Steve Jobs 'changed our lives'

Steve Jobs 'changed our lives'

Here are some more views about the death of Steve Jobs, who changed the lives of global villagers in ways few have ever done in a century or even two. Ken Auletta in The New Yorker: ``Steve Jobs is dead. One big question is whether the unbelievably innovative culture he forged will live. Jobs was not a great human being, but he was a great, transformative and historical figure. Many books were dashed off describing what a tyrannical person Jobs could be ― how he took the parking spaces of the handicapped, how he reduced employees to tears. Those tales will fade like yesterday'snewspapers. What will stand erect like an indestructible monument are the things Steve Jobs created that changed our lives: The Macintosh; the iTunes store that induced people to pay for music and other content; Pixar, which forever changed animation; the iPod, iPhone and iPad. … For three decades, even as he got older, Steve Jobs and Apple remained 'cool.' " John Biggs on TechCrunch.com: ``Call him prickly. Call his products overpriced and underpowered. Call Apple a toymaker, not serious, not real. But remember that everything Steve Jobs touched was a masterpiece of engineering in a world where 'just OK' is increasingly the norm. His products outsell almost anything else by an order of magnitude. He's not being praised here because millions of people are bewitched and ignorant. He's being praised because millions of people see the future as he did: a place where things get increasingly better, where we are more connected, better informed and generally happier." The (Portland) Oregonian, in an editorial: ``Jobs was known as the quiet neighbor in a small town not far from the Stanford University campus. His signature dress ― black turtleneck, jeans, running shoes ― was as familiar there as it was at the office or onstage, as a rapt world awaited his latest invention. His understatement in life and work, coupled with an unrelenting drive for excellence and good taste, bespoke the man as well as his regime-shifting technologies that seem to show up someplace new every day. In this modern world of increasing technical complexity and dependency, it was good knowing Steve Jobs was around." David Pogue, The New York Times, on Pogue's Posts: ``Suppose, by some miracle, that some kid in a garage somewhere at this moment possesses the marketing, invention, business and design skills of a Steve Jobs. What are the odds that that same person will be comfortable enough ― or maybe uncomfortable enough ― to swim upstream, against the currents of social, economic and technological norms, all in pursuit of an unshakable vision? Zero. The odds are zero. Mr. Jobs is gone. Everyone who knew him feels that sorrow. But the ripples of that loss will widen in the days, weeks and years to come: to the people in the industries he changed. To his hundreds of millions of customers. And to the billions of people touched more indirectly by the greater changes that Steve Jobs brought about, even if they're unaware of it." The Christian Science Monitor, in an editorial: ``Jobs never had to worry about the Next Big Thing. He created an entrepreneurial culture around him, as many companies and cities now try to do. He welcomed diversity, especially in the form of foreign-born techies. He used the patent system (thankfully, now just reformed) to provide incentives for original creativity. He had confidence that the United States is better off with $100,000-plus jobs in creating high-tech ideas than trying to compete with $2-an-hour workers in Asia merely assembling products like the iPad. Rather than mourn the loss of Steve Jobs, America can sustain his model of collaborative innovation. Call it iJobs 2.0." This article was compiled and provided by USA Today.