I woke up this morning as the 7am news was starting on Radio 4. I heard that Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, had died at the age of 56. It was only a couple of months ago that I heard, via the same medium, that he’d stepped down as CEO due to health reasons. This means that his death was not a surprise. However, I find myself feeling extremely sad about it.
I bought my first Mac in 2003. Unlike a lot of people I know who bought Macs, I wasn’t a disgruntled Windows user who’d grown tired of viruses and malware. At the time, I’d not used Windows regularly since 1992. I still haven’t. Instead, I was a disgruntled Linux user who’d grown tired of spending too much time recompiling kernels to make various pieces of hardware work, in particular Bluetooth and Wifi PCMCIA cards.
Within a couple of hours of getting my 15″ G4 Powerbook home, I had it talking happily to my wireless access point and syncing my address book and calendar from my Sony Ericsson P800 via Bluetooth. It was easy to setup and it just worked. I loved the way it did.
I have a love of gadgets and technology. I’ve owned a number of smartphones and PDAs ever since my first Nokia 9000i which I bought in 1998. The list includes Psion 5, Palm Vx, Sharp Zaurus, Palm Treo, Sony Ericsson P800, Nokia E61, Nokia N800 and Nokia N95. I even had a Psion II. However, a lot of these spent more time in a drawer or the bottom of my bag than they did being used. For the ones that were used, I never really used their full capabilities. This was usually due to bad user interfaces which made it hard to do the tasks they were designed for.
In 2011, I still have the Powerbook, but it’s rarely used. I also have my own iMac, a work MacBook Pro, an iPod, an iPhone 3G, an iPhone 4 and an iPad. These are devices I use on a daily basis. I use them to update social media, access email, read the news, check the weather, listen to music, read books and magazines, watch films. If I travel, I’ll use my iPhone to find local shops and restaurants. They provide an almost instant access to information that I can use almost anywhere. Apple didn’t create the first mp3 player, smartphone or tablet. However, they took existing these concepts and made them usable and useful.
Steve Jobs helped to shape the modern technology industry. He was a colourful, passionate man who put his drive and energy into whatever he did, and ultimately into Apple. The world feels a bit more grey today than it did yesterday. RIP Steve Jobs.