Thursday Thoughts: Steve Jobs

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As most of you already know, Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. I thought I would do a small blog post about my experiences with the technology that Jobs helped develop. Even though I’m a huge Google/Android fan, there is a lot of respect that I have for Jobs, Apple, and their products.

It’s crazy to think that I am only 4 months older than Apple, which was established on April, 1 1976 by Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. The Apple I sold in July of 1976 for $666.66 which is the equivalency of a little over $2,500 in 2011 dollars. It’s amazing that an iPhone can do so many more things in such a smaller unit for $2oo today. I think the biggest genius of Jobs was his ability to see into the future with Xerox’s mouse driven graphical user interface (GUI) which helped develop the first Macintosh.

Does anyone remember this Super Bowl commercial?

I didn’t actually get to work with a Macintosh until my sophomore year in high school when I became the editor of the school paper. I think the name of the program we used was PageMaker. I definitely preferred using the Mac to my Windows 3.11 computer at home. I will never forget the paperclip trick for when the disk wouldn’t eject, which seemed to always happen at deadline time. After I finished high school, I unfortunately didn’t sit in front of an Apple computer for many many years due to college requirements and my eventual enjoyment of the Windows XP OS. I did however purchase my first Apple product, the iPod Nano, in 2006 and instantly became an Apple fan again. There are many that complain about iTunes but I think it’s great and always been user friendly. A few years later after my first Apple purchase,  my father-in-law purchased a MacBook Pro. I was with him that day and learned a lot of the amazing features that Apple computers had to offer. The smooth transition of programs, practically no worries of virus attacks, long battery life, and the creative programs that came with the OS. I was now an even bigger fan! I unfortunately still haven’t been able to purchase a desktop or laptop due to cost, but I did get an iPad for Christmas in 2010. It doesn’t completely replace a laptop but it is definitely an awesome tech gadget to own with it’s capabilities and apps. My 2 year old son has even grasped the concept of using it and the game apps we downloaded for him. We recently used it to play movies for him on a long 12 hour car ride and it was definitely a savior.

The news of the passing of Jobs spread very fast on Twitter and Facebook last night. Even hours after the announcement, Twitter was still very active with Tweets about him. There is no doubt that his creativity and vision will definitely be missed. I hope that Apple continues on with that vision or strives to make it even better. Technology is growing exponentially and if Apple is able to keep moving forward with great products, I can only imagine what will be available when my son is my age.

Thank you Mr. Jobs for all of the great technology and for the Pixar movies that my family and friends enjoy. Most of all, thank you for making it cool to put an “i” in front of any word!

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs