[The Professor]

He was a rare breed and a visionary that at least one commentator has compared to Edison and Ford.
 
What they all had in common were ideas based on intuition , wishful thinking and who knows...maybe even some cosmic intervention.  In any case, they made ideas actually happen even though they weren't engineers or scientists.  They did it by assembling the right talent to actually implement what seemed like far fetched or even impossible ideas. 

Whether you're running   Mac or  Windows OS  (which Bill Gates is on record having said that the aim was always to make it "Mac like"), it was Jobs, Woz, and the talent that they assembled at Apple that practically invented personal computing, or at the very least,  personal computing as we know it today, by making it a LOT more user friendly.

It can be said of so few people that "..they changed the world". 
Jobs changed it bigtime.

[James Lorden]

I think that what made Jobs great wasn't inventing technology, it was taking technology and finding a way to bundle it in a package that was useable by the common man.

[Hokerer]

This comes as a surprise to me.  Was he sick or something? 

Think he'd been dealing with cancer (pancreatic?) for the last several years

[dbeechum]

Since 2003. Had a liver transplant in 2006, etc.

He made it a hell of a lot longer than pancreatic cancer patients normally do. Guess the money helps in that regard.

[bluefoxicy]

I just watched a short CNN storyline. A huge loss for the tech world. He was certainly a tech prodigy and will be sadly missed. Apple will suffer from this loss...

I have an iPhone and a couple iPods. Fabulous products IMHO.

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

That happens to be a big thing.

I've seen tons of technology come and go in my time.  In fact, a lot of Apple's products are technology that failed.  Smart phones?  the iPhone sucks; i had an iPaq PDA with Microsoft PocketPC 6, phenomenal handwriting recognition ... you could open PocketWord, sit down, and just write, and write... write 50 page reports, write novels, whatever ... on a 3 inch screen.  One day they shoved a cell phone chip into it and called it a "Smart Phone."

It flopped.

There was no 3G.

Palm's stuff flopped.  Blackberry would be the pathetic state of the art FOREVER if Apple didn't break into the market with the iPhone.  Google Android wouldn't have come about as a response.  I'm still confused about the industry's vocal and obvious attempt to get rid of the stylus (the first statement directly of this I saw was Samsung's), as I find it both immediately useful for high-accuracy applications (stylus typing is faster than finger typing on 3.5 inch screen keyboards) and important for handwriting recognition input (which PocketPC 6 did phenomenally circa 1998).

Tablets ... remember in 2001, Windows Tablet Edition... laptops with swivel screens ... a complete flop.  Again, with phenomenal handwriting recognition.  The iPad did it 10 years later ... again, with 3G connectivity; wifi wasn't big back then, much less 3G.  Laptops are still worthless in college, although every college student "needs a laptop" (it has to go with them to class, somehow ... something I haven't figured out yet).

The iPod showed up when MP3 players looked popular, but were really crappy.  The technology would have peaked, then died off.  Apple figured out how to leverage that perfectly.

And that's what Apple does.

That's what Steve Jobs was good at.

The tech industry tends to lock up a lot.  There is so much technology that never makes it because businesses simply don't know how to leverage it.  a lot of Apple's products are a step up, and a lot are a step down; but in pretty much all cases, Steve Jobs was pulling tech that was going nowhere and putting it in a shiny box in a form that was actually useful.

Steve Jobs drove the industry.

That's what he was good at.

Now we need a new one, and it's hard.  It's hard because it's hard; and it's hard because whoever gets that job will be too busy trying to be Steve Jobs instead of trying to do what Steve Jobs did.  If you are trying to emulate a person, you have no idea what you're doing; if you actually get it, you only have to be yourself.

Technology may stagnate for a while....

[bluesman]

I just watched a short CNN storyline. A huge loss for the tech world. He was certainly a tech prodigy and will be sadly missed. Apple will suffer from this loss...

I have an iPhone and a couple iPods. Fabulous products IMHO.

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

That's your opinion and you're are entitled to it...but I disagree with it.

Apple was very successful, and brought technology to the masses...whether or not they invented any specific technology has no bearing on the fact that their products were very successful in the market. I happen to love my iPod and iPhone.

Steve Jobs drove the industry.

That's what he was good at.

Technology may stagnate for a while....

Steve Jobs was a proven industry leader and an innovator...and will be sadly missed.

[glastctbrew]

I just watched a short CNN storyline. A huge loss for the tech world. He was certainly a tech prodigy and will be sadly missed. Apple will suffer from this loss...

I have an iPhone and a couple iPods. Fabulous products IMHO.

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

While Steve Jobs and Apple may not have invented a lot of the individual technological components they utilize(d), he and the company his visions drove, were certainly innovative.  I can't rationally see how anyone could argue that they did not take these technologies and figure out how to use them in a manner that pushed the technology further.

Sure there were smart phones as well as devices that used touch screens.  Jobs and Apple had the vision to combine the two to make a better, useful and rapidly accepted product.  That is, in fact, innovation.

innovate (ˈɪnəˌveɪt)
—vb
   to invent or begin to apply (methods, ideas, etc)

Sure Xerox invented the GUI interface, as well as Ethernet and a ton of other technologies we rely on in our daily computer use, but it was Jobs who saw the potential and drove his company to turn the theory into a usable product.

I'd hate to see where we would be without his vision.

Well, that is my take on Steve Jobs and Apple from my particular vantage point.

