My thoughts on the Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs illustration by CDowd

Steve Jobs. That’s all you need to hear and automatically you feel something. For some it’s rage, for others it’s total adulation. Steve Jobs and his company Apple have been the subject of many ferocious debates among my friends and peers. Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs meant something to the world.

He was a revolutionary, and his ideas were the building blocks of our way of life today. Technology advanced, but he also advanced how we as humans interact with one another. The first computer I ever used was a giant Macintosh back in the early 1980′s. We played Oregon Trail on them in class. It was amazing. And can you imagine life without smartphones? iPhone, android, iPad, tablet computing, all Jobs.

He arguably saved the entire music industry from disaster by creating a model that people would use to actually pay for music. Yes, iTunes brought the music industry back from the brink of piracy-fueled-destruction, and showed them that people will pay artists, if you let them. Before iTunes, Sony was adding files to CDs that would corrupt your computer! It was nuts, and Jobs found a way to bring the entire industry into the next century.

While my friends and I will continue to debate things like Apple vs Android, and Mac vs PC, one thing we can all agree on is that Steve Jobs left an impact, and the world has indeed lost a brilliant visionary.