PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

 I am a little embarrassed that Steve Jobs is being called a genius in many of  the news stories being written about him. If he was a genius, it is in  the cumulative effect of his work, his designs, his insight into the future, rather than any blinding breakthrough of what is normally  considered a genius mind. His creations were not original, they were not his work alone and they relied, again and again, on the foundations  laid by other people with deep backgrounds in science, mathematics, technology and electrical engineering, among other disciplines. He knew, he learned, when to pounce on something new and help make it better  than anyone else. Apple usually put newer technologies in their computers first, in fact, while others making PCs were still wondering if the new tech, like CD-ROMs or DVD burners, would be that important.

 Steve Jobs was surely brilliant in the work he did and the way he did it. In reading some of the news items, I get a strong sense that there was much more to him than most of us, even those who have followed and  been involved one way or another in computers for decades, ever knew about him.

 Steve Jobs, however, did not invent digital music, he did not invent  digital music players or online selling of music. He did not invent the  tablet computer, nor did he invent the underpinnings that make it work.  He did not invent the personal computer, nor the iPhone nor the smart  phone. He was, however, smart enough, dedicated (driven) enough to do  all of these things better than most of them had been done previously  and he built on each success in spectacular, admirable ways. He was  surely one of the most important people of the 20th and 21st centuries (to date, in the case of this century).

It could be said the Jobs didn’t invent anything, but I think that would be unfair and shortsighted. He invented a way of doing things. He invented an insistence that computer based products be the very best possible and that the latest technologies, those just coming available, be incorporated into what his company made at the very first moment it was possible. Once the iPod was out, he helped to prefect the idea of a personal devices that were no longer just shaved down versions of big computers, but were something else entirely, an extension of the person and her daily activities. This is the new paradigm, the one that is making over this century.

 While I deeply admire his accomplishments (no, I am in awe), it seems to me that most people reporting on his death fail to understand the complexities of what has been accomplished over the last 40 years. Jobs was not alone, he and his company rode on the backs of others. The Apple products have often had deep flaws, but the  core of devoted followers doesn't want to hear it. At this moment, that is understandable. Jobs gave his everything to doing something well and that is his legacy forever. http://www.apple.com/

Doug Terry, 11.6.11

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