Rembering Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

SOME people get star-struck when they meet celebrities. Me, I don't dig
celebrities but I was over the moon when I met the late Steve Jobs.
You have to understand. This was in 2005 when Apple had yet to go
mainstream. Few people outside the Mac user community knew or cared who he
was. It wasn't like today when Jobs is considered a celebrity. Even my
68-year-old father who does not even use a computer knows who he was.
I was then covering Macworld, the now-defunct annual expo and conference
event that Apple used to introduce its latest "insanely great" Mac
products - hence the name. I was one of only two lucky members of the


Malaysian media invited by Apple.
It was my first Macworld and I was absolutely delirious about seeing
Jobs' famous keynote address live for the first time. I did a little dance
that day when I arrived at San Francisco's Moscone Center where the
keynote was to take place. No, I wasn't crazy. Building anticipation ahead
of major product announcements is what Apple is skillful at. No other
company can quite match Apple in this department and nobody really knows
why.
At the convention centre, we were made to wait for a good one hour or so
in our holding area. When the gates were finally opened, we literally
sprinted into the keynote hall. Everyone wanted the best seats.
At 9.15am, Jobs made his appearance in his trademark black turtleneck,
blue jeans and New Balance shoes. He was greeted with rapturous applause
and wolf-whistles.
The Apple CEO looked fit and healthy. He had just recovered from
pancreatic cancer surgery the year before and appeared raring to wow the
crowd with his showmanship.
Apple at the time was at the cusp of dominating the music player market.
Its iPod mini was doing very well among both Mac and Windows users.
I remember there was a slanging match in the media involving, in
particular, Creative Technology CEO Sim Wong Hoo, who had declared earlier
in the year that Creative was going to take over the digital music player
business from Apple. We now know this never happened.
Throughout his 90-minute presentation, Jobs covered a lot of things but
the biggest announcements were - in true Jobsian style - reserved for
last: The Mac mini and the original white iPod shuffle.
I still remember that the iPod shuffle cost just US$99 (RM313). It was
selling by the cartons at the San Francisco Apple store, and was sold out
in just a few hours after the keynote. I later spotted Jobs and Apple's
head of design Jonathan Ive at the exhibition floor but there was a huge
crowd around the duo. I never got close enough to take photos.
Since that Macworld, the company has gone on to introduce a slew of
other gadgets and softwares. Almost all of them became homeruns that have
defined the entire industries.
Jobs had his detractors but by and large, he made a lot of people happy.
But more than just the cool new iPhones, iPads and MacBooks that came out
of Cupertino over the years, perhaps Jobs' bigger contribution to our
modern times is communicating the idea that spirituality is cool.
In a widely shared commencement address that he delivered to Stanford
University students in 2005, Jobs, who professes to Buddhism spoke about
"connecting the dots", about love and loss, and about death.
"You've got to find what you love," he said. "Don't settle. As with all
matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. "Your time is limited.
Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other
people's thinking. "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."
How many techies do you know speak like that?
In another lesser known interview, Jobs spoke about the role of teachers
in making or breaking an individual. A little course correction goes a
long way, he said.
"I am 100 per cent convinced that if it hadn't been for Mrs Hill in
fourth grade and a few others, I would have ended up in jail. I could see
those tendencies in myself to have a certain energy to do something," he
said.
This is the Steve Jobs that I know. My kind of celebrity.

Reference:
R. Rahim (2011,October 10). Remembering Steve Jobs. New Straits Time