I just wanted to write a quick note about the death of Steve Jobs. I won’t be going into much detail; there are already plenty of editorials out there saying more on the subject than I could. But it would be remiss of me not to bring up a topic which is close to the hearts of many, if not all, of us in the tech scene.
Apple has been one of the main sources of drive and innovation in the tech revolution of the last few years. Steve Jobs, in turn, was the main source of drive and innovation behind Apple. With news of his death from cancer still very much fresh in the minds of so many millions, now is perhaps not the time to ruminate on the potential impact on Apple and through it the entire tech industry.
Rather, it is enough to acknowledge that, love him or loathe him – and this is coming from someone who never embraced Apple as readily as most – Steve Jobs had an astonishing impact on the world in which we live. It’s a shock to lose him at the age of just 56, especially considering he had been around almost as long as the tech age itself. He founded Apple alongside Steve Wozniak in his garage in 1976, and never looked back.
His death came just a day after his successor as Apple CEO, Tim Cook, took to the stage at the company’s California headquarters to introduce its latest model, this time the iPhone 4S. It was a task that in the past had been synonymous with Steve Jobs. It is now one of the many things which we will have to get used to seeing without the Apple visionary centre stage.
As the company’s website put it today: “Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being.”
David Knight, Silicon Allee Editor in Chief