Why was the death of Steve Jobs so widely grieved?
By all accounts, Steve Jobs wasn't always a very nice person. While highly respected, he was controlling, arrogant, verbally abusive, impatient, and unreasonable. So why was he so widely loved?
You can argue the iconic stature was because of his design sense, his marketing prowess, or the way he wove his brand and the Apple brand indelibly together. Or perhaps society just can't get enough of the classic come-back story.
But I think it was more than that. I believe what Steve Jobs offered was justice.
We are now dependent upon technology in almost every aspect of our lives. But many products, many user interfaces, many companies, many designs are frustratingly bad. While we love the convenience of our in-car navigation system, but its also grating when it doesn't work. The computer voice is terrible.
The worst was the cell phone. Before the iPhone, how many of us were literally tied at the hip to our cell phones, while simultaneously holding in a deep burning desire to throw them at the wall and smash them into a million pieces. This sentiment was well-captured in the film "Office Space" when they take a baseball bat to a copier. We cheered. We all hate how dependent we are on machines that are utter crap.
Steve Jobs sought out not just to deliver a product that wasn't frustratingly bad, but he made it his personal mission to vanquish those frustratingly bad products one-by-one. He offered justice. And he promised more justice even for his own products and mistakes. In that way, Steve Jobs was our modern-day Solomon and perhaps equally universally loved.
With his passing, I worry about Apple's long-term success. I have no doubt they will build more great products, but will they offer justice? Will they make us believe again that there is someone, or even better an army, focused solely on delivering justice for those of us angry with bad technology?
I doubt it. The AppStore is slowly filling with crap. AirPlay is buggy and there's a crappy selection of speakers. The buying experience on the devices is crap. We browsing on IOS devices is slow. We were willing to believe that Steve Jobs, long the vanquisher of crap, would fix these problems. We were willing to pay a premium for the promise that frustrating technology would be vanquished. Without the promise of justice, I'm not so sure we'll keep paying that premium.
You can argue the iconic stature was because of his design sense, his marketing prowess, or the way he wove his brand and the Apple brand indelibly together. Or perhaps society just can't get enough of the classic come-back story.
But I think it was more than that. I believe what Steve Jobs offered was justice.
We are now dependent upon technology in almost every aspect of our lives. But many products, many user interfaces, many companies, many designs are frustratingly bad. While we love the convenience of our in-car navigation system, but its also grating when it doesn't work. The computer voice is terrible.
The worst was the cell phone. Before the iPhone, how many of us were literally tied at the hip to our cell phones, while simultaneously holding in a deep burning desire to throw them at the wall and smash them into a million pieces. This sentiment was well-captured in the film "Office Space" when they take a baseball bat to a copier. We cheered. We all hate how dependent we are on machines that are utter crap.
Steve Jobs sought out not just to deliver a product that wasn't frustratingly bad, but he made it his personal mission to vanquish those frustratingly bad products one-by-one. He offered justice. And he promised more justice even for his own products and mistakes. In that way, Steve Jobs was our modern-day Solomon and perhaps equally universally loved.
With his passing, I worry about Apple's long-term success. I have no doubt they will build more great products, but will they offer justice? Will they make us believe again that there is someone, or even better an army, focused solely on delivering justice for those of us angry with bad technology?
I doubt it. The AppStore is slowly filling with crap. AirPlay is buggy and there's a crappy selection of speakers. The buying experience on the devices is crap. We browsing on IOS devices is slow. We were willing to believe that Steve Jobs, long the vanquisher of crap, would fix these problems. We were willing to pay a premium for the promise that frustrating technology would be vanquished. Without the promise of justice, I'm not so sure we'll keep paying that premium.
posted by IdeaMan at 2:09 PM
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