Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011
We mark the sad passing of Steve Jobs, without whom it is unlikely we'd be doing what we do, and how we do it. Starting in his garage with his mate Steve Wozniak, they kicked off the PC revolution with their Apple II in 1978. In spite of hiccups with the Apple ///, the company sparked a new direction with the Lisa, by improving Xerox's PARC development, and giving us the first commercial mouse-driven graphic-based PC. Design flaws were quickly noted, and soon afterwards in 1984, the Apple Mac was born. Steve left Apple shortly afterwards (actually, he was fired), in 1985, but Apple's loss was Hollywood's gain, where Steve new computer company, NeXT, was instrumental in the re-birth of a new breed of animated films - by Pixar Films (Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Happy Feet, etc)
Via a takeover of NeXT, Steve came back to Apple in 1997, and became their iCEO (interim CEO). Very quickly, he brought the company back from the brink of bankrupcy. His vision brought Apple in a new ground-breaking direction. With the Apple Mac limited to a certain, albeit fanatical clientele, and under Steve's inspiration, Apple moved sideways and very soon designed, developed and released their string of i-products (i for internet-ready) ... the iMac, iPod, iTouch, iPhone and iPad, all backed up with the iTunes store. Apple's commercial success is hard to overrstate - they could solve Ireland's sovereign debt with their cash reserves.
But Steve Jobs was more than a success story. He was a man of incredible ideas - he inspired colleagues and customers. He was a genius. He was specific in his design outlook, where "less was more". He was single-minded, totally focussed on his goal. As a boss, he was compulsive, intolerant and authoritarian - and blew his top regularly. Socially, he was challenging. (Pity he wasn't seen as being on the spectrum with our Asperger friends!). He saw what people wanted, and what people could use easily, and then delivered, with some incredible quality and style!
Thanks, Steve, and rest in peace.