The drizzle today only seemed fitting for paying my respects to a man who epitomized the spirit of Silicon Valley: be bold, be daring and follow your vision, not your critics. Or worse, your competitors.
I may have graduated with honors with a degree in Computer Science, but when it comes down to it I’m not a computer geek, or even a gadget head. I actually cried the first time I was forced to use a computer in college. What attracted me in the end to Computer Science was the elegance of expressing an algorithm through code. Good code is like good writing: clear, concise and well organized in its message. That’s good design, and that’s what Steve Jobs demanded.
Like so many others, what I appreciate about Apple products, which are all Steve’s babies, is their simplicity. Rather than offering you a hundred options, they know what you want. Rather than being clever, they let you be clever. Rather than being made in the image of the engineers that built them, they were made in the image of the non-geeks who bought them. In droves.
That’s me, the non-geek whose iPhone is her most valued material possession (don’t tell my bikes). I use my phone to connect with my husband, check in with friends on Facebook, record what I see with an amazing camera, find my way across town with Google maps and journal my life through this blog. With just my iPhone I was able to create this whole blog entry: taking photos, cropping them with PS mobile, composing copy and uploading it all with the WordPress mobile app.
Thank you, Steve. You make me clever. And judging by the little memorial your fans have created outside your Palo Alto home, I’m not the only one you touched.
Who are your heroes?
