Steve Jobs was not an unfamiliar legend. He was someone that may be “less than .0000001% of the world population ever met but seemingly 99% of the population has an immense feeling of adoration“. There has been so many books, articles, blog posts about him over decades (simple search on Google yields millions of results). Many writer has interviewed, researched thoroughly about him. This post is not meant to be another post revealing something about Steve Jobs that many people may or may not know, it’s about how Steve Jobs and Apple changed and continue to change my life.
I just became Apple fan recently (from Nov 2011 to be exact, less than 2 years ago). Yes, I was so impressed by Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford in 2005, I listened, watched it again and again so many times. Yes many of my friends, even my old flatmates for 3 years all use Apple products from Macbook, iPod then iPhone and iPad 1. Yes I saw some Apple ads in the past before 2011. I even used to work with Apple team in Singapore to promote all of their products on Search Engines across 13 countries in Asia Pacific for nearly 1.5 years. I visited the office in Singapore a couple of times, visit the Apple authorized resellers etc…I even used iPhone 3S and it was just a phone to me.
With all of that you would think I would have become a die-hard Apple fan long time ago!
It was not that I didn’t appreciate the beauty of the product, or I didn’t read news about product launch prior to Nov 2011.
Well for some weird reasons I did not become a fan, not until Nov 2011 when my wife bought me the iPad 2 for my birthday (Thank you so much sweet heart!). The moment i opened the box, I could feel that this was something very special and boy it WAS!
I started to use basic programs like keynote on iPad, iCloud, Mail, Safari and especially iTunes. Such a world of difference! I used to think that I am not a visual person and I didn’t appreciate Art as much as other people. I was wrong, Apple product is art. I started to appreciate design more and more, I even watch design talks on iTunes U. and Yes I watched lots of other stuff on iTunes U from that time. I couldn’t believe there is such an open and resourceful library for FREE.
From the iPad, i quickly became convinced that I needed Macbook Pro and Time Machine. I started appreciating iPhone in a whole new level. I started watching many of the previous Apple product launches in the past, reading books about Steve Jobs like “I, Steve: Steve Jobs in his own words” by George Beahm, “The presentation secrets of Steve Jobs” by Carmine Gallo, “the second coming of Steve Jobs” etc… I watched different documentaries about Steve, and of course I too read “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson. “Steve Jobs and Bill Gates D5 conference” is definitely worth watching as well.
I could feel that there was a fundamental change in me, on how I could appreciate art & technology in a new way, how I appreciate product development and realized I have deep passion in product dev. I guess I started to become a bit obsessed with little details from that moment on, started to read more materials about design thinking, computer science and watch more lectures online.
Steve Jobs wasn’t perfect, I understand that from reading about him, through his official biography and other materials. No body is perfect…
Yet when I read what other people quoted him, especially during the time of his death I could see how much he impacted our lives and would continue to impact us for years to come.
Below are a couple of articles that I noted on the day of his death:
- Eric Schmidt quoted Steve saying about children one time “it’s your heart running around outside your body“. Such a level of perception about feelings and emotions!
- The Steve Jobs timeline, prepared by the New York Times.
- “The Steve Jobs I knew” by Walt Mossberg
- Steven Paul Jobs, 1955 – 2011
I have to admit because of my youth, i wasn’t around the time when the world lost leaders like Thomas Edison or Henry Ford or Mahatma Gandhi so I wouldn’t know what it felt like. With Steve Jobs’ death, I remember watching and rewatching multiple times on Oct 06 (GMT +7) the legendary ad Think Different. I kept reminding myself to Think Different from that day.
“Stay hungry, Stay foolish”
Chandler