Steve Jobs passed away!

[Hattig]

RIP sjobs.

I think he was awesome and hope he will rest in peace......
 
The personal computer
The mp3 players
The graphical user interface
Online music stores
Tablet computers
and more...

I'll give him (alongside Woz) the personal computer - but as you say the actual term 'personal' indicates bringing the computer to the mass market.

What he was good at was recognising technology and concepts that could be used to improve computing for everyone, and take that very rough technology or concept and making it work for the mass market in a simple, intuitive manner.

The iPod was simply a breath of fresh air over MP3 players that were out before - and most of those released since!

The Music Store resurrected the dying music industry and made it easy to get music. The bigger achievement was dragging the music industry into the 21st century and getting them to actually allow it to happen.

The iPad changed tablet computers from ugly barely functional devices running unsuitable software into desirable, popular devices overnight. Which is why all the other tablets are nowhere. Kindle Fire will do well, but it's cheaper and needs the backing of two brands to get it to sell well - Amazon and the existing Kindle... and needless to say 18 months after the iPad came out.

I used to hate Macs, but they really improved after 2000. Expensive still, and until recently rather useless for gaming, but very good hardware - even with the Intel transition.

I guess he was lucky to get seven more years after the cancer treatment in 2004, given that cancer survival rates don't mean 'survive', they mean 'chance of surviving for 1/2/3/4/5 years after the fact'.

[nicholas]

Disgusting people!

 http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/144221/phelps-clan-tweets-intent-to-picket-jobs-funeral-via-iphone

[Karlos]

Disgusting people!

 http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/144221/phelps-clan-tweets-intent-to-picket-jobs-funeral-via-iphone

Allegedly tweeted from her iPhone. Oh, the coppery...

[Karlos]

I used to hate Macs, but they really improved after 2000. Expensive still, and until recently rather useless for gaming, but very good hardware - even with the Intel transition.

I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...

[koaftder]

RIP Steve.

MacOS was atrocious.

Absolutely. Classic MacOS was a pile of crap. I did make a lot of money back in the day fixing macs though as no repair shop in town would touch them.

[Ilwrath]

Absolutely. Classic MacOS was a pile of crap. I did make a lot of money back in the day fixing macs though as no repair shop in town would touch them.

Well, because you couldn't really touch them, could you?  The early MacOS was a lot like the iPhone/iPad -- an appliance interface.  No shell, no peeking behind the curtain, no user-serviceable parts.  (Things like the forked filesystem were completely hidden, and you'd never even know they existed...  If you weren't dragged down into that hell trying to sort out a broken machine, using 3rd party tools, as Apple didn't provide anything.)  

I'm a tinkerer.  I want to know what's really going on, and I want to be able to change it if I don't like it.  I want more than just the "approved interface."   Apple wasn't for me.  But, still, Jobs vision helped us all.  We can all thank him for improving usability of interfaces on whatever hardware we use.  (Windows and Linux wouldn't be where they are without copying some usability from MacOS, and Android wouldn't be where it is without copying some tips from iOS.)

So while I didn't particularly agree with his vision for technology as an appliance, it is impossible to deny that he was a great visionary and did an amazing job making technology accessible.  

RIP Steve.  You'll be missed.

[bloodline]

That was a quote from the Qur'an. It's what Muslims say whenever anyone dies, regardless of the deceaseds personal beliefs.

It's a mark of respect like "Rest in peace".

Oh! Well in that case +1

[bloodline]

I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...

MacOS before OSX was so bad it never deserved to live as long as it did!

Macintosh computers before the intel transition were overpriced and under powered...

What we now call a Mac, is actually a NeXT computer and that is a very good thing x

[Reptile]

I was absolutely shocked when I heard this last night.
Of course I knew the man was ill, but still so very young and so shortly after he was still very active in the company.

In my mind Steve Jobs is one of the greatest technological pioneers of the 20th and 21st century. Can you imagine a world without Macs? We would almost certainly be universally Windows users, at least with Macs around there is a genuine choice of hardware/software before the move to Intel.

I have used Macs since 2003 and have never had one fail on me.
Not one corrupt hard disk [touch wood], no virus, no system came to a stand-still. In those 8 years I've had all of 3 kernel panics. Not bad when you consider how regularly people have experienced BSOD on Windoze.

Apple now really has its work cut out.
Steve Jobs WAS the face of Apple.
I feel sorry for Tim, he's got a hard task now.

R.I.P. Steve.

[B00tDisk]

I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...

It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.

[commodorejohn]

It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.

I'd say "commercial" rather than "technological." But yeah, pretty hilarious for them to do such a sudden 180...

[Digiman]

I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...

Intel Mac==PC

Amiga NG shows PPC is expensive alternative, true Macs are PPC for me and justify the extra cost.

128k Mac and iTunes store are perfect Steve Jobs ideas made real. Neither is the best but both were first and inspirational to many rivals.

[Digiman]

It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.

No choice  G5 CPU into slim Powerbook casing was never going to happen so....x86 migration begun.

[Karlos]

Intel Mac==PC

Problem? Macs were already composed of off-the-shelf PC technology except for the CPU for many years before the switch to intel. Graphics, audio, disk and network controllers were all the same stuff you'd find in a PC and were stitched together with the same bus technology.

true Macs are PPC for me and justify the extra cost.

What extra cost? PPC macs have a pretty low resale value compared to their original price tags and with good reason. PPC macs had their day and that day is long gone for most mac users. They're good for us Amiga users as they provide a hardware base for MorphOS 2, one that is comparatively inexpensive since most mac users have gone the intel route years ago.

However, if you are a Mac user, there really isn't anything you can do on some PPC mac that you can't do on an intel one for a fraction of the cost. So, PPC macs might be "true" macs for you, but I expect most of the apple user base would disagree.

[commodorejohn]

We're probably getting off-topic here, but I agree with Digiman. It's true that Macs used off-the-shelf parts before the switch (though that goes all the way back to the original 128K Macintosh, so I don't see it as any kind of "betrayal" of unstated principles,) but the CPU is rather a key component of a computer, and for the first two incarnations, the Mac had a CPU that was as nice as anything else about the computer, inside or out.

Yes, there were probably solid business reasons for the switch, but the fact remains that x86 is just plain ugly, and the only reason it's faster is because of all the revenue that can be poured back into R&D on it. You can get a more powerful machine for cheaper with x86, yes, but for those of us whose horsepower needs are still around what a high-end G4 or a G5 can provide, it's still nice to know that there are computers that are actually nice under the hood.

[Hattig]

No choice  G5 CPU into slim Powerbook casing was never going to happen so....x86 migration begun.

Yup, it was about the long term roadmaps.

And looking now at x86 versus PowerPC, I think that we can see it was the best move. Neither IBM or Freescale wanted to design and make desktop-class PowerPC processors and infrastructure, instead moving to console, server and embedded.

I think the future will be interesting for Apple - will they switch to ARM within a decade, once ARM has the features they need for their consumer devices?