Cheers.

[majorvices]

I just watched a short CNN storyline. A huge loss for the tech world. He was certainly a tech prodigy and will be sadly missed. Apple will suffer from this loss...

I have an iPhone and a couple iPods. Fabulous products IMHO.

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

That happens to be a big thing.

I've seen tons of technology come and go in my time.  In fact, a lot of Apple's products are technology that failed.  Smart phones?  the iPhone sucks; i had an iPaq PDA with Microsoft PocketPC 6, phenomenal handwriting recognition ... you could open PocketWord, sit down, and just write, and write... write 50 page reports, write novels, whatever ... on a 3 inch screen.  One day they shoved a cell phone chip into it and called it a "Smart Phone."

It flopped.

There was no 3G.

Palm's stuff flopped.  Blackberry would be the pathetic state of the art FOREVER if Apple didn't break into the market with the iPhone.  Google Android wouldn't have come about as a response.  I'm still confused about the industry's vocal and obvious attempt to get rid of the stylus (the first statement directly of this I saw was Samsung's), as I find it both immediately useful for high-accuracy applications (stylus typing is faster than finger typing on 3.5 inch screen keyboards) and important for handwriting recognition input (which PocketPC 6 did phenomenally circa 1998).

Tablets ... remember in 2001, Windows Tablet Edition... laptops with swivel screens ... a complete flop.  Again, with phenomenal handwriting recognition.  The iPad did it 10 years later ... again, with 3G connectivity; wifi wasn't big back then, much less 3G.  Laptops are still worthless in college, although every college student "needs a laptop" (it has to go with them to class, somehow ... something I haven't figured out yet).

The iPod showed up when MP3 players looked popular, but were really crappy.  The technology would have peaked, then died off.  Apple figured out how to leverage that perfectly.

And that's what Apple does.

That's what Steve Jobs was good at.

The tech industry tends to lock up a lot.  There is so much technology that never makes it because businesses simply don't know how to leverage it.  a lot of Apple's products are a step up, and a lot are a step down; but in pretty much all cases, Steve Jobs was pulling tech that was going nowhere and putting it in a shiny box in a form that was actually useful.

Steve Jobs drove the industry.

That's what he was good at.

Now we need a new one, and it's hard.  It's hard because it's hard; and it's hard because whoever gets that job will be too busy trying to be Steve Jobs instead of trying to do what Steve Jobs did.  If you are trying to emulate a person, you have no idea what you're doing; if you actually get it, you only have to be yourself.

Technology may stagnate for a while....

The thing that Steve Jobs and Apple did was to take other's innovations and make them accessible and artful. As the old art school saying goes, good artists innovate - great artists steal. 

[jaybeerman]

he was truly brilliant - enough said

but here's a few quotes of his that I saw via Quote of the Day (qotd.org)

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes ... the ones who see things differently ... they're not fond of rules.... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things ... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.

I'm as proud of what we don't do as I am of what we do.

In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.

The people who built Silicon Valley were engineers. They learned business, they learned a lot of different things, but they had a real belief that humans, if they worked hard with other creative, smart people, could solve most of humankind's problems. I believe that very much.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
     All from Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

[The Professor]

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

Not particularly innovative?     That's just too hilarious.   

I guess that's why for 35 years the entire industry (beginning with Microsoft and continuing on down the line ) made it a mission to copy what Apple comes up with.  That's especially since the late 90's when his Steve-ness returned to the company and turned things around.  When Jobs came back to the company in 1997 after an absence of 12 years, Apple stock was selling for around $3 a share...now it's close to $400 and the company is worth more than Microsoft.  LOL.

I had a longer  response written, but it's just not worth arguing, because you're certainly entitled to your opinion.   Like people passionate about beer, it seems that some are just as passionate about their computers and operating systems.
And when we're dead, neither will matter.

Dude may not have been an inventor, but he had vision and ideas, and knew how assemble the right team to get the job done.  Which is exactly what Thomas Edison & Henry Ford did.   
Jobs certainly ranks with them.

[akr71]

Obviously BFI is too young to remember Apple's beginnings.  My dad bought me a Commodore, which I was thankful for, but I was more thankful that the computer lab at school was full of Apple II computers and the computer science teacher left the lab open at lunch time.

Lode Runner anyone?

[a10t2]

When Jobs came back to the company in 1997 after an absence of 12 years, Apple stock was selling for around $3 a share...now it's close to $400 and the company is worth more than Microsoft.  LOL.

It's also split twice since then. So it's trading at ~$1500 adjusted. A 50,000% ROI in a little over a decade.

Disclosure: I've been a shareholder since 2001.

[majorvices]

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

I had a longer  response written, but it's just not worth arguing, because you're certainly entitled to your opinion.   Like people passionate about beer, it seems that some are just as passionate about their computers and operating systems.
And when we're dead, neither will matter.

No sense in feeding the trolls.

[bo]

Steve Jobs had little impact on any kind of invention--Apple isn't particularly innovative and just sells crap that other people invented.

I had a longer  response written, but it's just not worth arguing, because you're certainly entitled to your opinion.   Like people passionate about beer, it seems that some are just as passionate about their computers and operating systems.
And when we're dead, neither will matter.

No sense in feeding the trolls.

If you have a difference of opinion, you're a troll? Why's that?

[a10t2]

If you have a difference of opinion, you're a troll? Why's that?

I think it's that in this case, the troll has a long history of trolling.