I was not a personal friend of Steve Jobs, though a friend has a friend who was a close business associate and friend of his, so I guess I'm within two degrees of separation. So why was I -- like millions of others world-wide -- so affected by his (expected) death, when it was announced last evening? Why do I feel a sense of personal loss by the passing of a "CEO/business executive"? Why, when the phone rang five minutes after I'd read about his death on-line last night, did I know someone was calling me to share the news and sense of loss?
Steve Jobs had four biological children, but yet the devices he brought to us have so transformed our lives, that millions of us grew to feel a personal connection to him and to Apple, as if we were part of his very extended family. The way I -- we -- use music, movies, phones, and computers has been transformed by him. I think because these devices are so ingrained in the fabric of our daily lives, we are reminded each and every day that they are Apple devices, and he is -- was -- the personification of Apple, he has been part of us, and thus we form part of his (immense) family of users.
Mind you, I was strictly a PC user until two years ago, when I bought my first Apple product, a MacBook Pro, and became a convert. Quickly followed by an iPod, iPhone (replacing a Blackberry), and more recently an iPad. It's an addiction. I'm about to trade in my iPhone 3GS for the new iPhone 4S, and I suspect Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant on the 4S, will be yet another transforming innovation. It won't be long before we all will jettison that altogether old-fashioned and inefficient process of typing or tapping our emails, in favor of dictating them to our smartphones, tablets and computers.
Yes, voice-activated dictation already exists. So did computers before the Mac, MP3 players before the iPod, cellphones before the iPhone, and tablets (of a sort) before the iPad. Steve Jobs' special genius was to take these appliances, simplify and integrate them with other Apple devices in an intuitive way, and make us not only want to use them, but crave to do so, because the experience was so enjoyable. What he kept calling "insanely great". And he thereby changed the way we live our lives. PDF -- pretty darn profound.
So I guess that is why I am feeling so sentimental about Steve Jobs' passing. Yes, he was an innovating, designing and marketing genius. And yes, from his prior failures as a manager, he learned to assemble a crackerjack team to support and succeed him at Apple. And yes, this seeming counterculture nerd managed to create what is now the largest company, by market capitalization, in the world. But none of that matters. After all, who feels warm and fuzzy about ExxonMobil, or Wal-Mart? They have not insinuated themselves into our hearts. Apple has.
And so millions of us are feeling the pain today. It may seem trite to call the iDevices Steve Jobs' technological children, yet to me that's what they are. They -- and the related software -- are his legacy, just as his biological children are. And that means they -- and he -- are with us still, every day, as we continue to enjoy the fruit of his passion. And should be with us still in the next couple of years, for we can be sure that Steve Jobs was far-sighted enough to develop a product pipeline that will carry Apple and us through the near term. The pace of technological change is so rapid that all bets are off after that. But that's for another day. For now, let us take comfort not only in the joy Steve Jobs brought to our lives, but also in the prospect that we will continue to benefit from his vision in the coming years, a true testament to his greatness.