Or perhaps: The End of the World As We Know It, Before 2012
I was stuck in an MRI machine most of the afternoon, so I didn't get the news on Steve until a friend called me to tell me about it (I got home at 8 and didn't even turn on the radio). I did finally see the news at 11pm and pretty much wept through it. This is a really sad day for me, as I did love Steve Jobs. I hated the old mainframes we had in advertising... in spite of the fact that I learned a lot about them, and taught a lot of people how to use the dreadful one we had at the ad agency where I worked. But the minute I got my hands on my first Mac (a 128K in 1985) I was in heaven. I taught myself to use the Macintosh, then taught myself to use PageMaker 1.0. The Apple people had the best instructions anyone ever wrote... and illustrations. I had to work on PCs as a volunteer teacher at a senior center, and the Microsoft instructions were the worst. They didn't have the good sense to start with "Turn the computer on" showing in an illustration where to do that, then give number 2 and 3. When I reported this to the people at M/S, I was told, "Well, everyone knows that!" No, my dears, everyone doesn't know the first three steps, the engineers do. Apple always wrote for people, not for engineers... and always showed you exactly how it would LOOK, with an illustration.
The computer has been such a wonderful thing for a writer (or an artist... every artist I know has a Mac, as does every musician, anyone creative). Being able to forget whiteout and never having to retype anything is wonderful. To think that I can write a poem, then change any word anywhere in that poem, or put the last two lines up at the top and change the sense... or stick in a few lines anywhere in a story or novel... even throw in a chapter in the middle of the book! And Steve made it not only simple, but beautiful. I agree completely with something a guy being interviewed about Steve leaving said, "Doesn't bother me, I've always owned Macs, I always will. I certainly wouldn't ever want to have a PC." I have noticed that people will change from a PC to a Mac, but one rarely or never sees a switch from a Mac to a PC.
I'll always remember what Steve said to a reporter who asked him what he thought of Microsoft. "Well," he said, "they are a good company... have lots of great engineers and software specialists... great bunch of people, they hire the best they can find. Only one big thing wrong with that company... they have absolutely NO taste." How true that was/is (Jeeze...remember the talking paperclip...ugh). Steve Jobs not only had great ideas and was an expert on finding people who had great ideas and knew how to work and innovate (a friend's son was the major developer of the MacBook and a brilliant kid), but he had a designer's eye and gathered people around him who knew good design, and gave every product a distinctive, beautiful look. I wish my friend Guy Kawasaki, who worked for Steve, would go back to Apple. He is another absolutely brilliant guy... and a great idea man. Be good for the company to have him back.
I was impressed that one of the major reporters said that there were three men who were standout people of our time when it came to business brilliance: Walt Disney, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. I never could stand the first two, who were rabid republicans, conservatives and not very nice people... but I adored Steve Jobs, and he would be the first on my list of great men of my generation... I think I will have to think hard to mention a second. That brilliant Apple ad said it best, "1984 won't be 1984 anymore!!!"
I certainly wish Steve the best... and hope he feels better soon. He is my candidate for "Man of the Century," I do not think we will see a duplicate of him for a long, long time. To bad he couldn't have been persuaded to run the country, we probably wouldn't be in the mess we are in right now if he had.
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