Some writers compare him to Da Vinci...Sure every innovation of his matches Da Vinci in creativity, the awe it inspires and visual appeal... Some writers compare him to Edison... a little too much was my first instinct but then again a world without i-products seems as unimaginable as a world without electricity.. So why not? When I told my 5-year old that Jobs is dead, her very first innocent question was " Does it mean you cant buy the i-phone you were waiting for? "...Does it? The unintentional profundity of what she asked left me speechless.
I am neither a self-proclaimed nerd nor a gadget junkie...In fact until 3 years ago I have never given a second look to an apple product. For me, the fascination for Jobs or what he has created was no love at first sight...Yet, I now have 6 Apple products in my home, 7th on its way and contemplating an 8th one...My slow gravitation towards the world of Jobs' creations is a story in itself and is a very much a combination of the master products and the master mind that was behind it...
When I first bought my ipod about 3 years ago, I truly dint think much of it. It was an MP3 player that served a need and seemed convenient. Since then, two generations of i-phones, i-macs and mac-Airs and even the first generation of ipad left me oblivious and uncaring to the world of Cupertino creations. The fascination for these products was beyond my comprehension and to a large extent I felt the "apple fan cult" was blindly willing to gobble up anything that is , well, 'just apple"...Then it finally happened... It was a week before the ipad2 launch, I was having lunch with some friends and the topic of a new ipad2 launch came up. P (my husband) almost jokingly asked me if i wanted an ipad2, fully expecting me to decline like the thousand times I had done before for ipad1. I cant say what triggered me to say "yes" but once it was said, there was no turning back. From that day on, I followed the launch of ipad2 very closely, called around like crazy on the day it launched, went home disappointed when no store carried it, divided up on-line sites with friends to call around for a place that would carry one and finally ordered one within 48-hrs of launch, complete with the smart cover... Overnight I became one of them ( the crazy Apple cult, remember? ). ipad2 of course worked out great. I loved everything about it including the attention I got just carrying it around in the first few days.
It was in these early honeymoon days with the ipad2, I read this amzing book called "The inmates are running the Asylum" . This book talks about a new dimension to SW development called "interactive design" , an area the book claims most software engineers do not even know exist. It describes how software engineers only focus on giving end users what they need capsuled in a form they cannot digest or ingest. The book emphasizes on the interactive design aspect which makes the user "want your product" as opposed to buying it out of a need. According to the book, the right SW design focused on interactive design will make the user crave and die for your product. Hmmm... where have I seen that before? The more I read the book, more I could understand why there is so much craze about i-products. Jobs has not given people yet another gadget but something they can treasure, show off and carry around like a status symbol...a fact further substantiated by the number of ipad articles I was seeing in the "Fashion section" of daily journals . On a few days, there were more articles in this section than the "Tech" section...
This book got me really curious behind the man who made this all happen. I downloaded a biography of Jobs (on my ipad of course) and promptly read it cover to cover. It simply was an amazing read. The man had a Midas touch... everything he touched turned into gold...he seemed to "just know" what would click. PCs, digital animation, MP3 players, tablets..How is this possible? what kind of a drive, vision would prompt someone to be so innovative, yet pay so much attention to every single detail. To him the user experience starts from the time the box is opened and it is no wonder every act is planned, rehearsed and executed to perfection. I started looking around for more information on Jobs and decided to hear his legendary Stanford commencement address (Available on YouTube for those interested). And what a speech that was!!! It reeked of pure authenticity. Here are my favorite lines from his speech :
- In life , it is only possible to connect the dots looking back. So you have to follow your passion somehow hoping the dots will connect one day
- The heaviness of success was replaced by lightness of being a beginner again - When he was fired from Apple
- "If today was my last day, would I want to do what I am about to do today "
Suddenly the tech world feels so empty, so lost without its visionary. Is this the end of innovation and great products as we know it? what would have followed if he had lived for many more years like he himself had hoped for in the commencement speech? We can only speculate... Are we going to go back to devices with a million buttons & controls that we do not know how to use ? Luckily he has raised the bar not only on his products but on the whole industry. The lesson he has taught on user interaction design is here to stay...his legacy timeless...Will the world ever see another one like him? Very hard to say...As for the "ones" in Cupertino, I do see them spinning in an "infinite loop" without their charismatic leader, he was after all , the Apple in their "i"...
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