A Visionary Lost

On the way home from the movie theater tonight, Ann and I heard the news on the radio that Steve Jobs had passed away today. It seemed a few comments are in order. First off, if you hang out in the geek world at all, you know that there is such a thing as an Apple fanatic. From the blog NewMac Online:    

Remember when the iPhone came out? It was like a new Star Wars Movie starring Steve Jobs. There were actually people camping outside the store in costume. For a phone!   

And Geek.com has this headline:   

Apple fanaticism similar to religious devotion, according to scientist.    

It is a running joke among non - Apple devotees who have very little brand loyalty and don't understand it. The Dell that you bought 20 years ago translated into a  Gateway (remember the cow logo) 12 years ago, and maybe a Sony Vaio 5 years ago. But if you were an Apple family, you probably didn't buy outside the Apple brand over that same period. The first computer class I took after college was at Deerfield High School and I learned to write programs in Basic.  That was in 1980 (yes, 31 years ago and I know many of you weren't alive yet). I remembered the instructor asking us to go to the computer store to buy a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk to store our programs on. When I went to buy it, the clerk asked me how many I wanted and I was astounded that anybody would need more than one. When we decided to buy our own computer shortly thereafter, I asked our school computer geek Rob Luby what I should do and he said, "IBMs have more programs, Apples have smarter programs." He was already an Apple fanatic. And so we bought an Apple IIc. With the optional muppet keyboard for the kids to use.     

They became very familiar with the effects of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. And they played with the dancing lobsters on the counting game. And within three years, we had over 300 floppy disks. I remember lying on the living room floor typing in instructions from the Robinsons and the Lighthalls for the interactive adventure game ZORK. (Sure. let's carry the mongoose. You never know when you might need it.)  Since then we've had a Mac IISE (my favorite), an EMac, several IMacs, several IPods,  a MacBook, an IPhone, and an IPad. We are extremely loyal to the Apple brand and have never been disappointed with our purchases. And Ann's job for many years involved (among other things) being in charge of the Apple computers in her elementary school. So the news of Steve Jobs' death may resonate more with us than it would another family.    

I used a few lines of Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford University commencement speech a few years ago when doing the commencement speech for Wauconda High School (with attribution, of course). He was talking about being fired from Apple at the age of 30 and what he decided to do. It included working with a small production company called PIXAR. The key line I was interested in was the phrase "Don't settle." I also quoted William Somerset Maugham, who used that phrase, along with some others. I appreciated their sentiments, and I hope the WHS graduates and families did, too. I've read that Jobs was not an easy guy to work for and often a not very nice boss, but just in music alone with the creation of the IPod and the ITunes store, he had a tremendous impact on popular culture.    

Apple's home page consistently entirely of this picture today:    

Steve Jobs  1955 - 2011

Just as in the case of Jim Henson, he died too young.    Godspeed, Mr. Jobs.