Steve Jobs: 1955 - 2011

I owe a lot to Steve Jobs.

Around the time I was living as an infant in Cambridge, my father was working for the university organising events. One such event had Steve Jobs in attendance. He was showing off what was either the Lisa or Macintosh Apple computer. My father approached him and asked “What’s that?” “A mouse” Jobs replied.

Jobs, through Apple, reinvented the personal computer. He took away the idea of beige boxes that seemed so predominant and moved towards well executed industrial design (thanks to British designer Jony Ive.)

The iMac is what started it all, the all-in-one design, it’s colours, it’s compact appearance. It was the envy of many-a-design student. When I was in college, it was the machine to own (aside from a brief period when the G4 Cube was the machine to have.) I wasn’t as fortunate as many, owning a Mac of my own would take me another few years, but it was definitely worth the wait.

Apple had a rennaisance, it went from the underdog to become one of the most valuable companies in the world. His guidance and seemingly endless quest for perfection may have seemed like too much to some, but he had a point, it was all worth it. He didn’t compromise. You look at other products and you wonder why they’re shipped in anonymous cardboard boxes, you wonder why people are so easily disappointed and why there seems to be a race to the bottom. Jobs didn’t see computers as a commodity, he saw them as the centre of our ‘digital hubs’ they could be more than just boxes for spreadsheets, this philosophy has since gone on to the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Along with owning a Mac comes that favourite phrase amongst the Mac ‘evangelists’ “It just works.” Nine times out of ten, that’s true, it does. The experience of using it, the look, even the smell. There’s a reason so many unboxing videos appear on YouTube, why Apple’s apparently relentless reduction of packaging and presentation of the device you’ve just paid for has happened. Experience.

Everyday I switch my Mac on at work or home, I think to myself, “Wow, I am so lucky to be using this.”

Thank Jobs I’m not stuck on a beige box any more, the chances are, you are too, you just don’t know it.

Posted by: Oliver Hood
Posted in: Technology