We salute you, Steve Jobs!

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Of the many tributes I've been reading my favourite is by Farhad Manjoo on www.slate.com (Wed 5 Oct 11.52 PM), "The Man who invented our world".

He tries to picture what the world would have been like, if it hadn't been for Steve Jobs and explains how whole industries have shifted after Jobs pushed Apple into them.

"While every other company in tech has been shaped by the forces of technological evolution, with their products getting better as chips got faster and cheaper", Jobs was "the intelligent designer". His best talent was "his ability to spot the pain points in every technology he touched." His role was "to separate other people's great ideas from their terrible ones - and to refine the best ideas into workable products."

Consumer-focused, committed, commercial and creative. A leader and diagonal thinker! The world will be the worse for losing you, Steve.

The end of an era

There has been much more comment this week about Steve Jobs stepping down as Apple CEO but I still think his biographer Michael Moritz summed it up best in last weekend's Daily Telegraph:

'Jobs, more than any other person, has turned modern electronics into objects of desire. He has always possessed the soul of the questioning poet - someone a little removed from the rest of us who, from an early age, beat his own path.' (Saturday Aug 27 11 Telegraph - News Review & Comment page 29)

What a great legacy Steve leaves at Apple.

If only more of us could "think different".