Thank you, Steve

http://nvie.com/posts/thanks-steve/

Published: October 06, 2011

Published: October 06, 2011

This night, I woke up to the news that Steve Jobs passed away. I did not expect to be this touched by the news, although it was to be expected.

Steve Jobs has revolutionized the industry several times, each time showing customers what is possible, before customers could even dream about it.

He sold personal computers to households, applied the graphical user interface and the mouse to those, and then, in 2007, he saw a future for touch interfaces that fit in your pockets. Not only did he dream, he was able to actually build them. Each of these have set the standard in the industry. It is incredible how a single man was able to sketch this vision, inspire people to move mountains, and to reach these goals with Apple.

Reshaping the world

It is illustrative that the news of Steve’s death had not even made it to our news paper this morning, but was read by millions of people on their iPhones instead.

Obama used beautiful words to express his impact on mankind:

“Brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.”

Any person that ever touched an Apple device knows it breathes the dedication and craftsmanship that has been put into them, and it is an awesome feeling. Our kids will take this for granted, but we are still aware of where we came from.

Impact on developers

But Steve has also been able to make developers around the world more aware of their impact to users. That you should push hard to leave out unnecessary details. That it is important to pay attention to detail. That building software might be hard, but using software shouldn’t.

It is his heritage that every creative person on earth will feel Steve looking over his shoulder to push him just a little bit further at each detail. It will result in better products everywhere.

The ripple Steve caused in our industry will at least ripple on for a few decades throughout new products and technologies and will be the basis for how our children communicate, are educated, and perceive life.

What changed today is that we need to figure it out by ourselves, without his vision. That is scary, but we might just be old enough now ;)

Thanks for teaching us.