October 5th, 2011 - Steve Jobs has passed away due apparently to a long-fought battle with pancreatic cancer.
Steve's best known as Apple's co-founder and thus the inventor of the iPod, iPhone and iPad. This dude revolutionized mobile technology and is also known as the mind behind the Macintosh PC operating system for Apple's less-portable machines.
As it may be known, he's been Bill Gates' nemesis in the computer industry, and if it weren't for this guy, Microsoft may never've conceived Windows. We have Steve to owe for much of what Microsoft does these days, or neither company might've lasted. Of course, as Windows overwhelmingly outsold Mac, Apple turned to more inventive technology - the various i-products we love these days.
I'm not massively educated in the whole deal between Jobs and Gates, but I know they've had suing rounds in the past over copyright infringements with respect to the ideas used in their operating systems.
I've never been a fan of Macintosh or iPod. They're well-made but not my niche, nor my style, and with some crucial flaws in the operating systems, I've avoided them in favor of using my Rumor Touch for music and phoning purposes. I've also always felt Apple's tried to make more money off its clientele than it needed, with overhyped re-releases of old technology with a minor bump up from their predecessors and ill durability. While I've passed up on iPod, Windows has been my operating system for power computing and probably always will be for the while they maintain their current way of doing things. Perhaps with Jobs' passing, Mac can surpass Windows one day. That's not an insult to Jobs; he did what he did well and he appealed to the mobile market better than the desktop industry, but perhaps Tim Cook will play differently.
Jobs resigned to chairman status and put Cook as the CEO of Apple back in August when his health complications were beginning to take uglier turns. This perhaps was due to knowing the Apple stock could crash if he died as the CEO himself. He saw his death coming, it's just a shame he had to die at 56 with as much access as he should've had to medical technology in overcoming his ills with the kind of bank account he must've had. But then, he was loyal to Apple, after all those decades and such a loyal following, and probably didn't want to draw too much funding from what could be used for the company's survival. These are trying times, after all. The economy's looking like shit and it's getting worse. Surely Jobs was aware of this.
He also had a unique way of looking at things. I know he's made a few intelligent statements that could change peoples' outlooks on how things should work. The one I remember best is when he told his team back in the 80's, I believe, that if they could cut down Mac's boot time by just five seconds, and multiply those five seconds by x number of boots multiplied by the number of machines sold, they could spare many lifetimes' worth just in the form of quicker boot speeds. Basically, the construction of an operating system from 0's and 1's became a full-blown task to save millions of peoples' lives. I thought it was a brilliant way to motivate his team.
A pain will be felt in this man's passing.
Of course, perhaps he didn't die after all... Perhaps, he only stepped out to develop the iHeaven. He'll be back, no worries...
...We only wish...
Apple's changed over the years...
iPod's changed...
And then we had the iPad...
Let's hope Tim knows what he's doing.
