RIP Steve Jobs

[billy ross]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/St...mpid=125219969

A beautiful mind has left us, sadly. Modern medicine couldn't save him.

[ArcticSplash]

Apple Apple's covered over their front page.

[The Count]

A tremendous loss for the world; such an admirable leader and inventor.

[gren]

He was impressive at Apple, but I really like him for sticking with Pixar through its time of unprofitability.

[borntochill]

The Jobs funeral will be a stylish and expensive affair that attendees will passionately report as being way cooler than other funerals. When the eulogy is given, the microphone will cut in and out and people in the audience will have a difficult time making out what is being said.

I know, I know. Too soon.

RIP Steve.

[Dayman]

A tremendous loss for the world; such an admirable leader and inventor.

Really? Really? A tremendous loss? A tremendous loss is if a world leader died. He made electronics. Wait, no, he managed an electronics company because the amount of time he actually worked on them himself was short. He denied paternity of his daughter, was cutthroat and ripped off Wozniak, founded a company that contracts out labor where employees are mistreated, and was a smug douchey all around dick.

No, the world is a better place now that this dope is gone.

[Hospitalitygirl]

Really? Really? A tremendous loss? A tremendous loss is if a world leader died. He made electronics. Wait, no, he managed an electronics company because the amount of time he actually worked on them himself was short. He denied paternity of his daughter, was cutthroat and ripped off Wozniak, founded a company that contracts out labor where employees are mistreated, and was a smug douchey all around dick.

No, the world is a better place now that this dope is gone.

Oh good, it's not just me wondering WTF all of these platitudes are for.

[Alley]

Oh good, it's not just me wondering WTF all of these platitudes are for.

Include me too!
Great business men pass away all the time I don't get all the hoopla?

[The Count]

[Hospitalitygirl]

Who hates?

He is a businessman. Visionary for his field perhaps, but for the world...meh, not so much.

ETA--except to get people to pay more money for a computer...and a phone...

[torts]

He changed the world more than most world leaders will ever hope to do. And he did it without invading, killing, or destroying a currency. He did it by making stuff people want. World leaders should look to him for inspiration.

[Eastcoast]

All this makes me want to go to my storage unit dig out my Quadra 900 and give it a big hug!

RIP SJ

[borntochill]

Who hates?

He is a businessman. Visionary for his field perhaps, but for the world...meh, not so much.

ETA--except to get people to pay more money for a computer...and a phone...

Exactly.

[torts]

Bill Gates said: "The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.'

Mark Zuckerberg: 'Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.'

Tim Cook: 'Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.'

Barack Obama: 'He transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.'

Larry Page said: 'He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance. He always seemed to be able to say in very few words what you actually should have been thinking before you thought it. His focus on the user experience above all else has always been an inspiration to me.'

Rupert Murdoch said: 'Today, we lost one of the most influential thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs of all time. Steve Jobs was simply the greatest CEO of his generation. While I am deeply saddened by his passing, I'm reminded of the stunning impact he had in revolutionizing the way people consume media and entertainment. My heart goes out to his family and to everyone who had the opportunity to work beside him in bringing his many visions to life.'

Dmitri Medvedev said : 'People like Steve Jobs change our world. My sincere condolences to his loved ones and to everyone who admired his intellect and talent'.

Tony Blair said: 'As much as anyone in any walk of life in the early 21st century he changed people's lives simply by imagination and determination. His memory will serve as a symbol of what the human mind can achieve.'

British Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'Steve Jobs transformed the way we work and play; a creative genius who will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his family.'

Paul Allan, co-founder of Microsoft, said: 'We've lost a unique tech pioneer and auteur who knew how to make amazingly great products. Steve fought a long battle against tough odds in a very brave way. He kept doing amazing things in the face of all that adversity. As someone who has had his own medical challenges, I couldn't help but be encouraged by how he persevered.'

Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, co-CEOs of Blackberry-maker Research in Motion, said : 'Steve Jobs was a great visionary and a respected competitor.'

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said the U.S. had 'lost a genius who will be remembered with Edison and Einstein'.

Jeff Bewkes, chief executive of Time Warner, said: 'The world is a better place because of Steve, and the stories our company tells have been made richer by the products he created. He was a dynamic and fearless competitor, collaborator, and friend. In a society that has seen incredible technological innovation during our lifetimes, Steve may be the one true icon whose legacy will be remembered for a thousand years.'

Michael Dell said: 'Today the world lost a visionary leader, the technology industry lost an iconic legend and I lost a friend and fellow founder. The legacy of Steve Jobs will be remembered for generations to come.'

Bob Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney, said: 'Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor. His legacy will extend far beyond the products he created or the businesses he built. It will be the millions of people he inspired, the lives he changed, and the culture he defined. Steve was such an 'original,' with a thoroughly creative, imaginative mind that defined an era. Despite all he accomplished, it feels like he was just getting started.'

Steven Spielberg, film producer, said: 'Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips.”

Read more: Steve Jobs tributes: World leaders and technology rivals pay tribute to Apple founder | Mail Online

[The Count]

Who hates?

He is a businessman. Visionary for his field perhaps, but for the world...meh, not so much.

ETA--except to get people to pay more money for a computer...and a phone...

People who are in the business of "changing the world" seem to think that Steve Jobs was pretty successful in that regard.

“Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it,”*President Obama.

“Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.” Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook

"The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come." Bill Gates Chairman of Microsoft

“Steve defined a generation of style and technology that’s unlikely to be matched again.”*Eric Schmidt*Chairman of Google.

[raider.adam]

Steve Jobs directly and indirectly changed the fundamentals of how most of us in the US and many in the world, live our lives. To discount the significant impact he had would be equivalent to saying Carnegie was "just some guy who sold steel" or Vanderbilt as "a guy who owned a boat".

