Making fat piles of cash on status-symbol widgets.
I guess it's too bad that I won't see what other slightly-rounded, double-priced white objects he would have produced.
How can you even compare that to developing the C language?
I guess it's too bad that I won't see what other slightly-rounded, double-priced white objects he would have produced.
How can you even compare that to developing the C language?
Once I land I'll use the same "status-symbol widget" to check my email and respond to any particularly urgent requests; I'll use the same device to call my wife and tell her I'm on the ground safely. Might even take a picture to send to her if I feel like it.
Then I'll get in my rental car, where I'll use my "status-symbol widget" to help me get to my ultimate destination, a hotel room I booked using the same device that's going to help me get there.
Once there, I'll fire up the device to find someplace good to eat.
It's always very sad when a human being dies. But excuse me if I don't worship the corporate hero who produced the object you use to do things which aren't necessary using non-unique technology.
I'll grant that one thing Steve Jobs did develop was the brand strategy that makes you rabid when someone challenges your decision of buying small electronic devices you don't need at a significant markup, because it's become a part of your personal identity.
On the contrary, Dennis Ritchie and other great tech people talked to our minds, for example, to give us a philosophy of how to create small programs to combine in a Lego fashion to create bigger ones (Unix philosophy), or to better program the machine underneath with a versatile language such as C. They are far more profound.
Second sad fact is that Steve Jobs gave minimal back to open source community (for example, BSD..), and defended a world where the company milks the users to the full limit.
Don't forget one of the worst forms of iPollution: "Sent from my iFoo". Why should people reading your messages care?
I think that sums up the difference between Jobs and Ritchie quite nicely. I'm not celebrating or mourning either of their deaths, but I recognize that Ritchie's contributions to our industry affect what I do on a daily basis from the OS level up. Jobs' contributions? Not so much.
Yes, but Jobs work affect non-geek's life in the same way. Not everybody is a programmer. Sure C was the a big milestone but you cannot say that I iPhone didn't revolutionize the smart phone market and put it into those people's hands who would never have bought such a thing otherwise.
I think those that complain about 'status symbol widgets' while complaining of persecution by Apple loyalists should consider that just taking a diametric stance doesn't make you any more objective.
He made it accessible and usable for non-geeks.
It is interesting with some geeks and HCI-design: It is not that they consciously don't like or value good HCI - it is more like it is invisible for them. They don't realize that it even exists! So they think Apple products becomes successful because they are white and have rounded corners (something that should surely be easy for the competition to copy), and they think the users love their products only because of the brand (which is really a circular argument, for how did Apple end up with a brand that people love?)