PHOTOS, PAGE 1

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

THE LEGACY OF STEVE JOBS

With the death of Steve Jobs, there will be a great deal of talk and writing about what it means and what he was throughout his time helping to lead the personal computer revolution from the early 1980s onward. First, Jobs was not an inventor. He was a consolidator, visionary and salesperson, manager, cheerleader and business owner. He was someone who saw the great potential, first, of the personal computer and later many other great successes, like the iPod, iPad and iPhone.

Jobs was someone who had incredible timing on when to jump into a new technology and, most importantly, how to put it together beautifully and to make it all work without hours and hours of set up hassles by the consumer. Apple’s products were not, and are not now, perfect in every way, but they se

STEVE JOBS WAS A PERSON OF GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT. DO WE HAVE TO GO OVERBOARD?

t the standard for integration and design.

Remember, we had cell phones before the iPhone. We had digital music players before the iPod and there were many attempts at making tablet computers before the iPad. There were even small personal computers before Apple, but Jobs and Wozniac did it better than anyone else and helped to popularize the idea. It took a very long time for Mac’s to be accepted as serious computational devices, especially after IBM stepped in with its own version with the Q-DOS operating system. Apple was relegated to home users, hobbyists and educational uses for many years. No more. Now, almost everyone recognizes that Apple’s machines are superior in many ways but, again, the most important way is the user doesn’t have to integrate the components.

Jobs was not the John D. Rockerfeller of our times. He was much, much more than that. He was the living symbol of a revolution that sprang from the desire to take computing out of the hands of engineers, scientists and programers and put it in the hands of everyone. Jobs didn’t invent this idea, but he grabbed hold of it and made it successful in a way almost no one would have imagined at the time.

His passing marks the end of an era. The end of the “founders generation” of personal computing. The task from here on in will be other hands with visions and dreams of their own. The accomplishments of Steve Jobs will never likely be equaled.

Doug Terry, 11.6.11        8:42 PM (eastern)

When was the last time anyone cared, or even noticed, beyond family and friends, when a CEO died? Steve Jobs was the rock star of consumer tech.

FROM THE NY TIMES:

 Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding  them, and making the final call on product design.

 It was an executive style that had evolved. In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism  could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit  extraordinary loyalty.

TWELVE LESSONS FOR AMERICAN BUSINESS IN THE LIFE AND CAREER OF STEVE JOBS AND APPLE COMPUTERS

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