Steve Jobs

I've heard a lot of people say things like he was this generations Newton or Edison. I don't think of Steve Jobs that way because in spite of the fact his name is on 300 patents, he wasn't an engineer or an inventor. I think of him more as a Henry Ford. Sure Jobs had profound influences on the Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. I'm certain that without Jobs they just would have been home computers, mp3 players, cell phones and tablets. But I haven't heard much about the other things he built that enabled these products to be as great as they are.

He rebuilt Apple from a dying company into the largest and most envied in the world. He changed how computers are advertised. He redefined retail stores. He made thin a quality to evaluate computers by and created new manufacturing processes so his machines could be thinner than everyone else's. He cared about the packaging. He got cell phone companies to sell his phones his way instead of their crappy phones their crappy way. I thought Google's short lived Android store might do that, but no, it was Steve Jobs that did it. He convinced record companies to make deals with him and changed the way music is sold. He almost convinced movie studios to do the same. He built his own movie studio and they have the best track record in the world. He invented desktop publishing, let millions edit their home movies and made sharing pictures fun.

When I heard that he died I quickly remembered something Tom Cruise said. I know, that's strange. Steve Jobs was known for being a perfectionist and difficult to work with. I think the only contemporary person that compares is Stanley Kubrick. When Kubrick died, Tom Cruise lamented "There will never be another Stanley Kubrick film." I'm sure the next few products Apple releases will have some Jobs influence but they won't be his. and there will never be another Stevenote.

And fuck cancer.