News sites all over the Internet are carrying the news that Steve Jobs has passed away. There are plenty of eulogies, looks back at his life, and links to videos or texts of speeches he made or interviews he gave at one time or another, and since you can hardly turn around without finding them right now I don’t see the need to repeat them here. I will note that Poynter has an interesting article about “How Steve Jobs changed (but didn’t save) journalism” that is well worth reading in keeping with our own subject matter.
I gather Jobs may not have been an easy man to get along with, let alone like, but it can’t be denied that he brought or helped to bring about developments that changed the lives of everyone who interacts with technology, several times over. The Apple personal computer, the Macintosh, NeXT, OS X, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. So few innovators are able to change the world once, let alone several times during their life.
I really would like to have met Steve Jobs, just once. I’d like to have seen what other innovations he could have brought to life if he hadn’t died far too soon at 56. But now he’s gone on ahead, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, when Bill Gates eventually passes on, he’ll arrive in Heaven to find it’s now a Mac-only shop.
R.I.P. Mr. Jobs