Quibbles N' Pics

On October 5, 2011, Mr. Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. passed away due to respiratory arrest caused by his pancreatic cancer. This was an untimely passing for an iconic figure in the technology industry. He was adored and hated by millions of people around the world, and yet, despite all of that, the fame never got to his head and he was always a private person. The world will not only remember Mr. Jobs for what he did for Apple Inc. but what he did for the world of technology.

I have always been on both sides of the “Apple is the best” argument. I’ve hated on Apple, Steve Jobs and the company as a whole, and yet have found their products to be top-notch (sort of). Many people, including myself, have always said that Apple does not make “new” products. They take already existing products and just throw their logo on it and slap on the iOS software. However, I always believed that innovation is just taking something already there and making it better. Clearly, that is what Apple did. Apple hasn’t created anything that wasn’t previously in the market. In fact, a lot of what they have done isn’t considered original. However, they were able to revolutionize the way we saw technology. During this decade, Apple stopped being “Apple Computers Inc.” and became “Apple Inc.” It has become a worldwide brand, and to own an Apple product is to be considered hip, young, cool. If you don’t own an Apple product, you’re missing out. The iPod, released at the beginning of what I consider to be Apple’s beginning of reinventing itself, turned the world away from portable CD changers completely and towards the iPod. The iPhone came next and soon after, the iPad. MP3 players, smartphones, and tablet PCs were already in the market before these things came along, but once Apple started the revolution train, they were not going to stop.

With that said, it’s apparent that many people hold such high regard for a man they’ve never met. His house in Palo Alto, CA has a shrine, and there’s a mini-shrine on Apple’s 1 Infinity Loop campus, located in Cupertino, CA. I knew that after his passing, there would be hundreds of people in my own area that would take time out of their day to visit their local Apple store or the famed Apple campus and pay respects for a man who lived his life in recluse, only showing his face to the world during a product launch or MacWorld expo. Those who were lucky enough to know where Steve Jobs resided drove to his house and set up flowers and another shrine there. A lot of my pictures in this post reflect the feelings that I am sure a lot of Apple fans can relate to. I took pictures of the ones that didn’t sound so generic to me, since a lot of the messages basically said the same thing.

In closing, I’d like to personally thank Mr. Steve Jobs, for his contribution to the technology world. His legacy lives on, and although his untimely passing marks the end of an era in Apple’s history, Apple will continue on stronger in memory of Steve Jobs.