was visionary, a mavarick, but he saw markets that no other had thought of.
Today the world has lost a giant in the it industry, who next will fill that viod and step on the shoulders of steve jobs.
Rest in peace Steve.
You changed to world. Which is something not many of those who seem to feel the need to use this as a chance to remind us yet again that they don't like Apple. Heres some other breaking news for you. Nobody cares.
RIP Steve you were one of a kind and I doubt we'll see the likes of you and Mr Gates anytime soon. I raise a glass to you. Cheers.
Everyone is going to want to show their grief so instead of wearing a black tie, black armband, they can all now buy black iPhone 4GS's.
Solves the problem of needing to supply them in white which I understand has been troublesome. Never let it be said he didn't give his all for the company.
Bert Jansch also died yesterday.
A true creative genius who changed music even more than the iPod. A brief mention in a news summary not the lead item. This is about power, not about changing our lives for the better.
I do not wish to appear uncharitable. Jobs was probably a better family man than Jansch and it is the family's loss we should mourn. And I feel dirty posting this. But when it comes to marking the passing of anyone we should not lose perspective.
A very great business leader. What marks him out from his contempories (Ellison, Gates etc) is not that he built a global business, but he re-built a global business. Great men can usually only do it once. Steve did it twice. Just go easy on the creative god-like stuff.
i didn't really see this coming, i knew the man was sick, but i thought he was going to recover.
I think i've been one of the more vocal Apple haters on here, but that's no reason not to honor a man who's been so important for this company and has helped move mobile computing forward.
RIP Steve
US Patent 8,032,843, issued October 4, 2011
Inventors: Ording; Bas (Sunnyvale, CA), Jobs; Steven P. (Palo Alto, CA), Lindsay; Donald J. (Mountain View, CA)
Assignee: Apple Inc. (Cupertino, CA)
Claim 1
A method for displaying graphical representations of launchable applications on a display of a device comprising: displaying on the display a visible mechanism for launching one or more launchable applications, wherein the visible mechanism comprises multiple user-activatable graphical representations that respectively correspond to multiple launchable applications; detecting a position of a user input proximate to at least one of the graphical representations; in response to the detecting, increasing in size the at least one of the graphical representations; and increasing one or more of the remaining graphical representations to one or more respective sizes, each size being at least approximately inversely related to a distance between the respective one of the remaining graphical representations and the detected position.
No comment
It won't be his last. Steve is named as an inventor in numerous patent applicaitons still pending.
Never bought into the i* thing. Was impressed by the Apple Lisa, after than, no.
Mr. Jobs, the man... A great loss to his family, my condolences to them.
A loss to the business world? well, that depends on your views of his business ethics. As others have said, like him or loath him, he had a tremendous impact on the way we now live our lives.
Under his steerage, Apple produced the iMac that proved to all us frustrated Windows users that a computer could look good, work well and be easy and logical to use - simultaneously; they introduced the iPod that changed the way we carry our music around; they created the revolutionary and beautiful iPhone UI, and, at a stroke, changed the way we interact with mobile phones, leaving every other manufacturer's products looking staid, dusty and old. Finally the iPad, which is still so far ahead of its rivals in terms of form and function combined, that it's hard to say where it will go and what it will do.
A talented man, who seemed to know how to nurture other talent, to bring out the best in his team and company.
May he rest in peace.
..fatally stupid in others: Steve Jobs would probably be alive today if he hadn't decided that a naturopath and "alternative" medicine (that is to say, an alternative to medicine that actually has some evidence behind it) was a better way to fight pancreatic cancer: http://skeptoid.com/blog/2011/10/05/a-lesson-in-treating-illness/
Philbo you might be interested to know that pancreatic cancer has a 5 year survival rate of 4-5% with the average lifespan from diagnosis to death being 5-6 months so to survive 7 years means Steve Jobs was doing something right. And before you say "he was rich and could afford the best" I'm a doctor and pancreatic cancer is a f***k*r of an illness and it will get you, rich or poor , in the end and I would never call a patient stupid for trying anything they think may help as death sadly draws closer.
Steve Jobs battled against the "dying light" in public with dignity and appeared to lack self-pity so good on him.
If you'd followed the link I posted, you'd have seen:
"Most pancreatic cancers are aggressive and always terminal, but Steve was lucky (if you can call it that) and had a rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which is actually quite treatable with excellent survival rates — if caught soon enough. The median survival is about a decade, but it depends on how soon it’s removed surgically."
I was never a fan of apple's policy, prices, and all the hype around apple's products, but i gotta admit, i admired Jobs. He had a vision, and the strength to make it true.
The IT world needed people like him, and we've just lost a great visionary. I was really sorry to hear of his death.
Men like that are few, and needed.
He will be missed.
Rest in peace, Jobs.
From non-mac fan that admits Steve did an admirable job. (no pun intended)
Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs' death is a huge loss to the world of business.
First, of course, there's Jobs' sales skills.
