Steve Jobs Dead At 56 1613
SoCalChris writes "Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was found dead in his Cupertino home this morning. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him — even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon."
http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/ (Score:5, Informative)
I recommend people read this blog (Score:5, Informative)
Some interesting insights (Score:5, Informative)
Some inspirational speeches
"Focus is not about saying Yes, but about saying No"
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-1997-video-2011-6 [businessinsider.com]
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc [youtube.com]
âoeThis was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and thatâ(TM)s what I had.â ...Steve Jobs, at home in 1982.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pacman3000/4042368287/ [flickr.com]
Thank you for inspiring us... (Score:4, Informative)
Thank you for inspiring millions and helping make some really cool dreams into realities.
Re:I read somewhere... (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're not giving Jobs enough credit even for the first wave of personal computers. The Apple II was probably the most important step into the world of computers in the home, school and business, moving us from the era of hobbiest kit computer to what we view as the standard computer, keyboard and monitor. Jobs was instrumental in that as well. This is a man, whether you liked him or not or approved of everything he did or not, who was in fact instrumental in a number of steps in the post-1960s computer revolution.
iSad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lameness (Score:5, Informative)
Sent from my iPad.
He was not 'found' dead! (Score:2, Informative)
It makes it sound like a homicide. Fix it, please.
Re:RIP (Score:4, Informative)
Everything builds on everything else. He was instrumental in the Apple II, and that was, no matter what anybody may say, a titanic shift in the manufacture, marketing and public perception of the computer.
Re:He was not 'found' dead! (Score:4, Informative)
11.09am: Steve Jobs's family has released a statement: [smh.com.au]
Mr Jobs "died peacefully today surrounded by his family ... We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief."
Re:Here's to the crazy ones. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the complete version:
- - -
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify them or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
Because while some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
And it's the people who are crazy enough to think they can
change the world who actually do.
Re:What he took away is more precious than given (Score:3, Informative)
Sigh, not true. They all have based things off each other. Android has many features before the iPhone. It still has feature the iPhone doesn't.
If you want a single group top point at about computers, point to Xerox PARC
How soon people for get the MS wrote software for Apple.well, a guess a couple of decades isn't soon, but still.
MS and Apple where working on the GUI at the same time. Apple release a few months earlier.
It's like me saying Apple copied MS because the went to a hierarchical structure after 1985. That would, of course, be misleading at the best.
At that time, Gates, Jobs, Woz were all in communication, and all pretty much reading the same stuff and talking to the same people.
Re:What he took away is more precious than given (Score:3, Informative)
While I agree that Jobs was apparently a good CEO and realize that many people love Apple products...
The history of Windows dates back to September 1981, when Chase Bishop, a computer scientist, designed the first model of an electronic device and project "Interface Manager" was started. It was announced in November 1983 (after the Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh) under the name "Windows", but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985.
(wikipedia article on Windows [wikipedia.org])
And from the wikipedia article on the X windows system [wikipedia.org]:
Several bitmap display systems preceded X. From Xerox came the Alto (1973) and the Star (1981). From Apollo Computer came Display Manager (1981). From Apple came the Lisa (1983) and the Macintosh (1984). The Unix world had the Andrew Project (1982) and Rob Pike's Blit terminal (1982).
.
The whole "who came up with the idea of "windows" in a GUI [wikipedia.org]" argument can get rather frustrating. It appears that the real first was the Xerox Alto and the Xeros Star back in 1973:
The Xerox Alto (and later Xerox Star ) was an early personal computer developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. It was the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI).
It was not a commercial product, but several thousand units were built and were heavily used at PARC, other Xerox facilities, and at several universities for many years. The Alto greatly influenced the design of personal computers in the following decades, notably the Apple Macintosh and the first Sun workstations.
Re:I read somewhere... (Score:4, Informative)
I think you're not giving Jobs enough credit even for the first wave of personal computers.
I think you're not giving Woz enough credit.
This is a man, whether you liked him or not or approved of everything he did or not, who was in fact instrumental in a number of steps in the post-1960s computer revolution.
Although Jobs had his part, it was Woz that designed the first two generations of apple computers himself.
