It is sad to see the demise of Steve Jobs. He was the driving and innovative force behind Apple. His ideas have basically shaped the digital world for the last 15 years, and the computing world before that.
Having said that, although I have an iPod for listening to when pedalling furiously to nowhere on the exercise bike, I much prefer all things Android to things iOS. Personally, I find them easier to use. I also have to admit I prefer Windows PCs to Apple Macs, but both of these pale into insignificance against Linux, in my opinion.
However, it still has to be said that Android would not have been dreamt of without Apple coming first and Windows and Linux only became usable when they started incorporating some of Apple’s ideas.
So, hats off to the man and hope he is happy in that great byte bucket in the sky.
Boadicea's Chariot 
As far as I can remember. the original windows was known as GEO software (or similar) written by IBM, Windows looked so much like it I often wondered who was first …
Then came a program know as “PC Tools” which mysteriously disappeared from the markets only to resurface later as Win98/XP.
LINUX is a derivative of the old UNIX by the Bell Corporation, an offshoot of AT&T, more open back doors than the Taj Mahal 🙂
Back in the 80s there used to be programming magazines wholly devoted to cracking UNIX both for banking applications and for anyone wishing to re-route someone else’s money to Switzerland; I been told by experts that more than 80% of the old UNIX cracks still work on the new LINUX. 🙂
I think Newton said it best. ‘If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants’.
I have not been persuaded by this whole gadget thing. My cell phone is pretty darn basic. I use it for calls, text messages and as a calendar/alarm/watch. I don’t really want to be getting emails on my phone and I have yet to find a genuine need for the internet on such a small device. I just do not see the point of upgrading your mobile every year. Mine is 5 years old and works fine. As for music, I recently purchased a bog standard MP3 player which resides in my car. I do not listen to music when I am exercising and in fact hate earphones. I would quite like an iPad for books and newspapers, but they are a bit too pricey to justify, as is the Samsung Galaxy which is what I would probably prefer.
He certainly had an impact on the computing world. The Mac made computers easy to use for those who came ‘new’ to computer technology – and,as you say, forced Microsoft into incorporating some of Apple’s ideas. I’ve never used Linox – so I don’t know about that.
However, I honestly believe that Job’s real genius was in marketing. To market a product that does not interact easily with any other system, to use fixed retail pricing to charge exorbitant prices, to use US patent law to remove all competition and then to convince a millions to pay those prices for his products, was, I think, the main cause of Apple’s success.
As you can see, I’m not an Apple fan! Indeed apart from buying an Ipod some years ago to act as a ‘back-up’ for the thousands of photos I was taking in the National Archives, I’ve avoided Apple products like the plague!
Cheers Sipu!
My phone is just for calls and texts – and only when I can hear it ringing! I have no need to access the internet 24/7…
I do upgrade my computers regularly – but that’s because I have little patience and I expect the darn things to react quickly!
I decide to get a Kindle earlier this year – but have waited for their new model to come out. They are not that expensive.
Hats off indeed, I’ve never owned an i-anything, never had the need for ‘innovative stuff’ plus the products are too expensive here. I do however respect his accomplishments and regret his passing at such a young age.
Agreed
I bought an I-ron once 🙂
You must have been pressed!
I paid $29.99 for it but when I stuck it to my ear to listen to the radio it burnt my earlobe off 😦
🙂
Sad to go so early, and pancreatic cancer is a pretty tough way to go – the guy had guts, no doubt.
But I’m not a fan of his products or his marketing methods. Brilliant, but avaricious. Sorry.
An Apple off-shoot from China .. picks up all FM radio stations around the world, shows pictures, plays movies, records voices, stores text messages, explores the net (but can’t write to it) and even acts as a 60 Gb flash stick. $30.00, it also came with an almost exact replica (for free), the size of a match box and it does the same things as this one. 🙂
[techmode]
Donald: Linux is not based on ATT Unix. It is based on a new kernel written by Linus Torvalds, hence the name It Its full name is GNU Linux, since Torvalds only wrote the kernel and the rest of the operating system was written the Opren Source GNU project members (GNU stands, somewhat recursively, for GNU’s Not Unix). Linux, although not 100% secure, is far more secure than any version of Windows.
Incidentally, Apple iOS is based on BSD, aka Berkeley System Distribution Unix and Android is based on the Linux kernel.
[/techmode] 🙂
I still think Jobs was a genius, but like Bearsy says, capable of using somewhat dubious business methods
RIP to the man. I did consider a Kindle, but you really can’t beat, turning the pages of a real book, the dog eared corners where I’ve turned them, is comforting somehow. The rustle of a newspaper, and getting your hands dirty from the print, sorry, but I love the real thing.
