RIP Steve Jobs

I first got the news of Steve Job's passing in the lift on the way up to the office. It was about 845am. From conventional media - television. There is a 10inch screen embedded above the button panel at a rather uncomfortable height and on it plays Channel News Asia all day. The red text on the fixed white bar on the bottom of the screen announced the inevitable. He was 56, younger than my mum which freaked me out a little. But many of us knew that it had to happen sooner or later, Steve was looking awfully gaunt lately. Pancreatic cancer, goodness. It was a tough battle, and Steve won and lost.

Visionary is often used to describe this man. Perhaps he was just showing us what it meant to live by one's own prinicples. Undoubtedly his standards were high, and all of Apple's successes post kaledoscopic iMacs were jaw-droppingly game-changing. Ideas that worked, devices that looked beautiful and worked even more beautifully. Iconic stuff. Exacting standards, some painful, were set in place if one was to achieve glory under his watchful eye, I guess. He created the tech divide, the PC vs Mac eternal battle. And he had his army, legions faithful to this every word, loyal to the brand. If Mac is a religion, then Steve was Jesus. Or Buddha in black turtleneck and jeans.

We're all grateful in some form or other. I am typing this post on a Macbook. I own a iPod and had an iPhone. I don't think I have as many other electronic products from the same brand. Steve Jobs did more for the design and UX frame of thinking than perhaps anyone else.

Well, life goes on. We celebrate the man and his ideas and impact, and always will. Cheers.