Steve Jobs has left the building...

If you haven't heard, you will soon. Steve Jobs has died.

It will take a few years before we can put this guy's impact on civilization in the proper context, but that won't stop the media from nonstop attempts over the next few days. Love him or hate him, he's an important figure of the same status of (say) Henry Ford. Now he is gone.

It was quick after he resigned from Apple. I am one of the guys that didn't like him. If we would depend only of him and his company we would have to purchase 10 thousand dollars computers filled with only apple approved software, couldn't check a sex site and our computers would be only white.

Saying that, he was a marketing genius and had an incredible eye for which brilliant gimmick masses would love. What other company could live with constant shortage and still sell millions of units of products?

RIP Steve Jobbs, I'll remember him for apple II, an open machine which helped a lot of people to have their first intimate encounter with personal color computer.

KJM

I agree wholeheartedly with KJM. I'm sorry to see him go but I really don't like or respect the company that he helped create that is very much a triumph of marketing over substance. I also dislike the way the shiny toy company tries to control the consumer, imposing totally unnecessary mechanisms such as the ghastly iTunes software when the natural and more efficient way to load mp3s onto a portable media device is simply to treat it like an external drive. Then we have their recent attempts to try and stifle competition for the iPhone and other control-freakery such as not supporting Flash on the iPad etc etc etc.

Overall, I see Apple as a maker of toys rather than technology. Ah well, I'm a grumpy 50-something year old, I'm sure the majority of Apple fanbois are half my age.

Intimate encounters with computers are not recommended. The hardware tends to get stuck up and there is a slight risk of electrocution.

I think Steve Job is a genius of both marketing and good user interfaces. His company never developed new or innovative technology. It was much better at putting together what already exists and presenting it to users in a slightly different manner. And Apple under Jobs became good in trapping users in its platform and making them pay for everything. For example, you can't replace iPhone's battery once it dies. You would have to take the device to the store where you would have to pay for someone to take it out and replace it. And good luck if you needed a bigger memory card. And the market sure of Apple computers is still relatively small.

Are you sure?

His money and smarts did nothing to beat back the illness. Goes to prove I guess that we should all strive to do something with our lives that we know can and will affect even a few people around us in a positive way. May his family find peace in their lives.

Ahhhh well, it probably did to some degree. It is highly unusual to survive pancreatic caner for as long as he did, so I bet he had some pretty expensive treatments that you or I wouldn't get! My step-father died of the same, less than 10months after diagnosis...

Having said that, we should all live our lives to the max as who knows what is round the corner

Ok, lesson learned, check first before posting, actually he didn't have much treatment at all and had a less severe form of the disease...

Still if I must be ill I would rather be ill and have some dosh than be ill and broke

Februs, I'm an Apple fanbois and I'm 123!