Obituary

‘iMourn’

“Your Time is limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life.”
– Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs – a visionary and legend. Photo: Internet

Besides the usual well wishers, when Steve Jobs resigned there were a few “iResign, iQuit”, type quips on people's facebook statuses and twit feeds but that changed to iRespect, and iSalute and iSad when he actually resigned and that being from his position at the office of 'life'. Putting aside what others say; the famous 'i' (apple) is the brain child of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Hence, above all others he is -a 'pioneer' a word he defines in more ways than one. He was the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes; and co-founded Apple Computer in 1976, thus with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak; he marketed what was considered the world's first successful personal computer (PC) -the Apple II.

Jobs like most American prodigies was a drop-out of Reed College in Oregon and, at age twenty-one, he started Apple with Wozniak in his parents' garage. He became a multimillionaire by age twenty-five, appeared on the cover of Time magazine at twenty-six, and was ousted from Apple in 1985, at age thirty. In a speech he summed up his reaction: "How can you get fired from a company you started? What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating". However that did not make him surrender. He went into other businesses, founding NeXT computers and, in 1986, buying the computer graphics arm of Lucasfilm, Ltd. which became Pixar Animation Studios and transformed the cartoon world with such films as "Toy Story" and the Oscar winning; "WALL-E.”

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations" was his answer to those who had rejected him.In the years that followed, Apple, which had struggled without Jobs, brought him back by buying NeXT. He became CEO in 1997 and put the company on a remarkable upward climb.

With the start of the twenty-first century, the commercial music industry was on its knees because digital recordings copied and shared online for free. This made it unnecessary for millions of people to buy compact discs. Jobs took advantage of this with the iPod essentially a pocket-sized computer hard drive with elegantly simple controls and a set of white earbuds so that one could listen to the hours of music saved on it. He set up the iTunes online music store, and persuaded major recording labels to sell songs for 99 cents each. No longer did people have to go out and buy a CD if they liked just one song from it. They bought a digital file and stored it in their iPods.

None the less, Jobs did not stop there. In 2007, he transformed the cell phone. Apple's iPhone, with its iconic touch screen, was a handheld computer, music player, messaging device, digital wallet and of course a telephone. Job's innovative ideas continued to surge and by 2010, Apple's iPad have begun to make the Apple-II look antiquated.

He became CEO again in 1997 and put Apple on a remarkable upward climb.	Co-founded Apple Computer in 1976.

Then he threw in the iPad; a sleek tablet computer with a touch screen and almost no physical buttons. It could be used for almost anything software designers could conceive, from watching movies to taking pictures to leafing through a virtual book.

Steve Jobs was a private person and tried kept a low profile outside Apple but was linked to many film stars; scandals and everything that being rich and phenomenal came with. As smooth as life will have seemed as one may deduce from his cool, calm countenance; it was not. In his speech to graduates at Stamford University in 2005 he said -"I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on."

Jobs died at his home on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a rare form of pancreatic cancer leaving behind his wife Laurene Powell and four children. Thousands of people all over the world have also been attending Apple stores to leave flowers, notes, and apples with a bite taken from them to mimic the company's logo.

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite tru"' he had professed.

Jobs' death was announced by Apple in a statement which read:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve...

 

Compiled by SHARMIN AHMED

 

 

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