Post-it notes to Steve Jobs
Nearly two days after the death of Steve Jobs, the outpouring of messages from the cult of Apple and those who simply admired what the company co-founder accomplished in his lifetime continues. The messages in the image above, taken at one of the New York City Apple stores, capture some of the sentiments and ideas that define Steve Jobs and Apple.
Simplicity, as expressed in the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and the retail stores, was in Jobs' creative DNA and thus Apple's.
"That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains," Jobs said in 1998 interview with BusinessWeek.
Controlling every aspect of what went into an Apple product allowed Jobs to make fewer compromises on design and functionality, and create a user experience that captured dedicated, loyal fans, not just users.
"Cool" was also part of the Jobs vocabulary. Commenting on a Guitar Hero for the iPhone demo, Jobs characteristically said, "It's very cool," he said. He made not just technology, but even being a CEO and business retailer cool.
Jobs was loathe to compromise on quality. "We just can't ship junk," Jobs said during a Q&A in August 2007. "There are thresholds that we can't cross because of who we are." Jobs, who was the ultimate beta tester and believed he knew best what would thrill consumers, set a high standard for the industry, himself and his employees.
Jobs was visionary in the sense of "programming the future." He was fond of a quote from hockey great Wayne Gretzky. "There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will," Jobs said at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007.
Complete coverage: Steve Jobs 1955-2011Jobs was also about persistent throughout his career in trying to change the world "one Apple at a time," and in volume. Introducing the $2,495 Macintosh with 128K bytes of memory in 1984, Jobs said, "Of the 235 million people in America, only a fraction know how to use a computer. Macintosh is for the rest of us."
It took a few decades, but the progeny of the original Macintosh and Jobs vision has taken hold. Apple has sold more than 300 million iPods worldwide, 16 billions songs have been downloaded from the iTune Music Store and iPhone, iPad and Macbook Air have been pioneering devices in their respective categories.
Jobs attributed the success of Apple's products to more than technology. "It's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with liberal arts, humanities that yields us the result that makes our heart sing. And nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices," Jobs said during the unveiling of the iPad 2 in March 2011.
"One more thing" was Jobs' trademark tease at the end of product launch for the pièce de résistance. The Apple magician was going to pull another rabbit out of his hat. It came to symbolize and solidify his connection with his audience--tens of million of Apple product users and fans around the world.
On Tuesday, the new Apple CEO Tim Cook took Jobs' place in leading the introduction of the iPhone 4S. There was no "one more thing." Steve Jobs passed away the following day.