I'm not trying to make light of this death, but the engineers behind all the devices are still alive.
This is also (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He was not 'found' dead! (Score:5, Informative)
Nowhere in the actual story does it say that Jobs was 'found' dead... yet somehow that's what the summary says.
The wording of the summary is a paraphrase of a long-running Slashdot meme. Just a little gallows humor for us old-timers.
Re:I read somewhere... (Score:1, Informative)
Not jobs but the Woz. Woz Made Apple Jobs was just a design marketing guy.
Re:I read somewhere... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:He was not 'found' dead! (Score:2, Informative)
It's the phrasing from a 2002 era troll, if not earlier. (the mid-2001 references Google has seem to be replies to deleted posts.)
Context:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kadin2048/Slashdot_Trolling_Phenomena#Stephen_King_is_dead [wikipedia.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=41759&cid=4414746 [slashdot.org]
Re:Can we have Woz back now? (Score:4, Informative)
The guy freely acknowledges he can't run a company nor does he want to, that's why Apple is a story of 2 Steves instead of 1.
"I designed the computers just to do it and show the world that it could be done and help them happen. Later Steve Jobs suggested starting a company to make money from it. I'd been giving out schematics for free at the Homebrew Computer Club. That's what I believed in. It was hard for me to even start the company when it looked like there might be real money in it." - Woz
"Steve and I are very different. Mainly, I want to be an engineer and make neat things for my own fun, forever. I told Steve and Mike Markkula that I wouldn't expand Apple into a real company because I had to quit HP (I'd designed all the Apple stuff moonlighting for a year!). I loved HP. But I finally realized that I could do it and not have to run it. From the start, Steve wanted to run a company and learn the ways to. " - Woz
Re:Lameness (Score:3, Informative)
I think you're misremembering what happened there. Jobs ripped off Woz in that deal. Woz did all of the work and Jobs pocketed most of the money.
LK
Re:Lameness (Score:5, Informative)
This reminds me that computing is unique in that a fair number of the pioneers are alive, or were until very recently. My list of major computer names is a lot longer: Alan Turing, Von Neumann, Claude Shannon, Doug Engelbart, Vint Cert, Bob Metcalfe, Ken Olsen, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Guido van Rossum, James Gosling, Grace Hopper, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Tim Berners-Lee, John McCarthy. Of those names, quite a few are still alive right now. It's actually possible to travel around and meet them. This is a feature of computing that differentiates it from many other fields. In Math, Physics, Biology, etc., most of your heroes died hundreds of years ago.
Re:Lameness (Score:5, Informative)
Someone must have sanitized it. Look in the entry for Breakout. Anyway, Woz removed 50 chips from the design and the Jobs was paid $5,000 for the work. Jobs lead Woz to believe that it was a $750 reward, so he gave Woz half of that. In other words, Jobs pocketed $4625 for doing absolutely no work and screwed Woz.
LK
Re:I read somewhere... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but I think Jobs proved that it's not just the engineers that make a product a success.
I think Jobs brilliance was in steering brilliant engineers to make something non-engineers can understand and use.
Engineers left to their own devices will give you Linux and BSD, but Jobs could get them to make OSX.
An engineer will give you an IBM PC, Jobs had the vision to have them make a Mac.
An engineer will give you an Alienware, Steve got us the iMac.
An engineer will give you fixed font, Steve thought text should look good.
iRiver vs. iPod, Windows Mobile vs. iOS, iPAQ vs. iPhone, PirateBay vs. iTunes, netbook vs. iPad, the list goes on...
What Steve was good at, is getting some brilliant engineers together, and have them make something that my grandmother and my 3 year old kid would be able to use almost intuitively.
He will be missed, because ow the engineers will take over again. (I'm one of them).
Re:I read somewhere... (Score:4, Informative)
Good point. But while I think that Woz is a brilliant engineer (his Apple ][ floppy disk controller made personal computers feasible), there are great engineers at all sorts of companies, and very few companies that can have a clear, unified vision and execute on it. So as much as I admire Woz, it was Jobs that had the vision and the drive to take Woz' technical brilliance, Ives' industrial design, etc., and drive them to produce brilliant products.