Steve Jobs may have passed away yesterday, but he will never be dead to those who were truly inspired by his powerful personality. He’ll live on and the technology he worked on and the products he created will continue changing people’s lives for many, many years to come.
I remember the exact moment when I heard the news. It was 7:35 AM, I had just woke up after blindly hitting all button on my alarm clock. As per my usual routine, I opened up Google Reader to catch up on the latest news from around the world and I read the first news item: RIP Steve Jobs, You’ll Be Missed. I thought, no, no, it can’t be. Steve Jobs can’t die. It must be some sort of sick joke!
Then I opened up Facebook, Twitter, both networks were full of status updates and tweets saying RIP Steve Jobs. Still not convinced, I opened up Redmond Pie and saw Today We Have Lost An Amazing Innovator. RIP Steve Jobs and Tim Cook’s official statement within the post. Knowing how our editors are so strict about covering authentic news, I realized that the news was true after all. Steve Jobs had passed away. Steve Jobs had, passed away.
It was a horrible way to start the day. I couldn’t think straight for a good ten minutes, it was really as if a loved one had passed away. I had never felt this way about some one going away before. The odd thing was, I did not even personally know him.
Steve Jobs was a true visionary, a true innovator and was truly the best in the business. He was truly passionate about what he did and that passion is why Apple is where it is today. He was truly dedicated to his company. Despite deteriorating health, he continued working at Apple until resigning on August 25th, 2011. I find it astonishing how, despite being so physically weak, he resigned only just over a month before his death. Now that is true dedication.
Steve Jobs’ basic role at Apple was to ensure that the company continued in the right direction, a role he successfully played throughout his career.
If you look at some of his earlier team members, you’ll find that they weren’t really the most experienced in the business. But he had faith in them. He had faith in their abilities and in their passion for innovative, trend-setting products. This unwavering faith inspired them to work beyond their limits and create truly amazing products. What I’m basically driving at (and some people may not agree with me here) is that Steve Jobs’ role at Apple was not technical. All he really, basically did was give his team a vision. A vision that involved simplification of existing technologies while making them more powerful. The objective was to ensure the best user-experience possible.
You can see this vision in the iMac, the iPod, iPhone and, most recently, the iPad, all of which have defined and truly revolutionized the category of computers they belong to.
While reading different articles on Steve Jobs’ life, his achievements, his legend, I came across some photos which I would love to share with you all:
Note: All photographs are copyrighted to their respective owners. If you own one of these photos, contact admin@redmondpie.com if you wish to have them removed.
Steve Jobs shares a moment with his wife at WWDC 2011
(Photographs via All About Steve Jobs)
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