Considering how many people have been affected by him, I only find it fitting that I write today to pay my respects to one who has redefined the world we live in.
He was truly a revolutionary. Not in terms of technology, but of ideas and tech culture. Who doesn't know of Apple. Steve Jobs was able to bring Michael Jordan status of the 90s to technology in the 21st century. Everybody I know covets Apple products and if not for Steve Jobs, nobody would. Even when I bought my parents their first smartphone (a HTC Panache/MyTouch 4g, which I returned), they looked at it as an iPhone much to my chagrin.
I loved Steve Jobs for what he did, but I also despised him.
I feel like he was a sell out to the open source community by taking OS X and commercializing it. I also know that it was a double edged sword that Ol' SJ was swinging. Business and humanist ideals rarely mix, if ever. Apple, I believe, is a victim of capitalism at its worst. Their lawsuits against Samsung, iOS 5 similarities to Android, iCloud similarities to Google Cloud....they look at themselves as a company afterall. Not much more to say to that.
Regardless this is how I'll see Steve Jobs. I believe he fought for a more open technological community. I believe that, as much as he was pressured to create a profit making machine, he tried his best to make it so that everyone can partake in the wonders of technology. People outside of Apple look at Apple's ecosystem as closed and narrow. Its true that it seems like an elitist/hipster circle, but it really isn't. If my parents can understand it (being old and Korean), then its open to everybody. The only barrier was cost (i.e. thus a victim of the profit motive). Explaining how to use Windows and the internet to my parents was like trying to explain how subluxation affects general locomotion and neural pathways to my patients (at least those that were interested in listening), in other words, forget about it. I love that Steve Jobs had the vision to allow those that were behind 20 years in technology to see what I see. I recently bought both my parents an iPhone4. I'm excited that I can Skype and video chat with them on my Android or even Facetime with them on my iPod touch. I'm excited that I can receive Korean SMS from them when they want to tell me something. All this because Steve Jobs had the balls to fight as hard as he did, similarly against the illness he had, to give everybody the opportunity to see technology the way he did.
Although I'm personally of two minds of Apple, I can see and appreciate what Steve Jobs was trying to do. What he successfully did.
God Speed Mr. Jobs.
Rest In Peace Mr. Jobs.
We will never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment