RIP Steve Jobs

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." Steve Jobs certainly didn't.

We lost one of the greatest innovator of modern times. RIP Steve Jobs.

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

Here's the commencement speech Steve Jobs gave in the graduation ceremony of Stanford University in 2005: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Geez.  The iPhone 4S wasn't that bad.

iCoffin.

Poor guy.  As was the case with Dio, I had a vague sentimental hope that he'd survive the illness, as I've got a terminally ill auntie and - I'm not sure what the relation is, but there's an irrational part of the brain that sort of figures 'if one person can kick cancer's arse, then maybe someone else can too'.  It is wildly illogical to think this, of course, when you consider that there isn't a treatment that Steve Jobs couldn't afford - he had the money to throw everything he had at the illness, and he's still dead.  Sometimes, this shit happens.

RIP.

A quote from one of our newspaper cartoonists:  iSad.

Edit:  The cartoon with this word was printed when it was announced in August this year that he was stepping down due to his illness.

I hope this finally shuts up the conspiracy theorists who claim there is a secret cure to cancer that only the super-rich can afford.

Steve Jobs was one of mankind's greatest minds, easily up there with guys like Edison and Newton.  A true visionary, a genius among geniuses .  May he rest in peace.

The video from 2005 is essential viewing.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sir GH wrote: [/QUOTENAME] I hope this finally shuts up the conspiracy theorists who claim there is a secret cure to cancer that only the super-rich can afford. [/QUOTE]
+1

What was unique about Jobs in the tech world was that he wasn't a hardware designer or a software developer, but a genuine visionary who knew how to find the right people and wring out the best work of their careers.  He once said that it wasn't the job of the consumer to know what they wanted, a statement that summed up both his brilliant tyranny and his particular genius.   It was all, he said, about taste. Anybody that's ever owned or used an Apple product knows that feel of substance and sleek quality.  I still pick up my iPad after a year and am struck every time by the technical elegance and that feel of cool, smooth weight in my hands.  He engaged our senses and loyalties in hunks of plastic and glass and microchips in a way that may never be paralleled.  In the last years he left a trove of wisdom about priorities and living a meaningful life.  He will be missed.

Cancer is awful, it kills slowly and brutally and I am sorry about another cancer victim.
I would feel more genuine sadness about the death of Mr. Jobs if he had done something to improve the working conditions in the Apple factories at foxcomm in China. The iPads are not so shiny and dandy once the consumer has seen a film about the worker suicides at foxcomm  and the sickening conditions workers have to endure to make the overhyped Apple products

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3YFGixp9Jw

Oh my God, Barbara... get real.

So you don't wear shoes by Nike?  Don't have any clothes or items made in China or other Asian countries?  What about the computer you're typing on right now???   You're sure those workers who made it had great benefit packages right?

What a tool!!!

Steve Jobs did more for mankind then anyone ever to post on Queenzone and Barb wants to blame him for worker suicides.

R.I.P. Steve. May you rest in peace.

Micrówave wrote: Oh my God, Barbara... get real.
===============================

Well, yes and no.  It's true that Western demand for high priced consumer electronics and branded clothing and the like does give consumers and corporations unique power  to impact the lives of workers in other parts of the world.   Awareness and public pressure can and has contributed to improvements in worker conditions that might have otherwise taken years worth of effort by local labour movements in emerging economies.  Apple's audit of Foxconn earlier this decade in response to media reports resulted in improvements, as has the more recent focus on the suicides in the media.   

But at the same time people need to recognize propaganda when they see it, on both sides of the issue.  We need to question statistics and the other visual and factual information that is presented and not just accept it because it fits an established view of the way things are and they way they ought to be.   The first thing I wanted to know when I read the story initially was 'What is the suicide rate in China and Taiwan as a whole, and how does that compare to workers at Foxconn?'  That context is needed, and it's not made available in the YouTube video.  That would be far more useful information than graphic images of blood and bodies and manipulative pictures of crowded buses and dusty faces.

Naming and shaming Apple to the point of linking the value of Steve Jobs' life and death with the policies of an independent manufacturing company in an emerging economy is not appropriate in my opinion.  He changed the world.  If his is a legacy made more complex by the current realities of globalization there is still no denying that it remains an amazing and absolutely worthy one.  Apple represents about 15% of Foxcomm's business.  They're held out as an example because they're extremely successful, and they're extremely successful in part because of their business model.  It's appropriate that people hold them to their stated principles, but self defeating to paint them as greedy corporate villians peddling 'overhyped' products.  The power they have that people try to leverage to effect change came about because they created something people wanted: stunning consumer products and jobs overseas.   People really can't have it both ways.

"The iPads are not so shiny and dandy once the consumer has seen a film about the worker suicides at foxcomm"

... sure they are.  They come with a handy cloth to rub the smudges off.

Fuck the Foxconn workers!  They should just build higher fences around the rooftops.

The comments on that video rate higher than any Trey Parker satire I've ever seen.  I'll tell you this for free - the person who built your computers was probably underpaid and probably not white, no matter where you bought it from.

When I see a person die slowly and painfully from cancer I have a lot of empathy - for everybody , loved ones or strangers. Therefore I feel sorry about the suffering and dying of Steve Jobs. I never believed in his glorification when he was still alive and I do not believe in it now. He certainly was a very inventive marketing strategist and he did invent the Mac which was very cute and handy for the private household.

Jobs has been compared to Edison in the last days but the truth is that the PC was invented by IBM and the mouse as early as the 1960s and a small and cheap PC with a user friendly surface was already sold by ATARI in the early 80s when the "Apple" was still huge and cost several thousand $$. Yes, Jobs invented the MAC but he also had a company that stole from others but filed numerous law suits against competitors at the same time. I am sorry if I am raining on your parade and cannot take part in the immediate canonisation of Steve Jobs because he headed a company that releases products like iPod or iPhone. I happen to believe they do not do it from the sheer kindness of their hearts but for profit - in a very ruthless way.The suffering of workers from foxcomm  was a big topic worldwide in the last months but Apple did not raise a finger to help them. With all the money they made they did not find it in their hearts to make things a little less horrifying for the people who produce their products. Sorry but I do not see the big service he did for mankind, I only see a uniquely successful company leader.

No, I do not wear Nike shoes and I try to buy products that were not made cheap by child labour and other inhuman working conditions. I do not have the power to change such things but Steve Jobs did have the power and he did nothing.

There are so many factories and job opportunities in China.  If the working conditions in one company are no good, the workers can always go elsewhere to work.  If the workers are really exploited, I am sure the Chinese government would do something about it - they won't leave it to Apple to act on it and claim credit for doing the world good.

I am a Microsoft user and I have not used any Apple products to date.  However Steve Jobs has my admiration for his creativity and entrepreneurship.