[Winston]

Really? Really? A tremendous loss? A tremendous loss is if a world leader died. He made electronics. Wait, no, he managed an electronics company because the amount of time he actually worked on them himself was short. He denied paternity of his daughter, was cutthroat and ripped off Wozniak, founded a company that contracts out labor where employees are mistreated, and was a smug douchey all around dick.

No, the world is a better place now that this dope is gone.

That's short-sighted and childish. Look, if that's your opinion I doubt I can convince you otherwise, but he absolutely changed the world and improved your life too, whether you want to acknowledge that or not. As a thought experiment, do an It's a Wonderful Life and imagine a world in which Steve Jobs had never been born.

Would your computer be as useful and elegant, or would you still be using a C: prompt and suffering a lot of frustration just trying to do simple tasks? Would you even have a personal computer, or would everyone still be using a mainframe "dumb terminal" and kowtowing to the geeks in the IT department?

Would your cell phone be a miniature computer that's dead simple to use, and also a media player, or just a wireless radio? Think back just four years ago to how primitive and user-unfriendly cell phones were, even "smart phones" like the Blackberry, before the iPhone.

Would a touchscreen computer you can hold in your hand be so useful and only weigh 1.3 pounds? Would your grandmother be able to use it without ever looking at an instruction manual or asking a question?

When you hear a song on the radio that you like, how would you buy it? Would you click a button on your computer and pay 99 cents just for the song you want? Or would you have to drive to the mall and pay $15 to buy a CD, whether or not you wanted the rest of the stuff on it?

Would Pixar make clever, emotional and intelligent movies that don't talk down to kids if Jobs hadn't bought it from Lucasfilm and put his ethos in place there? Or would Pixar's next big release be The Amazing Adventures of Jar-Jar Binks Episode VII?

I'm not saying that Jobs is solely responsible for those, or even that Apple is. But he was the prime mover behind all of them, by thinking different(ly), setting high standards and not settling for mediocrity. New ideas are hard to come by and even harder to execute. Inertia and the entrenched interests of the status quo are constant headwinds to innovation. It takes a visionary and, yeah, a bit of a prick to fight to make a better idea into reality. To the Ayn Rand fans out there: he was a real-world Howard Roarke.

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me." — Steve Jobs

[torts]

well said.

[Sailaway]

Would your computer be as useful and elegant, or would you still be using a C: prompt and suffering a lot of frustration just trying to do simple tasks? Would you even have a personal computer, or would everyone still be using a mainframe "dumb terminal" and kowtowing to the geeks in the IT department?

Most likely it would still be what it is today. Possibly better and more efficient, depending on what your concept of better and more efficient is.

Would your cell phone be a miniature computer that's dead simple to use, and also a media player, or just a wireless radio? Think back just four years ago to how primitive and user-unfriendly cell phones were, even "smart phones" like the Blackberry, before the iPhone.

I'm not sure this is a good thing; the cellphone has done more to decrease quality of life than any invention in my lifetime. That's an opinion, but I suspect if this were analyzed in detail, there might be a larger consensus. Remember when you weren't tethered to your employer or clients and expected to be at their beck and call? Regardless, the iPhone maybe put said technology in people's hands one or two years sooner, but it wouldn't have changed the general outcome, since that's a function of the progression of technology.

Would a touchscreen computer you can hold in your hand be so useful and only weigh 1.3 pounds? Would your grandmother be able to use it without ever looking at an instruction manual or asking a question?

Touchscreens have been around for decades and they still suck, but at least the ones I used in the 80's and 90's lasted more than six months.

When you hear a song on the radio that you like, how would you buy it? Would you click a button on your computer and pay 99 cents just for the song you want? Or would you have to drive to the mall and pay $15 to buy a CD, whether or not you wanted the rest of the stuff on it?

Not only did Apple not invent digital music, but the scene was much, much better before Apple came along as they pretty much were at the forefront of screwing the consumer. Thanks to DRM, as well as the quality of lossy codecs, odds are good you're going to have to re-purchase that same 99 cent song at least a dozen times in your life. Better to buy the CD, and rip it to the format-du-jour at whatever quality setting you want. The CD is effectively an archival format. Lossy codecs, on top of DRM, are not, as a lot of people are finding out.

Would Pixar make clever, emotional and intelligent movies that don't talk down to kids if Jobs hadn't bought it from Lucasfilm and put his ethos in place there? Or would Pixar's next big release be The Amazing Adventures of Jar-Jar Binks Episode VII?

I'm not a big Pixar person but what I've seen have been quite good, so credit is deserved there.

I'm not saying that Jobs is solely responsible for those, or even that Apple is. But he was the prime mover behind all of them, by thinking different(ly), setting high standards and not settling for mediocrity. New ideas are hard to come by and even harder to execute. Inertia and the entrenched interests of the status quo are constant headwinds to innovation. It takes a visionary and, yeah, a bit of a prick to fight to make a better idea into reality. To the Ayn Rand fans out there: he was a real-world Howard Roarke.

I'm certainly not going to badmouth the guy; he was a genius. But I was an Apple fan decades before Apple was cool. Back in the 70's and 80's, Apple was truly pioneering. The only thing Apple does today is pioneer ways to screw gullible consumers out of their hard-earned dollars.

[Jayfar]

I'm certainly not going to badmouth the guy; he was a genius. But I was an Apple fan decades before Apple was cool. Back in the 70's and 80's, Apple was truly pioneering.

Indeed. System 7 rules (even though it didn't have pre-emptive multitasking)!