A memorium on Steve Jobs, the genius behind Apple who pioneered accessible technology
Tonight as I was covered in flour from making chicken marsala, my iPhone kept ringing over and over, the caller persistent in reaching me. Finally after washing my hands, I swiped and double-clicked via the clever VoiceOver technology and found that it was my husband calling from his evening jog to tell me Steve Jobs had died. I asked my Apple fanboy of a husband if he cried, and he said, "Almost." When I hung up, I texted a friend, and as I returned to the sizzling pan, I was surprised to find myself sad beyond what I'd expected of such news.Steve Jobs became a household name after I met my now husband who turned me on to Apple products back in 2007. Since his own conversion years prior, John had converted dozens of friends, family, acquaintances, and even sometimes strangers perusing the computer aisle at Best Buy on to Apple. Since the iPod, Steve Jobs has become a household name everywhere, his innovative products popping up in homes across the globe. People ate up the iPod, then the Macbooks, then iMacs and Mac Minis and iPads--nobody had ever seen anything like those Apples.The story behind Apple and their history with Steve Jobs is fascinating, and the world will get to read all about it come November 21 when the long-awaited Steve Jobs biography is released. Even months before it's stocked on the bookshelves, Steve Jobs's biography has been a top selling pre-ordered item on Amazon. Timely coincidence that the biography was due out on bookshelves so close to his passing? Maybe, but supposedly the book's release was pushed up to November because everyone knew Steve wasn't doing well, this notion only fortified by his resignation as Apple's CEO only months before. And now with his passing, there is no doubt the book will be a bestseller.Tonight, even the Apple website, which is always littered with product advertisements, only displays a full-screen portrait of Jobs with his life span, "1955-2011." I can only imagine the ferocious dumping of Apple stock tomorrow once that morning bell rings on Wall Street.Apparently, death escapes no one.In Steve Jobs's commencement speech to Stanford's Class of '05, he says:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
No matter if you're a refugee who had been working toward a triple degree in law, philosophy, and literature before escaping from a war-ravaged country on a naval ship; or if you're a creative genius who changed the face of technology; no matter if you were my mother or if you were Apple's CEO; death is the destination we all share. (You should really read Steve Jobs's commencement speech--it is truly awesome and inspirational.)It is an eerie coincidence that Steve died the day after the latest Apple announcements, but his legend lives on. The new iPhone 4S boasts Siri, the virtual assistant that lets you communicate with your phone as though you were speaking to your butler or KITT the Knight Rider car. John had been harping about this new phone feature for the past several weeks, and while I admitted it was cool, I wasn't sold; a part of me wanted to hold out for the next round numbered model up: the iPhone 5. But then tonight, John played me this video, and I think I'm in love.John told me the last woman in the video is reading Braille and then uses the new iPhone 4S to text her friend. More power to the blind!Apple has changed the world. Steve Jobs had changed Apple. By transitive property, Steve Jobs changed the world. He envisioned every household owning a personal computer. He envisioned it, and then he made it possible. And he made it so that even blind people could use it. He empowered everyone. He empowered the blind.Thank you, Steve Jobs. May you live on in our innovations.Stay hungry. Stay foolish.