It came sooner than anticipated, but news of the death of Apple co-founder and technology visionary Steve Jobs was sadly, not unexpected.
But it became clear this year that Jobs’ health was steadily declining and his offical resignation as CEO just over a month ago was greated with articles that even then read like obituaries.
His passing literally sees the end of an era in innovation that was largely driven by Apple and the vision of Steve Jobs. Technology will continue its march forward, but there’s a sense that there isn’t quite as firm a hand on the tiller any more and won’t be until the next visionary emerges to make the next leap forward.
Here then are the 10 most important things I believe Jobs has left us with:
1. The reimagining of digital content in the format provided by the iPad will in time, I believe, come to be considered the point where the future of publishing became clear.
2. The concept of simplicity, that what happens under the hood of your computer doesn’t matter, that what you want to do is more important than what you use to do it. PC users took a long time to comfortably adopt this mindset.
3. An unyielding philosophy around industrial design that has seeped into the car industry, magazine design and everything in between.
4. A fundamental overturning of the concept of software with the arrival and proliferation of the “app”.
5. The ability to elevate the status of technology to transcend its genre – inspiring legions of children, entertainers, business people, journalists and scientists to imagine what they can do better. Rarely have such ideas in technology had such universal appeal.
6. The same experience everywhere – a uniformity across platforms and products that is instantly familiar and recognisable and puts the user at ease.
7. A product in the iPhone that changed the nature of personal communication. It wasn’t the first smartphone, but it was and still is the best.
8. Marketing of technology that could fill text books with gold-plated examples of how to launch new products, market their features and create an overwhelming consumer yearning for them.
9. Making music the universal language of modern society.
10. The idea that not compromising on your ideals, that never backing down as uncomfortable or intimidating as this may be, can lead to great things being achieved.*
*disclaimer: sometimes this can lead to disaster also, so be careful!