I do have an MP3 player, and use it, but I used to love the sound of the next record, as it dropped onto the deck and began playing.
Good answer FEEGl here is a bit more info.
Linux is actually a composite. The Linux platform includes the Linux kernel, the same GNU utilities found in virtually all versions of Unix, the same GUIs and applications available for most Unix variants, and hundreds of device drivers either custom-developed for Linux and (mostly since) ported to Unix variants like Solaris for x86 or ported from Unix variants such as OpenBSD and SCO Open Server.
The current kernel is fundamentally the work of Linus Torvalds and people he recruited into the kernel development and maintenance process, but the kernel he started with — Andrew S. Tanenbaum’s Minix —
was unambiguously described by its author as “an open source Unix clone.”
combining that usage with the origin in Minix, the shared GNU and open-source heritage, and obvious functional compatibility with Unix settles the question: Linux is Unix, and no ifs, buts or maybes about it.
All this from http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32719.html.
But of course I knew this because I was a junior student (coffee maker) at the time when Richard Miller and Ross Nealon managed to port an OS system from one computer to another and we used UNIX … I was still in the army and just beginning to learn computers .
That’s right, I been at it since prehistory!!! 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wollongong_Unix
In fact the team I was working under proved and made it possible for “portable and home computers” to exist 🙂
Give me a screen and keyboard ‘and leave the rest to you.’
OK, I have an iPhone. I am about to junk my HP Notebook for for an iMac – no need for a portable anymore, anything I want to do on the move I can do on the iPhone. My Grandson has an iPad, which he lives with, (when he’s in the house – no couch potato he,) and my Granddaughter an iPod touch. All of my children have iPhones, and facetime – including to the iPod touch – makes us only a touch of a button away from each other anywhere in the World with a wifi link. (If you’ve ever seen facetime in action, you’ll know why I don’t mention Skype.)
Job’s genius was in making sure that he set the bar so high that everyone else has to play by Apple’s rules. A right-up-to-the-minute example; inspired by this thread, I decided to give Tango – the Android videocall app a go. Downloaded the app, tried to register so that I could give it a go – fail, tried again – fail, tried again – fail. Bye-bye Tango.
My son has my I-pad … which means I shall never get it back …. but I must admit that it is a brilliant contraption and is definitely the way of the future, they are small, compact and use less energy than conventional laptops or desktops making them cheaper to run.
I would recommend them to one and all, although they are no good for programming since they are too fiddly to work with; but only a few would care about that. (just don’t lend them to your sons 😦
Ah Unix. How I remember vi, core dumps and the ease with which you could delete, usually unintentionally, entire file systems. Happy days.
I am with you Donald on Linux being Unix. The name kind of gives it away, it almost an anagram. What I want to know, though, is how you, FEEG and anybody else here pronounce it. I always use a long vowel and say Ly-nuss. But when I hear people discuss it in the media and conferences etc, they use a short vowel. Linn-us. I suppose they pronounce it the way that Torvalds says his first name, but I don’t like it.
Sipu:
You could only delete a Unix system if you were a super user, and should know what you are doing, or if the system had not been configured properly.
In answer to you r question about pronunciation, here is the answer, straight from the horses mouth, as it were. 🙂
Are we any the wiser? a horse might haver been clearer 🙂 🙂
The trouble was, FEEG, that I was in ‘technical sales’, a greater contradiction in terms you could never find. I used to visit customers to install software to migrate their legacy applications from proprietary Operating Systems to Open Systems such as Unix, Xenix and MS-DOS. (Who remembers that?) It meant that I was supposed to know what I was doing, but as you might imagine that was not always the case. There were several, ‘oh bugger’ moments in the course of my career. The worst though, happened to our senior developer. He, the MD and the Sales Director were over from the UK visiting clients in Massachusetts somewhere, when in front of everybody he wiped out the entire system. I think it was del *.* from the root directory. They made the sale!
I am reminded of a joke.
What is the difference between a car salesman and a software salesman?
The car sales man knows when he is lying.
Yes, now you remind me, I think I have seen that clip before and it continues to irritate me. Luckily I don’t have to say the word out loud.
Sipu, 🙂
Boadicea: my parents have kindles. Both are very happy with them and are encouraging me to get one.
They’re easy to use and have a logical set-up. I once attempted having an iPod, but grew disgusted with having to reformat every single one of my music files. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I simply brought it back and ordered something which worked with Microsoft media and life has been much simpler since.
Don’t own any of them, instruments of the devil! I have no need to talk to anyone on the go or read weird machines. Can’t quite understand why people allow such invasions of their privacy.
