Steve Jobs died.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:27 am

Dude is gonna be missed. I was never an Apple guy, but the iPod? Do you even remember music before the iPod? Or iTunes? Hell, the App Store? Or, you know, PIXAR? The guy gave us Pixar.

As Johnathan Vankin said on Facebook: It's not often that you can credit the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company with making our lives better and more fun, but Steve Jobs did it.

There've been some pretty funny jokes made on other boards/sites. My personal favorite is "THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!" I can't believe, though, that people are coming out of the woodwork to be like, "meh, **** Apple." Trolls be trollin'. I wonder how many of them posted their comments from an iPod Touch or iPhone?

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:58 am

Apple products never liked me, I never like them, but I likes me some Pixar.

Plus, y'know, nobody deserves to die from cancer. Sad panda to hear the news.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:54 am

Only ever had one problem with an iPod. The internal speaker stopped working. I didn't buy that Apple Protection plan, but I figured I'd see if I could get it fixed. Took it into the Apple Store. They tried to fix it, failed, offered me a possible solution that I could try then, offhand, said, "Or, we could just give you a new one. No charge." Turns out all iPods are guaranteed for a year, protection plan or not.

Since my iPod had sentimental value (it was a gift from the girl I'd gone with the Apple Store with to get it fixed) I opted for trying their fix (even though the girl was all "TAKE THE NEW ONE, DUMBASS!" Fix worked. No problems since.

But seriously. Facetime. I can call anybody with an iAnything with HD video completely free of charge, on a device that also houses however many hundred songs I've got, a half dozen movies, an entire library, and a bunch of time-wasting games. Oh, and, you know, internet access! Thanks for that, Steve.

Post by **Kaylee** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 11:04 am

Steve very much shaped all modern PCs. Prior to the 1980s they were something for experts, developers and engineers and his vision was one in which a PC was an accessory that you could use without thinking.

Some of the obituaries in the news are over the top: Mr. Jobs didn't invent the PC, the Internet or portable music players, but he was a phenomenal visionary in bringing all those things to a mass market.

He understood implicitly that things had to be usable and beautiful.

Also not a great person to be around, not all his products were successes, and I would argue Microsoft probably did more for personal computing than Apple, but never the less the world is a much poorer place without his vision.

I think it's slightly touching that he managed to hold on just long enough to see the iPhone 4S launch. The original was a ground-breaking product and it's... just that he be able to see it's most recent incarnation out the door.

A great site full of old Apple anecdotes about developing the first Macs, the company ethos, Steve as a colleague etc.: www.folklore.org

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 2:13 pm

Plenty of sites (and boards) are making light of his quick passing after the announcement of the 4S. Your post, Karl, gives a nice counterpoint it.

Although, were it me, and I'd just retired, I'd try extra hard to die right after the first product launch after my exit...because that's the kind of thing that I'd find hilarious in my final moments.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:16 pm

It's sad in the sense that there was real technological innovation done by Jobs that's changed our world. iThings, yes, but let's not forget that Macintosh ushered in Graphical User Interfaces, which are now totally taken for granted as commonplace.

At the same time, he's being compared to people like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford - people who also changed the world, but history shows as being generally kinda douchy (as Karl points out). But I guess that's all part of being successful at The Game Of Capitalism.

One more point: Tell people 15 years ago that Steve Jobs is the one who dies as a Messianic figure of technological innovation and Bill Gates is the one blowing his money on trying to improve the world and bring about social change, and you would have blown their minds. iPhone or no, I respect the last seven years of Bill Gates life far more than Steve Jobs's.

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer [/southpark], but to me the way the public is ingesting this death is more akin to the media coverage of Michael Jackson and Ronald Reagan than anything else. Complicated lives, complicated individuals, huge impact, all whitewashed towards the creation of a hero narrative.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 10:13 pm

I was never an Apple guy, but the iPod? Do you even remember music before the iPod? Or iTunes?

Eh, tried both but neither stuck. Actually, iTunes stuck. Took me ages to get rid of it while it bombarded me with update popups. Horrible, horrible thing.

I think Shanti nailed it with Edison and Ford - I'd add James Watt to that list: far from being the inventor of the steam engine but the man with the capital and drive to develop and sell it. I may not like Apple's products but there's no denying they've pushed technology forwards over the past decade.

Obfleur · Post by **Obfleur** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 10:39 pm

iTunes is my worst ******* enemy. [composite word including 'f*ck'] that ****.

