RIP Steve Jobs

[WhiteCrowNZ]

And now Steve Jobs is dead ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15193922

[Anthony Williams]

Steve Jobs is one of those men who truly revolutionised a generation...

Having founded both Apple and NeXT, he was later to buy out The Graphics Group, which was later re-named to Pixar. Under Jobs' watch, it produced some incredibly successful movies - notably the Toy Story franchise, as well as Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles.

But it was perhaps his eventual return to Apple in 1996 when NeXT was bought-out by the company. Shortly after a year later, he became CEO, and it under his stewardship that Apple was to become truly successful - he introduced OS X, and the iMac. It was under his time there that Apple revolutionised the music industry with iTunes, and the iPod - the device that caught Sony napping - a move that Sony have never quite recovered from. Such success has built further innovation - the iPhone and the iPad being the most notable devices, but also things like Apple TV, too.

I can't claim to have known what he was like personally, but press conferences always showed a enthusiastic, intelligent, and charismatic man - a technological visionary.

Steve Jobs, Requiescat in Pace.

[Philipnet]

OMG!

Steve Jobs is dead!

[SiHart]

While I'm not a huge fan of apple products, there's no doubting the fact that Steve Jobs made a huge impact on the technological world in both the technology development side of things and the aesthetics of things too. You only have to look at the proliferation of Apple like products on the market to see that.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I'm not really a huge fan of Apple like Si. But I've had time to really reflect on this ...

http://testsheepnz.blogspot.com/2011...f-quality.html

I think to take just a bit here (everything else is aimed at an IT market) ...

The Steve Jobs alchemy was – in a world where we're used to software not working first time, where we know we're going to get some quirks until there are a few updates, Apple seemed capable of making products that seemed virtually faultless. In fact it would become big news if any issues were found.

Today Steve Jobs was described as a contemporary Leonardo da Vinci. I don't think that's right – as his genius wasn't so much in technology as in business. I described him at work at a modern Henry Ford of computing – who also made products only in black.

But tonight, I think weighing things up, he was perhaps a William Denning of the modern computer age, a champion of quality, although of course, quality with a price tag.

[Rob McCow]

We all knew his health wasn't the best, but I guess people thought he would bounce back. RIP.

Steve Jobs, Requiescat in Pace.

I read this elsewhere online - is it an Apple in-joke or something?

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I'm not a Latin scholar but I think it just means "Rest in peace" as I'm sure I've seen it used for other obituaries. I'd be rather shocked if it was some kind of joke.

Again I'm not a great fan of Apple products but there's no doubting this is a great loss the IT world and a very sad day for those who knew him well.

[Anthony Williams]

I'm not a Latin scholar but I think it just means "Rest in peace" as I'm sure I've seen it used for other obituaries. I'd be rather shocked if it was some kind of joke.

Yup - RIP does not actually stand for "rest in peace", but rather the latin, which is "requiescat in pace"

[Alex]

It's obviously very sad news, and it's clear that he was a quite unique individual, but it's strange as I've no connection to any of this at all. So many people on Facebook are lamenting his loss, there's been those gatherings outside of the Apple Stores, and some forums have discussions about his passing (and life in general) which go on for page after page.

Yet I've never owned or used a Mac, ipod, ipad, or any of their other products, so feel completely detached from it all. I wonder what it is that inspired such devotion (by some) for these products that he created (or at least helped to), and why his death has affected so so many - I've seen quite a few people genuinely say they haven't reacted to a death like this since Princess Diana...

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Like Alex, I've never owned an Apple device in my life. Despite my blog, I'm not really an Apple fan, and I think a lot of people who love Apple, really love that Apple products are a bit of a status symbol.

Steve Jobs and indeed Apple never were technical geniuses. Most of what they've put together already existed. MP3 players were around before the iPod. We had mobile phones before the iPhone. And tablet PCs had been tried before the iPad.

I think where his genius came was how he managed to combine and blend technology in a way that was simple and usable. And he was very good at it. And believe me, making technology feel easy is a very difficult task.

And although I've never owned an Apple product, I know I've owned an MP3 player, mobile phone and laptop which has been in some way inspired by an Apple product. And if the product is one thing, the influence is a lot more far reaching that you think.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/14/tech/i...bit-bell-labs/

Interestingly Dennis Ritchie died this week as well. Whereas world leaders stopped to praise Steve Jobs death, Dennis Ritchies was hardly mentioned.

The reason this is so shocking is the Ritchie was an innovator who created both C and UNIX, two of the core technologies which so much of our modern gadget world is created on. Indeed much of Apple's operating system is based on them. However few outside the industry really know of his contribution.

Someone described it best that Dennis Ritchie was the giant shoulder on which Steve Jobs stood ...