Simply put, it’s not easy. I never had the chance to know the man more than what was written about him on TechCrunch, Wired, and other such spots of tech. news, and I don’t think I ever could have. I’m a student in India and the maximum I’ve been exposed to Jobs’ vision is when I built an app for the iPhone. Or when I held an iPad in my hands and marveled at how it worked. Now, finding out that one of the world’s greatest, if not the greatest, innovator, thinker and human being has died troubles me, disturbs me.
Before today, I hadn't spent any time wondering what the future would be like without Steve Jobs in it, and right now, I think the future looks dank. The stuff he made was the stuff of dreams: they just worked. No more fiddling with connection speeds and downloads; the technology that he introduced (indirectly) brought me closer to my friends, to my work. Who else could make things like that?
Yes, the rise of Jobs was unprecedented, but it did happen, it has happened. After each successive battle with cancer, and other problems, the man came back stronger, harder. Every time I heard of his departure from Apple, I thought an era was coming to an end. Every time I heard that he was back, I knew a new one was beginning. Innovators of his caliber have seldom been found in the history of mankind.
Jobs’ reinvention of technology redefined the meaning of drive, of happiness. He doesn’t deserve the dedication of thousands of blog posts, articles, remembrances and reflections because he made the phones or the tablets. He deserves them because he showed that a future in which things generally got better, in which life just got happier, was possible.
Dear Steve Jobs, I miss you, and now I know how much. May you rest in peace.
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