First thing I thought of when I heard Steve Jobs had died was how my son S would take the news. S has been an Apple fan and a Mac techie since he was small, and so Steve Jobs has been his hero, almost his idol, ever since. I soon found out that S had taken the news hard, almost as though he had lost a friend, almost a family member.
My second thought was of that damn Tandy computer that was the first computer I ever had to deal with. It was grossly ugly -- and I know that shouldn't have mattered, but it was offensively unattractive -- and there was no way a normal person could memorize all the commands to get it to do anything with a word processor or a database. I had to keep a 8x11 "cheat sheet" under the keyboard -- well, actually, while I was using the computer, the sheet had to be out on the desk all the time -- with every single gobbledy-gook command on it. Computers would have gone nowhere without Steve Jobs. Do you really think people would want them in their homes and carry them everywhere if they stayed like that?
I remember the very first Mac I bought. We brought the box home in the afternoon, and I had a paper due in a seminary class that evening. We unpacked it and set it up, using the clear line drawing diagram, no directions or special instructions or anything. We hooked it up, plugged it in, turned it on, loaded in the application disks that came with it, and there it was. I sat down -- again, no instructions of any kind -- and wrote the paper from my notes, edited it, and printed it out. Slam-bang, it was done. That's all there was to it. Nothing to learn or memorize or cheat sheets to print out and keep handy.
That was the computer that S as a toddler first played with, and countless seminary and legal papers were completed on it. From there we graduated to even better computers, and later to iBooks and PowerBooks and the great colored iMacs and then the big screen iMac, and even the Mac Mini at the church office. When I got my first iPhone, Big Man gave me hell, telling people they would remove the iPhone from my "cold, dead hand." When he later got his own iPhone, I discreetly refrained from saying, "Told ya!" (Do not even ask me how many iPhone apps I have, I'd be embarrassed to say.) The iPad is so amazing we fight over it. ("Gimme! It's my turn!" "No, I'm not done!" Give it back!") Can't wait to get my own.
I read in the New York Times on Sunday -- and sent to my son S -- an essay about how Apple products fire up the same area of the brain as beloved family members or partners. It's like we LOVE our Apples stuff. The writer also said that as an experiment, he gave Blackberries to a group of babies between the ages of 14 and 22 months, and every single one of them tried to scrape their little fingers across the screens, like an iPhone, instead of trying to use those stupid teensy keys. Steve Jobs has changed everything.
We send our sympathy to the Jobs family and to the Apple family as well, which includes my son S at the Apple Store in Atlanta. Steve Jobs changed the lives of all of us, even those benighted people who haven't yet purchased an Apple product. (Although, please, what the heck are they waiting for??) Because of his innovations and creativity, every single tech company in the world had to change what they did and how they did it. Deny it all they want, all the other computer companies attempt to copy Apple's ease of use, intuitive processes, and try -- and fail -- to copy Apple's elegance and design savvy. We're all changed now.
I am grateful for how Apple products have improved my life, made lots of things more enjoyable, connected me with family and friends near and far, helped me do all my work better, brought more creativity and fun into my life, helped me to hold onto and savor precious memories, and gave me my favorite music to bring wherever I go.
Thank you, Steve Jobs, for everything, and I can't wait for my new iPhone and iPad.
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