Share the e-mails you sent to rememberingsteve@apple.com.

[XX55XX]

Here's mine:

Hello,

I do not know if this e-mail will ever be read among the tens of thousands of e-mails that this address will receive, so I'll try to keep this short for the reader.

For a very long time, I was an anti-Apple partisan. I didn't necessarily think that the company was bad, but rather, I disliked the culture of superiority which surrounded their users. So, as a result, I became one of Apple's most fierce critics. I came home every day after school whenever an Apple product was announced, watch the Keynote, and bash Mr. Jobs and Apple to no end on pro-Microsoft/anti-Apple message boards like Neowin, nitpicking every single flaw.

However, through these Keynotes, I got to know Mr. Jobs in my own way, and while I loathed him for his ability to captivate an audience with the most mundance of product features, I privately admired the charisma he exuded and knew that there were very few men like him.

While I believed that Mr. Jobs was more flash than substance, more showman than true innovator, I still shed a few tears for him upon the news of his death. Whatever he did - he encouraged us all to think differently, through his subtle charm - and tell us that the future was in the palm of his hand. Oftentimes, I loathed to believe him, but in the end, I almost always nodded my head.

He will be missed.

Regards,

[insert my real name here]

Share your's. I wonder if they will ever be read?

 

[avro707]

Mine from memory was quite simple:

Hi,

Very sad to hear about the death of Steve Jobs. He was a great visionary and a champion of the user-experience.

Apple and Steve Jobs changed the way I work with computers and the way I communicate with a phone (iPhone) so much for the better.

I can only say a very humble and honest thank-you for all you've done. Rest in peace.

Regards,
[my real name]

To be honest, I wish I'd had the opportunity to say that thank-you to Steve Jobs in person. And although I'm not a massive Apple devotee, I did feel a bit of sadness.

 

[Usul]

Remembering Steve: the 1st MacIntosh helped me write a different kind of book

Here was my post to rememberingsteve@apple.com:


When I was in residency I hoped to give doctors a way to think about drugs and show how they could take thousands of different drugs and group them into a few meaningful clinical categories based on merit and cost, and how they could move away from thinking about drugs based on advertising popularity. At that time (~1983), the PDR did not list drugs by class, only by trade names, and drug marketing made it very hard to see important differences, and similarities, in prescription drugs. Market forces trumped rational clinical decision making, and patients paid the price.

Two friends felt the same way, and we envisioned a book that would show relationships between drugs. To do this, we needed to arrange text side-by-side, and text had to flow into the boxes of the tables (this was 2 years before before PageMaker). I purchased an “IBM PC”, but it was not possible to make tables that could allow edits, additions, deletions, etc. (the publisher also wanted camera-ready copy, presaging another trend). It was beginning to look like our dream of a revolutionary book to help doctors and patients was dead–crushed like the automatons in the ‘1984’ Mac commercial.

Then we saw “MacDraw” on the Macintosh. Incredibly, you could draw boxes AND put text in them! This was a magical answer to our problem and, in keeping with the times, we felt that some branch of fate’s franchise had given us a green light.* Then, as they came out, the Macintosh 128k, Ready-Set-Go and the LaserWriter seemed to be further proof to us that providence was on our side. We bought Macs, and now felt that we could change the world for the better.

The book, The Pocket Drug Guide, came out and was successful–with a spin off, foreign languages and several editions. Multiple imitators followed and, eventually, even the PDR began listing drugs by meaningful clinical classes. Our books are no longer in print–but this approach to drugs is still popular. With this approach, doctors can more effectively and rationally take care of patients, limit drug side effects and, yes, save lives.

The dreams of Steve Jobs made our dream possible. We wanted to say thank you.

Our condolences to his family and friends.