Steve Jobs passed away.

At lack of better words, will quote the message from Apple.com:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

Well that's out of left field...

Wow. That was fast - well, at least hot on the heels of his stepping down. He has been fighting health issues for a bit, though.

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Just saw. Could care less about pads or phones...but training would never be the same without mah iPod. R.I.P.

Great guy, great genius, all that.

But he didn't invent hardly anything, for all his patents and such. He didn't invent the smartphone. Blackberry's and HTC products were there first. He didn't invent tablet computers. He didn't invent desktop computers. He didn't invent portable mp3 players.

Yet this is what people keep saying. It's not true, stop saying it. If anything, his products focused on superficial aesthetics and made electronic media trendy and simpler to use for newbies. Just like AOL did with the internet, this simplicity retarded the ability of it's users to use related computer products and electronics.

I'm not judging or criticizing. It's just very hard to sit back with this complete lack of perspective or historical accuracy because of the throngs of cultish apple buyers and the media's biased love affair with the company.

RIP Jobs, while I'm sure it wouldn't bother you, you did plenty of good things for the industry, and most people will only know about your I-series of eyecandy coated products.

Was lucky enough to stand near him at an apple expo with my father (a high ranking Apple employee) and I'm very sad to see him pass. Whether or not the numerous Apple-haters of the world want to admit it Jobs did a grand part in changing the world as we know it. My thoughts are with his wife and children, especially his oldest son.

Sudden news. Although the public has known about his battles with cancer, I'm still shocked. Never liked the Apple brand, but Jobs helped push the tech boundary to new limits. RIP sir.

I don't own an iPod, iPhone, or iPad. But the very first computer I ever used back when I was a wee lad was the venerable Apple IIe.

RIP Mr. Jobs.

Back in the day my family had a "trash-80" which I learned to program on, but I got bored with that fairly quickly. Then a friend of mine one day got the first b&w Mac, you know, that had that crazy "mouse" thing on it? Using that, I was thinking "Yeah, this idea has legs." If only I had invested in the company!

I'll always have respect for Job's way of making sure the products were simple and intuitive to use, which is a trait still missing from so much of today's product design, whether it be computers or just about anything else (still looking at you Mr. Gates, after all these years).

Wish people would shut up for a day before starting up the anti-Apple crap. Most Apple employees I know (and I know quite a number) never over-exaggerate the product. People (and the media) do that themselves.

Either way, Steve Jobs did revolutionize industries, just not as a technician himself. The products are still great (though anyone who really believes they're for everybody is lying or ignorant) and did popularize a lot of innovations that they brought to market.

And if you just have to hate Apple, at least respect Mr. Jobs for funding Pixar when no one else wanted to. Does anyone hate Pixar? 'Cause then I'll beat them to a pulp.

The Commencement speech you linked is incredible. It's given me an enormous respect for the man and what he did. The world lost a great man today.

Now we really do lack for Jobs in this county.
He seemed like a cool guy.
R.I.P.

Indeed, RIP Mr Jobs. I'm sure the fine folks at Apple will tend to his family in their time of loss.

RIP Steve Jobs. You gave many people a chance and you were a marketing genius, and you helped shape the industry.

Also I give the man credit for fighting off Pancreatic Cancer for so long as well as surviving that liver transplant he had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Ironically the only thing that the Apple company has every really pioneered is the one thing that most people completely ignore and that is the App store or iTunes... everything else as been tying the app store to a product to make it stream better from developer to client...

Of course in reality the app store is just the digitization of a mall and itune initially started off as a digital music shop that then expanded into other areas... just like a ton of other electronics shops...

of course it's also somewhat ironic that that is the one area that makes a Mac not as good as a PC.

RIP? Heck no. That man has brought this world too much to be content with that. Mr. Jobs will be resting in style.



Love him or hate him, no one can deny that Steve Jobs wasn't a visionary, and for that he deserves some respect. Was he always on the straight and narrow? Of course not. But he was still an overall good-natured and -humored man who lived the American Dream: to raise something from nothing (and a whole lot of something at that) and leave a lasting impression within the world we all share. My hat's off to you, Mr. Jobs. Your dream became a grand work that will be with mankind probably for as long as civilization persists. Good journey to beyond.

I never really aprreciated the impact Steve Jobs had on society until I watched the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. No matter how you feel about Apple, the fact is he changed the world.

Then came back to revolutionize music.

He may not have been the inventor himself but he did something better, he made it accessible and desireable to the masses. He had a knack for seeing how to mold complicated to use devices into stylish and simple pieces of art.

I agree with Devious, Rest in Style Mr. Jobs, and thank you.

I'm not an Apple Hater, nor am I an Apple Fan, but I do appreciate what he did and how he did it. If there's one thing I'll always be eternally grateful for, he was one of the people who helped start and create Pixar, doubt there'll be many people who pull him down for that!

For that alone, he'll be missed.

And whilst I can't say I like the tech aspects of iTunes and how it insinuates itself all over my damn pc for my daughters iPod, it's impossible to deny the effect it's had on the world.

Besides, 56 is too young an age to go nowadays!

What Steve Jobs did was to notice the better way of doing something even though others may have discounted it at the time. He would ask the questions that everyone else thought were already answered.

He may not have been an engineer or a software designer or even an industrial designer but what he had was a vision of what technology could be that others may have discounted or ignored.

Reminds me for the quote from the 80s version of The Fly.

"I farm bits and pieces out to the guys who are much more brilliant than I am. I say, "build me a laser", this. "Design me a molecular analyzer", that. They do, and I just stick 'em together. "

He saw that GUI/Mouse was better than a command line and three letter commands and we end up with the Mac.

He saw MP3s taking off and could see a market for a MP3 player that had enough storage for people to take all their music with them. He later was able to convince the record companies, dragging and screaming, into the world of digital distribution.

He saw that people wouldn't mind having a PC in the living room if it looked stylish and trendy so we got the fruity iMac followed by the luxo iMac and finally the large, thin all in one iMacs we have today.

He saw that people wouldn't mind losing the optical drive out of their laptop if it meant that it was lighter and very thin, the MacBook Air.

He saw that controlling the hardware and the OS you would develop a laptop that could, from a practical point of view, last all day on the internal battery instead of simply making a "me too" pick two laptop (weight, battery life, performance).

He saw mobile phones that had downloadable games and took it to the next level.

He saw that having control over both hardware and the OS meant they could design products that could last all day (from a practical standpoint) on the internal battery.

None of these things used some revolutionary technology that Apple invented. All the tech already was out there but under Jobs Apple was able to give people what they wanted they knew they wanted it. They were able to combine these parts and make significantly better than what came before.

His vision will be missed.

If we are talking about legacy then I think for the sake of balance it should be said that his vision is also leading consumer electronics in a very unhealthy direction of restricted consumer rights and uncompetitive practices.