Not surprised half the population is stressed out and the other half mad as hatters.
Apart from that he struck me as an unpleasant man on a personal level.
All that hoo haa refusing to acknowledge the illegitimate child and leaving her and her mother on welfare when he was a millionaire; disgusting. Plus constantly screaming at employees.
FEEG.
Add me to the growing list of people who don’t want anything to do with Apple in any shape or form. I understand they have their loyal fans but count me out!
That said, it is sad he died so early, but he was certainly a genius, if only a marketing genius.
I was saddened to hear of the death of Steve Jobs, although expected the suddeness of it took me by surprise. I have blogged on here and other sites as a fan of all things Apple but I’m not about to launch into another one about the products. I think there is a tendancy with Steve that people see the product rather than the man and so I would like you to take a small amount of time to read this.
This is part of a speech that Steve Jobs gave to graduates of Stanford University in 2005, he was aware that he had cancer at the time he gave it. RIP Steve
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.”
——————————————————————————–
OMG
Fine words do not make a fine man. Job’s ethics can be summed up by his comment “Stay Hungry”. He was not a pleasant character.
Sadly I think it is true to say that great men seldom are!
Nonetheless an inspiring speech and I’m grateful to OMG for posting it.
Sipu
Possibly you are right that great men are seldom pleasant… the problem is that I don’t happen to think that Steve Jobs was a “great man”.
Jeepers, Boadicea. You have tough criteria for defining great. If you look at what he achieved in terms of computing, communications, design and entertainment, you could say that he changed the world more than most people have done. While not everybody loves Apple, they love what Apple led to. He did more for personal computing than most. He led the way for Microsoft and the ubiquity of the internet. Computer aided graphic design has always been Apple based and has enabled huge numbers of people to create some wonderful products that might otherwise never seen the light of day. He created the biggest company in the world and with it 10’s of thousands of jobs, directly. But indirectly, he created millions because of the industries he pioneered. Just the fact that through his own abilities, and more honestly than most, he created one of the largest personal fortunes of all time at $8 billion makes him pretty impressive. (Ok still a long way behind Gates and Buffet but not to be sniffed at). You may not like him, but even if you were a Luddite, which I know you are not, surely you cannot deny that he was a great as any man in the last 30 years.
I know nothing of Apple or Jobs so have no opinion either way. But to give him credit individually seems a little surprising….wouldn’t most if not all of those innovations have happened without him?
Probably not. He was not, as many have pointed out, a nice man, but most of the Apple innovations were his personal idea. Having said that, I think other companies have implemented those ideas better. I doubt whether any other individual or individuals could have dreamt up all of these ideas.
The true technical genius behind the Apple phenomenon was its creator … “Steve Wosniak”, Jobs was there all along, from its very beginning …. but his job was one of management and motivation.
Jobs was definitely a great salesman and it is more than likely that he would have been just as great had he sold cars, insurance or bonds but as I see it, the true geniuses behind all those innovations were not the salespeople or managers, rather it was the engineers who created the products in the first place.
They should have given Wosniak a Nobel Prize, he earnt it. It was his original vision that changed the world, all the others rode on his shoulders. 😦
Quite right, Donald. 😀
Yes, Sipu, I do have tough criteria! And they don’t include men who behave as Jobs did to his original partner, Steve Wozniak who, I believe, was the main designer of the hardware, circuit board designs, and operating system of the original Apple. So, no, Jobs didn’t do it single handed or on his own…
Nor do I like the restrictive trade practices of the Apple Corporation.
I also note that while Gates uses some of his money gained from his equally over-priced goods for philanthropic ventures – Jobs simple sat on his billions.
He may have made millions, and he may have been the name on the inventions (as was Edison) but I don’t admire the way he did it.
Cheers Donald – you said it better than I did!
But the point is that Apple hardware was not, and still is not, that good. It is the system design that is so good.
Which part of “operating system” do you not understand, FEEG? 🙄
Operating system? What has that got to do with the price of apples? And don’t forget that GUI’s were not invented by Apple either, they came from the Xerox Labs. I know all about operating systems. I wrote one for an experimental demonstration home computer long before the BBC or Commodores came along. It was based on a Unix like system, but was rather less elegant than Linux 🙂
Yes, who would have suggested otherwise (about GUIs, that is – not that they were called GUIs in the early days)?
If we’re talking genuine, real, professional system design, where’s the innovation in an Apple?
You seemed to be writing the hardware out of what you were calling system design – which is a pretty hard trick – but I went along with you for the laugh.
