Steve Jobs - RIP

[pauper]

I'm no great fan of Stallman and even less so after that callous remark, I think he feels deserving of similar levels of veneration as the Apple fetishists heap on Steve, but this

computer as a jail made cool

is about as succinct a description of an Apple product as you could hope for in 6 words or less.

 

[marksoc]

Well, at least the word "shiny" can work as a joke in "Firefly" (btw, WHERE IS FIREFLY?!). And Apple made easier to spot people to make fun of.

 

[fifs2]

Its sad that someone who pushed great engineers to innovate has gone, but Steve Jobs was not a nice man.

He refused to acknowledge the paternity of one of his children claiming he was sterile. The mother had to collect welfare.

When he regained control of Apple, he shut down all of their charitable work. Fair enough that Apple was losing ridiculous amounts of money at the time but he never restarted it once they became profitable again.

He regularly parked in disabled spots at Apple even though he could have just designated a spot for himself.

It was Steve Wozniak who created the Apple I and Apple II. Without him Steve Jobs probably wouldn't have got to where he got to. Yet he still was a twat to him.
He Ripped off Wozniak when they were very young, then went on to stop various companies from working with Wozniak and his new universal remote control. Lately he even fired a Apple Engineer after he showed Steve Wozniak (an apple employee) the new ipad.

Its very sad when someone loses their life to cancer but people need to remember that the man himself was not a particluarly nice man.
Although i doubt you get to become a CEO of a huge corporation by being a nice person.

I appreciate this alternate perspective. My generation is very quick to deify their role models who acheive great success especially in technology, fasion or sports but rarely consider whether they as role models are perpetuating the demise of society as a whole through the prioritization of money and success over ethics and being a good person.

I make no comment on either for Steve Jobs. He certainly made an impact on the world and will be remembered.

 

[citygirl]

Fair enough Fifs but I would like to see some proof of those claims.

I hear the Apple/charitable donation one a lot and it's valid. However, Apple has donated/continue to donate a huge # of computers to schools and the like.

With regards to the relationship he had with his co-founder, Steve Wozniak - According to Wozniak's autobiography iWoz - (he being Wozniak in the below)

• He developed the Apple II almost independently, not with a lot of help from Jobs
• He didn't leave Apple; he is still, in fact, officially employed by Apple
• He didn't have a "falling out" with Jobs (except right after the development of CL 9) and was still friends with him

I'm certainly not saying Steve Jobs was a saint and yes, you don't normally get to be a CEO by being a nice girl or guy.

However, I'm just not sure a lot of those assertions are entirely valid.

 

[Lucas]

‘Arab-Syrian pride’ kept Steve Jobs estranged father from reaching out
Thu 06 Oct 2011

Steve Jobs’ biological father wanted to make contact with his son before his untimely death but said his “Syrian pride” prevented him from doing so. On Wednesday, upon hearing the news of his son’s passing, he told the media he had “no comment.”

Abdel-Fattah Jandali, the biological father of the legendary Apple founder, an 80-year-old Syrian-American Muslim and former political science professor, now living in Nevada, had expressed regret at giving up his son for adoption and had hoped the two could meet before it was too late.......

......Jandali was a political science student from Homs at the American University of Beirut when he met Carole Schieble, an American graduate student. In 1955, when Jobs was born, the young couple was unmarried. According to Jandali, Schieble’s conservative father forbade her from marrying him, leading her to give their son up for adoption. The baby was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, and was named Steve.

In an interview with The Sun in August, Jandali had expressed his desire to meet his son.

Full note here

 

[steveinbsas]

I appreciate this alternate perspective. My generation is very quick to deify their role models who acheive great success especially in technology, fasion or sports but rarely consider whether they as role models are perpetuating the demise of society as a whole through the prioritization of money and success over ethics and being a good person.

I realize that I am not a member of your generation. I don't consider myself a senior citizen but I know I'm pretty darn close. I am the son of parents who were young (15 to 25) during the depression of the 1930's.

As a result of their teaching (including good spelling and the ability to think logically), I was able to earn money (create wealth) and achieve success while maintaining high moral standards (ethics): aka just being a good person.

When I was in my late teens and early 20's a great many of my parents' generation thought that the end of "society" was inevitable...if not imminent.

My parents are gone. Society is still here...and probably will be when I'm gone, too.

I'm confident that there are enough good kids out there (including those who will create wealth ethically) to perpetuate it's survival.

 

[dennisr]

Steve “Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life.
Another era

 

[clooz]

Steve Job's lead a company which was immensely successful creating products in which ease-of-use by every individual is primary.

Apple designers achieved ease-of-use by incorporating the visions and innovations created by many many others working in computing. Computing used to be a field of engineering in which for the most part research results were openly shared. The key innovations that Apple has brought into it's product designs were present in the Xerox Star in 1980 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star The larger human vision of the web we see now was created by other innovators in the field such as Doug Englebart and Ted Nelson.

To help some of the right people get credit for their technical contributions, the field of computing has been giving out awards for a while now. You can read about Englebart and similar contributors for example at http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=7929781&srt=all&aw=140&ao=AMTURING&yr=1997

Taking innovations and then creating products that really work for individuals as customers is immensely difficult, hence most tech businesses focus on other businesses as customers, most designers focus on creating things that other specialists and engineers will use, and most product managers don't care. Steve Jobs got it. He created products for individuals and did so by creating a great company.