Yes, I just read about that. Too bad.

Sad. Sad news.

Rave on. Steve Jobs. Rave on.

Jobs is still Chairman of the Board.

Steve Jobs: America’s Greatest Failure, by Nick Schulz.

He forgot to mention the round mouse.

This more or less a ho-hum article, but a couple of the comments are brilliant:

quote:

I think it was Milton Friedman who reminded everyone that we have a profit and loss culture; the loss is important because it gets rid of things that society doesn't want. (I'm paraphrasing, and probably badly.)

quote:

Jobs was only able to learn anything because each failure had consequences attached to it. That's not something anyone in Washington ever has to worry about, hence they learn nothing.

Jobs gave this Commencement address at Stanford in 2005.

It is a must see.

Good speech by Jobs. But I couldn’t help thinking that most of it probably went over their heads. “Hey, he forgot to mention the part where I have a right to a successful career.”

Today’s yutes are narcissist and if things don’t come easy, they blame someone else. But Jobs’ tale was one of perseverance, struggle, and overcoming hardships. Jobs didn’t blame “big, evil corporations”. He didn’t say his life’s goals was “social justice.” He didn’t picket outside of Apple headquarters when they fired him. He kept going.

Allow me some cynicism. I think that speech went right over their heads of those yutes.

Oh god, the round mouse. I started my career as an Apple critic over the Newton. My stance on it wasn't that I hated the IDEA, just the execution. It's not like I think any of Jobs' ideas sucked, but what I always object to, is not fleshing the ideas out well enough.

Of course people came along later, and made the PDA something that actually worked. Why couldn't have it been Apple? Why is Apple usually there to release a proof of concept, and why are they satisfied with that?

I think it's so important, in this gadget-driven world, to really develop the prototypes into things that truly work, and work well. There is no excuse for the iPhone problem where TOUCHING the friggin' edges of the case will disconnect you. That's something that should have been worked out in testing.

And crap like the round mouse? Good god, how did it ever get out the door? You work with it for two seconds and realize it's awful.

The iPad... great idea, but there's always some stupid crap, like not working with Flash. Truly a boneheaded policy. Let people turn on and off Flash compatibility if you want, but don't try to put your jackboot on people's necks like that. Jobs' legacy will be that he was a genius, but he also spawned that narcissistic Mac Faithful cult culture that we all rag on here.

I wish him good luck with his health issues, I'm still a fan, always will be. But oh my holy crap some of that guy's moves frustrated me over the years. I miss the day of the clean, pure purpose of making computers easier to use through the interface design. I think the MacLash could bring that back. But it looks like it'll be without Steve at the helm of Apple.

The round mouse was a great gaming mouse. Worked exceptionally well with Quake 3. Wish it had two buttons. Ball mice were great for gaming as you could lift the mouse and move it without affecting your character. You can not do that with an optical mouse.

Everybody hated the round mouse not me.

That was an outstanding Commencement speech. As solemn as it sounded it was brutally honest. I think Jobs was speaking to the 0.00001% that were actually listening.

If Jobs wasn't booted from Apple, NEXT would have come to Apple far sooner for the better. I think it would have accelerated things by at least a half dozen years. We would have had iPod like devices in the mid-90's instead of early 2000 which would have started that whole music revolution ten years sooner. The transfer from the Legacy OS would have been seamless too if Jobs wasn't booted. It would have happened overnight in real time the only difference you would have noticed was your system didn't crash when you opened more than two applications.

I still don't understand this whole concept that the Legacy system is gone. Every Finder window and open/save dialogue box has an option to us List View. So the Legacy OS lives on.

Rage on. Grey Beards. Rage on.

It ain't that the legacy system is gone. Part of it surely lives on in both OS X and of course, Windows...

But that sincere commitment to quality design in the interface, the simplicity, the lack of happy horseshit, the pure functionality and minimal but clever design... that all went into an over-the-top, overdesigned genie sucking faux texture difficult hot mess.

My greatest wish, before I die, is to see the Mac go back to streamlined, high performance, pro-grade, SIMPLE interface, or at least the ability to be customized that way. I would love to redesign every terrible overdesigned icon, into something more like the menubar icons. Oh, and I'd rather have my dock in the menubar. I'd rather have all my controls up top. Except for my trash, which I'd like on the desktop.

Instead of TWO themes (-gag- blue, or graphite), we should have dozens. We should have more control over interface fonts, and oh my god I would actually WEEP with fucking joy if I could get my black text highlight color back.

I've given up with "services" that actually work. That's become a completely useless menu item. Be honest, does anyone within the sound of my ranting actually use a service every day?
Every week? Month?

Yes, that is extremely sad.

Ohhhhh, poor Steve. He really is wasting away.

What makes Apple so cool?

quote:

"Part of what makes a product in premium class exciting is its relation to status," Enderle says. "Steve Jobs created a status aspect to how he presented Apple's offering.”

That’s true. And although groupthink and the heavy desire to believe in cool were huge factors (note that Mac fans regularly defend crap), Jobs and Apple would regularly back it up with good product styling. That outward factor should never be underestimated in regards to cool.

And that brings to mind one of the greatest conundrums in the modern world: Steve jobs sold oodles of stuff due to less-is-more styling while the contents of the packages themselves were often bloated, ugly, and over-the-top. Status often trumped usability. And as long as the name “Apple” could be associated with style, the products provided some minimal functionality, and the products looked cool (and where priced premium), they could, and often did, get away with murder.

I really do hope some kind of miracle or miracle cure happens for Jobs. We don’t want to lose him. God only knows what great creations he has in his head undreamt.

If he needs another liver, I'm pretty sure he'll get it. He's got to be at the top of any transplant list.

Jobs needs to invent the iTransplantation. And I hope he does find a donor organ if that's what it takes. He's even got the money to do it a la the Monty Python sketch in "Meaning of Life."

If there's some organ-donor alcoholic wife-beater out there, please run into a telephone phone pronto.

Jobs the Visionary, from the local newspaper. I love those medieval hands, in general.

Get Better
by The Bo Tox

Gimme a ticket for a Macworld stage
Ain't got time to just waste away
Crappy days have come, Jobs is goin' home
Steven, we hope you get better

I don't care how bad my iPhone antenna is
Got to get back the innovator man
Crappy days have come, Jobs is goin' home
Steven, we hope you get better

Yeah, we hope he gets better
Say, how could we live without one more thing
Listen Steven can't you see you got to get Mac
In your garage once a'mo – any way…

[repeat]

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs. Passed away today.

He'll be missed. Thalo.net sends our condolences to his family, and to all the Apple Faithful.

Far to young to go. Just when things were getting interesting for him. I still don't think the technology has caught up with Jobs ultimate vision. That will take a while longer.

A sad day for the computing world.