Come on, explain yourself, young Sir – let’s have a discussion that nobody else on the Chariot will understand! 😆
Hey – not fair – you’ve just edited your comment!! 🙂
I’ll have you know that I was writing real time schedulers and executives before anyone had even thought of the term ‘operating system’.
I only edited because I pressed the Go button prematurely 🙂 What I am saying is that Apple hardware is not that robust, either in terms of longevity or software stability. My daughter is on her 4th iPod and 3rd iPhone, and my iTunes installation keeps mucking about.
The commercial ideas behind the Apple systems is very clever, although the ethics is not. System design for products includes this aspect. That is one reason I prefer Android, with its open source ethic. In my dotage I have got hold of the Android SDK and emulator and am going to have a go at bashing out some apps. Since that uses Java, that is relatively easy. Apple uses Objective-C for iOS apps. That is very convoluted.
I, too, have written real-time systems that did not have an OS, including systems that switch on and off 25KV with 0.5 of an amp behind it, 10 Tesla magnets, pump down and evacuate high vacuums systems and that that need human intervention, so that all required a certain amount of care. 🙂
I think this exchange is in danger of rapidly degrading into a pissing contest, so I’ll call a halt.
I shall refrain from quoting extracts from my curriculum vitae lest I embarrass you. 😆 😆
Nothing wrong with object orientated C, or C++ – or C#, come to that. But a high-level language in I/O? Ye Gods, we used to search for every last μsec using hand assembled and punched machine code. It’s all too easy these days. 🙄
What will we all talk about when the organic computers come in? (since 1989) …..Shall we be saying such things as ….
“I just reprogrammed the chip’s DNA to regenerate its bus circuitry” 😦
or
“Crickey — my computer just gave birth to a copper wire, quick someone grab some cutters and chop off its umbilical connector!! ” 😦
🙂
… and as for quantum computers, we’ll never keep track of where they might possibly be (or not) when we leave the room! 🙂
Bearsy – I still use software made by a company some 30 years ago, the company’s name was 80/20 software and they produced a language called ASIC ,,, very similar to BASIC but with a compiler so rugged that even today so called programmers believe I write programs in Machine Language. ( I never have) 🙂
I can still Peek and Poke memory locations, take over a Kernel or “dissolve” a chip with a few simple codes, most of today’s high level languages are so advanced they can’t even open a port without the need for a DLL file.
It’s all so confusing!!!! I feel left behind .. 😦
I’ll just stick to Visual Basic 🙂
Could not agree more, but Objective C has a very weird syntax. You can do object oriented programming in straight C. Probably the best thing ever to come out of Seattle was the .NET framework, although the Mono open source version is just as good. C# is what C++ should have been, If you want an easy high level language to use IronPython is the way to go. I have also had the pleasure of counting machine cycles in some low level programming exercises on limited hardware 😦
I bet I can still go higher up the wall! 🙂
Boadicea, great, is a relative term. Who would you consider great amongst any who has risen to prominence in the past 50 years?
I have not read any biographies of Jobs or Wozniak, but a quick search of the internet reveals that in 1981 Woz was involved in a plane crash that left him mentally damaged. This is what Wiki says. ( I realise it is a dodgy source, but if anybody knows different, please say so.)
“Wozniak did not immediately return to Apple after having recovered from the crash. Instead, he married Candice Clark and returned to UC Berkeley under the name “Rocky Raccoon Clark” (Rocky was his dog’s name and Clark his wife’s maiden name), finally earning his undergraduate degree in 1986.[6] In May 1982 and 1983, Wozniak also sponsored two US Festivals to celebrate evolving technologies; they ended up as a technology exposition and a rock festival as a combination of music, computers, television and people.
In 1983 he returned to Apple product development, desiring no more of a role than that of an engineer and a motivational factor for the Apple workforce.[4]
Wozniak permanently ended his full-time employment with Apple on February 6, 1987, 12 years after having created the company. He still remains an employee and receives a paycheck.[4][7] He is also an Apple shareholder.[8] He also maintained connections with Steve Jobs until Jobs’ death in October 2011,[9] although in 2006 Wozniak stated that he and Jobs were not close friends.[10]”
The famous Apple Mackintosh was launched in 1984. Remember that classic ad that put the company onto the world stage?
In short, I think that you are jumping to conclusions about their relationship. While Wozniak may have provided the technical skills to create the first computer, he would never have done so had Jobs not been around to provide the vision and impetus.
As for Jobs not giving his money away, he would have been foolish to do so as long as he was involved in the running of Apple. He needed authority has a significant shareholder. Gates did not give his money away until he surrendered day to day management of MS.
He may not have been a nice man, but he was certainly a great man.