Observations of society.

We have the privilege of living in a time which will see many, if not all, of the pioneering software greats, the idea-men, die and the aftermath of it all. I am of course referring to the founders of Google, apple, Microsoft and the likes of them. Though there are others equally big, whose losses will mean as much as to the community, they are not as famous as to evoke the kind of response that these would, out of the world's people.

Today Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer. Millions all over the world mourned his death. Photos were shared and messages were posted. Old videos were re-watched and old speeches re-read. People whored news of his death for online karma using spin-off jokes. Others waited for the apple share price to crash (Guilty on this count. Forgive this poor soul.). The man had a brilliant vision and some luck as well, and even though he was given a launchpad by xerox, he did make it to where he is. He worked with Pixar and NextSTEP, though unknown to general population. His work with Next is one of the major reasons for where the macOS is today. 

He seems to matter more now, than when he was alive. Years from now, there could be people saying 'If only Steve Jobs were alive..' whenever apple does something wrong. People moved from cussing him for  the iPhone 4S release to mourning him like family. This will form the subject for an interesting study, strictly academically speaking. I would like to know how much of apple's policies, decisions and ideas were influenced by jobs in the recent past. If my guess that he had a part to play in everything, is indeed right, we will most probably see some changes in Apple's future. Will there be a slide again?

Today Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer. I was never fond of the mac OS. However, I am a fan of the iPod and the hardware that the Mac-books come with. Steve jobs was a smart man, and his death is a loss to the community. I won't "miss" him though, as much as I respect him for this -

"None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do."

 Here's to you, in Helvetica.