Steven Paul Jobs, 1955-2011
I actually didn’t know what to write, or even if I could. This whole day has been really hard. The news of Steve Jobs’s death affected me more than I could imagine. It sounds weird since I never met him or saw him in real life, but his products and visions had a great impact in my professional life.
(I am lucky to have two great kids at home, giving me all their love and share their laughter with me. Death becomes more real when you have kids…)
My first Mac was a 12″ PowerBook (1.33 GHz), bought in 2003. Since then I’ve been amazed numerous times when Steve unveiled a new great product, like the iPhone or the iPad. I was so impressed by the Mac, after being a Windows user for many years, that I actually tried to learn more and more about Macs and Mac OS X. In 2006 I got a job at MacHuset (a local Swedish Apple consultant and reseller) as a Mac system consultant. I had three truly great years there and I would still work there if my wife didn’t want to move back to her childhood village.
Since I’m home on paternity leave, I haven’t had any time to really read and watch all the blogs during the day. But tonight I sat down after my wife and kids went to bed, and spent a couple of hours reading posts from John Gruber, John Siracusa, Stephen Fry, Walt Mossberg, and many more. I also re-watched some parts of the iPhone keynote in 2007 and I noticed two things this time:
- You can see how proud he seems to be of the iPhone. In that moment it seemed that it was the peak of his (and Apple’s) accomplishments. He also looked way more healthier than in the latest keynote he did.
- He used the phrase “It’s so simple” a lot.
His goal was to take something complicated and make it simple and beautiful. And for that, I will always be grateful. Imagine a world without Steve: no Mac OS X, no Mac computers, no iPhones, no iPads.
Thank you, Steve. You died way too soon.