There are clips of him from way back in Apple's earliest days, and it's clear from these that Jobs' sales skills were _learned_, not something he was born with. Those old clips show a shy, rather uncomfortable figure who was not at home in the limelight. During the 1990s, he learned how to present. How to sell. He rehearsed each presentation endlessly, and had a team backing him up with graphics. He had backup plans for when things went wrong. He knew his products thoroughly, so he could go off-script if needed. That's all there was to his "Reality Distortion Field". He wasn't a god. He was just _good at his job_.
Another of Steve Jobs' strengths was his ability to spot good talent and let it to do what it did best.
But Jobs' biggest strength was his willingness to take calculated risks. He genuinely gambled. This is crucial to running a successful, continuing, business.
Had it not been for Jobs, there would likely be no Pixar today—Jobs almost gave up on the company, but agreed to make one last bet, on a feature-length CGI movie named "Toy Story". How many CEOs wold have done so? I'd wager very few. Risk-aversion is still the norm in business today.
Jobs' NeXT company, initially a high-end (Jobs clearly had no interest in compromising designs to hit low prices, even back then) computer workstation manufacturer, built an operating system with a user interface that was considered state of the art and well ahead of its competition. That operating system became OS X when Jobs returned to Apple.
And Jobs took a massive gamble on an Apple designer's vision: Jonathan Ive. Jobs gave Jonathan almost carte blanche to reinvent Apple's entire product line. The result was a return to the classic design-led approach that has been Apple's trademark ever since. It was Jobs who agreed to dropping the 3.5" floppy drive, dropping the Mac's legacy ports entirely, and adopting USB wholeheartedly in that first iMac.
Now the crucial thing is that Jobs did _not_ hire Jonathan Ive; he was already an Apple employee. Nor was Jobs at Apple when Ive's iMac was originally given the green-light.
Jobs could so easily have canned it. Most CEOs would have done, preferring to stamp their own ego on their new baby as soon as possible. But Steve Jobs recognised that even a stopped clock tells the right time at least once a day (twice if it's a 12-hour clock), and realised the iMac was the product Apple needed, and Ive was the lead designer Apple needed too. Both choices were huge risks.
The conservative, risk-averse IT industry and its acolytes felt the iMac should have failed. Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy at this point, yet the first iMacs flew in the face of IT traditions of machines that could be tinkered with, customised, and mucked about with like early motor cars. The iMac was doomed to fail!
How wrong they were.
Consumers didn't give a damn about the IT industry fanboys' worthless traditions: they just wanted an appliance that worked without any fuss. A machine that didn't require having a high priest of computing on speed dial for when it inevitably went horribly wrong. Consumers valued convenience over archaic, anachronistic "old-school" computing's pseudo-religious traditions, born in the age of mainframes and punched cards and of little relevance to 99.999% of people today.
Apple shattered those traditions by putting the user—not the hacker, BOFH, or any other IT fanboy—first. And, since the first Macintosh computer, this was Apple's core business. They lost that focus when Jobs left for the first time, and suffered the consequences.
Sometimes, a gamble didn't pay off—the G4 Cube is a perfect example of a gamble that didn't pay off, as were ".Mac" and "MobileMe". And that's precisely _why_ Apple squirrelled away so much of its profits into its corporate mattress: you need a financial cushion to ride out those duds and pick up the pieces. Apple did not always get it right. And Jobs freely admitted it.
*
If Steve Jobs has taught the industry anything at all, it's that risk is inherent to success. Nobody, no company, no product, became great by playing it safe. That's why CEOs have historically been paid lots of money: they're _supposed_ to take risks and take the responsibility for those risks. The problem of late is that so many of them are rewarded for blundering, failure and risk-averse conservatism. Or for simply trying to take their previous company's core strengths with them and impose it on the new company, as if every corporation was interchangeable. (Yes, Apotheker, I'm looking at you.)
So the legacy of Steve Jobs is that he's shown the world how businesses _should_ be run. What a good CEO _should_ be like.
If the business world learns this lesson, that will truly be a hell of a legacy. There could be no better memorial.
its a big loss, love him or loathe him, he made a big impact in the digital world, my only issue now will be the divine saint like status fanboys will bestow upon him, i even found one guy on another forum i use declaring "Probably the only person you could say has changed the way the world works!" which got my rather cross.
you just wait for the statues to show up....
RIP Steve "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum"
Steve was annoying, aloof and obnoxious. He was also clever, charming and revolutionary.
If you take that last word, "revolutionary", we have to say he's repeatedly been that. From the early days forming Apple with Woz to today, he's been an influencer and he's changed the way we computer many times over.
He has been so driven that he threatens the dumbest computer component we all use today - the keyboard. Bravo.
For what it's worth, I have a couple of Apple products but, maybe due to the success of the Apple consumer products, I avoid them. But that's me trying to be an individual and not one of the sheeple (not saying that's wrong, by the way).
We would not be where we are today without Steve. He's been THE influencer of our generation.
I have, in my mind's eye, an image of Steve somewhere....sitting with his iPhone5 thanking the Lord for not having to suffer AT&T coverage anymore...!
RIP, Steve, I raise a beer to you; you will _never_ be forgotten.
