Steve Jobs Passes Away

[drop2]The term ‘hero’ in photography is commonly used to highlight the main image on a canvas – the hero image.  The single shot of Steve Jobs on the Apple website is named t_hero.png – I like to think there’s another reason for that filename.

This evening Apple confirmed that the visionary man behind the company has passed away.  I don’t normally do sentiment, I’m normally too wrapped up in my own concerns and worries to really spend time on others, but something hit me when I heard the news.

I’ve used a Mac since leaving school, introduced to one at my first design agency, but remember an old colleague running a Mac emulator through an Amiga years before that, in black and white.  That’s how important they were back then, and that notion hasn’t changed a bit – I still use one for my job today.

Now, of course, the legacy that Steve Jobs leaves behind stretches much further than anyone but him ever imagined.  He made computing accessible, friendly, intuitive, and he brought the world the iPod, quite probably one of man’s greatest ever feats of engineering and design.

And – as the figures clearly show – he changed the shape of mobile gaming forever with the iPhone.

There’s a strange, empty feeling inside me.  I didn’t know the man personally, but I’ve used his ideas, projections and – yes – products for most of my adult life.  Some scoff at Apple, the brand, the devices, but they’ve only ever had a positive impact on my life.

If that was Jobs’ only desire, as with everything else he did, he succeeded.