Steve Jobs logs off
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: October 10 2011 -

The passing away of Steve Jobs, to repeat a cliché, marks the end of an era. He is without doubt one of the most influential figures of the present era era which is sometimes also referred to as the digital era. Many would say he changed the face of the digital era.

We can trace the success story of Steven Paul Jobs to 1976 as some sort of a starting point when he along with Steve Woznaik and Ronald Wayne co-founded the Apple Computers Inc.

The company tasted its first (of the many to follow) success when it commercially launched the Macintosh computers in January 1984 which changed the way computers were viewed and used.

The use of icons in conjunction with the mouse or the so called Graphical User Interface (GUI) meant that even a child could use the computer and perform a number of tasks.

Before this one had to punch in commands on the keyboard to begin any task on a computer. We are so used to the clicking the mouse that we cannot imagine life without one, something like the TV without a remote. Life has become so much easier, simpler; information as they say now is just a 'click of the mouse' away.

Of course many other innovations in software and hardware over the years have contributed in making the personnel computer more user-friendly, offering range of tasks which were unthinkable some years back. Another big leap in the digital world came about in 2001 when Apple launched the iPod, a portable media player which can also function as an external data storage device with capacity ranging from 2 GB to 160 GB in some models.

The coming of this device in the market made a huge change in the way music was listened to and went on to have a major impact on the music industry. After signing deals with major music companies Apple launched its iTunes Music Store 2003 and in 2008 went on to become the foremost music vendor in the USA.

Two more products from Apple whose launch made a huge splash in the digital world were the iPhones and iPads in 2007 and 2010 respectively. Steve Jobs, reportedly a very hands-on CEO is supposed to have been personally involved with the minutest detail in the development of each of these products. Another guiding principle in making of products for Steve Jobs was to find "the intersection of art and technology."

Steve Jobs was adopted by Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs because his biological parents could not marry because of the social circumstances prevailing then in America when he was born. He dropped out of Reed College Portland, Oregon after just one semester.

Went to India for spiritual enlightenment and came back a Buddhists with shaven heads, experimented with LSD and called it "one of the two or three most important things done in life."

Not a portrait of someone who walked the straight and narrow path in life. This hunger for exploring new ways, of pushing the boundaries, not accepting things because convention dictates so, could partly explain his creativity, his ability to think out of the box, his foresight to think beyond the here and now.

He was truly one among millions, as Bill Gates another individual who has had a profound impact in our lives, as we know it today, says, "The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come,".

From the life of Steve Jobs, our society can learn one important lesson and that is geniuses are a class apart and they are not always found among the toppers in academic institutes.

The present obsession of our urban middle class with rankings and success in examinations as a measure of a student's worth may not be the surest way of unearthing or nurturing geniuses.

This should give way to a more tolerant society which does not give up on the less successful or the lower ranked students. But then we can take heart from the knowledge that geniuses will emerge out of every conceivable circumstances, including and, more so, in the most unfavourable of conditions.