If I were to write an eulogy:
+ : Without you, Jobs, no Apple, no Apple ][+, which was my first machine *ever*. Wasn't just Woz even though he was probably the more technical... No Jobs... No Apple I, ][ etc..
- : What has Apple become? Why? Does the end justify the means? And the means is repugnant. Price premium I can handle, but... Lockdown? Espionage, invasion of privacy (err... "undocumented features")? How could you condone this? Your China practices... well everyone does it, innit? but that doesn't make it any more right.
Apple became a strong force under you but ...turned gradually.. more and more ... I will say it.. frankly...
...Evil.
We can all be idealists but let's all see the reality here. What cost does one pay to subscribe to the Apple cult?
Jobs, what have you done?
I'll have NO part in your Apple now.
Nevertheless, Respect given where due. Ultimately I owe you (quite!) some, I'll grudgingly admit. You and Woz got me started in computers and that's saying a lot. I'm here aren't I?
Mr. Jobs, I salute (albeit grudgingly) your departure into the great beyond. You were once an iconic figure to me, but you fell far from that pedestal from what you have done. You are well exemplary of Man, capable of good yet so much evil. I guess that's what it boils down to. We are all human and so flawed. So I wish you well. My condolences to your next of kin. I shall remember the lot of yous in my prayers and I am being frank and not being sarcastic here.
What happens now is between you and God.
It could very well be that the guy that designed my toaster is dead. If so it is obviously a tragedy for his family and possibly the toaster company as he is/was obviously a very good toaster designer (its a nice toaster). That's all though.
Let’s not have a Princess Di style parade of sentimental bullshit. We are not talking about someone that cured cancer while living in poverty - we are talking about someone that designed consumer electronics to make himself rich. Good luck to him, but frankly people more deserving of your tears die every day unnoticed and unrecognised.
I'm not speaking ill of the dead here, but I'm not going to sugar coat this either. Steve Jobs, for all he has done for Apple and CG movies, was by all accounts a vicious person to work for or compete against. He is famous for berating his own people in front of their peers and in general tearing them apart. That said I did respect his focus, his drive, his sense of design, his ability to adapt to play the game long enough to assume control, and his refusal to march to anyone's drum but his own.
Fifty six is too young. Rest In Peace Mr. Jobs.
Like you, I can't speak from experience of having met the boundah, but with experience of having worked with some people who were outrageously successful it is a fact that personal success does not come with having a pleasant attitude with work colleagues.
That's why I shall always be lowly in terms of my personal achievements. Because I'm such a nice guy you see....
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It is a sad day, not just for Apple fans, but all computer fans. He may not have invented the mouse or icons, but he did make it available to the wider world. His support for the early days of Pixar was revolutionary, and we have him to thank for the wonderful enjoyment we all have had from Pixar films.
The world is full of successful business leaders who got lucky, and led a company to greatness by being in the right place at the right time. Afterwards they move on and live overpaid lives where they achieve little more.
Apple, Pixar, NeXT (aka the tech that took Apple from their shares being suspended to biggest in the world)... To lead THREE companies from obscurity to household names. That's not luck - that's the stuff of legend.
Even if you hate Apple you can't deny he's turned the company into a giant and he did it after being told he wasn't needed.
And for those that don't like the products, think of the millions of people who do who have had a smile on their face when they get it as a gift. The man has put smiles on the faces of many.
Finally, my thoughts are with his family and friends at what must be a very difficult time.
I make no bones about my opinions of Apple and Steve Jobs. Both ruthless to the core (pardon the pun), plus their products are always hyped up out of all proportion to what they actually are - basic items with a bit of style. However, my sympathies to Jobs' family. 56 is no age at all and he's certainly been very unlucky with his health, and I certainly would have not wished those related problems on him.
RIP Steve, I'm sorry to see you go.
Many complaints here re: Steve, not being a real innovator, being a jerk with colleagues, being too controlling, etc.
I think all of the complaints disappear if you view the man as an artist. He wanted to make beautiful pieces of hardware and software:
- Innovation: most painters don't 'innovate' their own canvas, paints, or even genre of painting, but they can still produce beautiful, innovative paintings.
- Being a controlling jerk: like any artist would, he clearly wanted his "art" to be made in a very specific way (by his employees) and for the public to appreciate it in a certain way. Just like Leonardo wouldn't want the Mona Lisa printed on novelty toilet paper, Jobs didn't want customers to dirty their iPhones with "swype keyboards" and sideloaded apps.
It just so happened that his art intersected with the business/commercial world in a unique way that many unfortunately found offensive.
I remember seeing him holding that first ipad when it was released and thinking, “thats nuts he's totally lost it, it's a big iphone and it'll never take off”. big time egg on face for me! He was an exceptional visionary like gates who somehow could see what the next ‘missing’ device or product was .
Apple products are generally not the best in the class and don’t offer great value for money either which is why I normally stay away but a number of the devices I carry today are based on apple products. Where apple/jobs excelled by far was making him (self confessed geek) cool and making electronic devices appear cool too. He had a massive effect on the whole tech industry and he’ll be missed but it even his competitors as well of course by those twits that queue up at midnight to get the latest ipad and then clap each other on the way out if they need a new leader I am available
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