Today is the ninth anniversary of the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Quiet by coincidence, I was on the Apple campus on the day he died. It’s another of my happenstance habit of alighting on the correct spot in the world to witness significant events. The other memorable occasion was arriving in Berlin the day the Wall fell.
Anyway, there I was. I’d planned a week in San Francisco and, as a then keen Apple blogger, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit Cupertino. Everyone knew that Steve didn’t have long to go, of course, but I was astonished to hear the announcement of his death while wandering around the on-side Apple Store.
On a different note, the Zeiss ZX1 can now be preordered on B&H. No price yet.
Well, I haven’t left a message here for a long time (..I’ve been busy with other non-photographic interests..) but Steve Jobs’ death is in my calendar, too, each year.
Why? I used Apple computers (..and other Apple products..) since the Apple II back in, er, 1982. (I was even asked to go up to what was then Apple UK HQ in – it must have been – November ’83, to try out the new computer which was launched in January ’84 ..the screen-like-a-desktop ‘Macintosh’.)
I wasn’t specially bothered with Macs after that, until the Blueberry iMac launch after Steve’s return to Apple ..the semi-translucent iMac with the ‘DV’ (digital video) ‘Firewire’ socket on it, letting you import Sony camcorder video and edit it in Apple’s new program ‘iMovie’.
After extensive use of iMovie, I became a ‘Helper’ on Apple’s ‘Discussions’ Support website, explaining to newbies – along with the original Helpers Dan Slagle, Lennart Thelander, Karl Petersen, et al – how to get the best out of the program.
The update to iMovie 3.0, though, brought *disaster!* ..It was incredibly buggy compared with the previous, excellent, iM 2.1.2, and there were hundreds – thousands? – of cries for help, and torrents of despair sent via Apple’s ‘Feedback’ route to the company. I despaired of anyone at Apple taking any action about this (though the program was withdrawn for a week, and re-appeared as iMovie 3.0.1) so, failing all else, I emailed Steve with Karl’s list of the dozen worst aspects of this incarnation.
Within four hours the program’s writer (Glenn Reid) emailed back, asking what was up, what was wrong, what was giving trouble. Glenn, Steve and I had had protracted email after that till iMovie 4 appeared, with *some* of the problems fixed.
After that, if ever I had – and it was seldom – an absolutely INSURMOUNTABLE problem with an Apple product or service, I emailed Steve, and it was – incredibly – INSTANTLY fixed, every time. (Would any other CEO do that, d’you think?)
Then several years later, and out of the blue (in 2007, I think, and we’d last exchanged email about iMovie in 2003) Steve emailed me, saying that he’d just been trying the very latest version of iM (..version 7 was it? ..or maybe later.. the one which Randy O had rewritten, making it sleeker, giving it many more audio features..) saying “..Between just us, there is a revolutionary version of iMovie in the works. It will be worth the wait. Steve”
What other CEO of a multi-million dollar outfit would be so agog with enthusiasm about one of their products that they’d have remembered one customer’s interest in it four years before, and emailed to tell them that something really special was coming?
He’s in my diary today, and each year, and we all miss him – every year.
Excuse the tears on the screen.
Welcome back, David! Hope we can expect more input now you have a bit more time. Mike
He was a legendary visionary, and truly understood the infinite game. Remembering a customers name is normal to some of us on the planet, and going back years later to update a conversation is genuinely inspirational.
Steve Jobs holds legendary status for the world he delivered we now live in. He saw a truly connected world through your phone, long before it became realistically viable.
Keep safe folks, if I leave cryptic line of my current work, start researching the K rate for covid. It is the potentially more important than the R rate.
Best wishes
Dave