Earlier this evening Alec Baldwin tweeted: “Sad about Steve Jobs. On par with Henry Ford, Carnegie and Edison.” Sad because Steve Jobs passed away. The cause hasn’t been released, but he’s fought hard against pancreatic cancer. Few beat it.
What Baldwin said is true. Steve Jobs deserves to be compared with Henry Ford, Carnegie and Edison. It’s not just that he was an innovator, he was an innovator consistently over decades.
I saw the Mac in the early 80s. A computer store opened in Buffalo down the block from the TV station. Everything about the Mac was different. I remember playing with it at the store. Magical.
The Mac had a graphic interface and mouse. These were new concepts!
It was physically beautiful.
It’s understandable Jobs/Apple had a loyal fanbase. Apple consistently made high quality, well performing, state-of-the-art hardware. His products were never the cheapest and often the most expensive. They were always the best engineered.
We all want to work for a company where only quality matters. This is the type of business people want to see succeed!
Apple protects its customers in a way that’s not attractive to me. I like to tinker. Apple’s aren’t meant for tinkering. I understand its value to other people.
Apple supported its products by building up an infrastructure to fill them. The iPhone and iPad wouldn’t be so satisfying without the iTunes Store.
Back in the early days it was Steve Wozniak who was the tech genius. Woz wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without Jobs, the most effective product salesman I’ve ever seen. He owned every presentation.
It’s sad. Guys like Steve Jobs don’t come around often. His absence will be felt.
Alas, even money can’t buy off death.
My iPad is my first Apple product, and I am addicted – it’s the coolest computer-thing I’ve ever had. Jobs’ ability to imagine things that people would get addicted to was what made him unique – it’s too bad that this awful disease robbed him of the chance to keep imagining, and robbed us of the benefits of his work.