Post by **Kaylee** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 10:50 pm

Obfleur wrote:iTunes is my worst ******* enemy. **** that ****.

its max software that's never been recoded or optimised for PCs, half the error messages reference screen elements you only get in a Mac!

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 11:40 pm

Obfleur wrote:iTunes is my worst ******* enemy. **** that ****.

Couldn't agree more! Nasty bloatware that continually crashes my computer with its nasty updates. The apple support forums tell you to waste an entire evening removing everything apple from your PC and reloading it, just to make the damn thing work again. But what really makes me choke is the apple fanboys responses on the support forums -"oh, thank you, thats great, now its all working again". **** you, apple, if you think I'll ever thank you for destroying my evening due to your crap, de-stablising updates.

Steve Jobs. Its sad when anyone dies an early and tragic death, but I can't help but feel this is all a bit "Princess Diana". James Dyson has had a similar impact in terms of consumer changes in his industry, but we are unlikely to see people crying over their vacuum cleaners if he dies tomorrow. Wangari Maathai also died recently and I didn't see a significant report in the mainstream media, outside of the liberal press. Its genuinely tragic when people who are really changing the world for the better don't get any notice. Really, I shouldn't know who Steve Jobs is, but he ran a company that could afford to fund his personality cult.

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:59 am

Scraplet wrote:
Obfleur wrote:iTunes is my worst ******* enemy. **** that ****.
Couldn't agree more! Nasty bloatware that continually crashes my computer with its nasty updates. The apple support forums tell you to waste an entire evening removing everything apple from your PC and reloading it, just to make the damn thing work again. But what really makes me choke is the apple fanboys responses on the support forums -"oh, thank you, thats great, now its all working again". **** you, apple, if you think I'll ever thank you for destroying my evening due to your crap, de-stablising updates.

Steve Jobs. Its sad when anyone dies an early and tragic death, but I can't help but feel this is all a bit "Princess Diana". James Dyson has had a similar impact in terms of consumer changes in his industry, but we are unlikely to see people crying over their vacuum cleaners if he dies tomorrow. Wangari Maathai also died recently and I didn't see a significant report in the mainstream media, outside of the liberal press. Its genuinely tragic when people who are really changing the world for the better don't get any notice. Really, I shouldn't know who Steve Jobs is, but he ran a company that could afford to fund his personality cult.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm not implying for a minute that you should like Mr. J or that the media outpouring isn't getting over-the-top, however the impact of (particularly early) Apple products on home computing is very great. I'd dispute Jobs being less influential than Dyson and Maathai based on sheer numbers and scale.

Dyson invented a slightly more effective vacuum cleaner, Maathai was an admirable Kenyan activist, Apple Computers helped forge mainstream computing: their evolution of the GUI from Xerox to a usable, convention-driven 'desktop' interface is still used (almost unchanged) on all PCs to this day. Steve Jobs was behind that.

Without Apple, PCs would still exist and would still be important but the PC you understand today (point-and-click, OK buttons in dialog boxes and files-and-folder based management of documents for example) all comes from Apple Computers.

Literally the basics of all modern PCs stem from the first Apple systems, all sculpted by Jobs' vision of what a computer should be and how it should work and his excellent development team, all legends themselves in software development.

Love him, loath him or not really care: that is surely a collossal legacy when over 2,000,000,000 people use a paradigm of technology you sculpted and molded.

I appreciate it's not as emotive as being a great activist but the scale of influence is vast, the knock-on effects over the last 25 years are huge (what would the Internet, with all its influence, look like without the Apple-style PC desktop paradigm influencing it?)

Kinda like being the guy who took the town pump and turned it into the tap in your kitchen: you didn't invent it, but you 'fixed' it, made it mainstream and influenced a ridiculous number of people and after events. Worthy, I suppose one would say.

Not worth canonising, I absolutely agree, but I'd say definitely worthy. But then I'm biaised, I worked in IT for years and I do genuinely agree with homage for the roots of modern PCs.

Footnote: For the record, it is my understanding Steve Jobs was a prick to work with, had dubious business practices and never (publicly) donated to charity. iTunes does, indeed, also suck badly on PCs.

Obfleur · Post by **Obfleur** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:16 pm

Dyson was part of the whole Terminator shenanigans - i'm sure he'll get some sort of mention when he dies.

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:37 pm

Obfleur wrote:Dyson was part of the whole Terminator shenanigans - i'm sure he'll get some sort of mention when he dies.

That, sir, is golf-clap worthy.