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The man did soo much. His vision changed the way people use gadgets today. Even people who hate apple acknowledged and respected what he did for technology.
 
I care because he was the reason I went to work for pixar, he inspired me creatively and professionally. He made me realize the value and importance of a persons imagination and to never ever stettle for the status qou. Dream it and make it better. I grew up with macs, with apple in the bay area, he's a hometown hero and someone all Californians have been proud to claim.

I was only at Pixar for a year and half I actually left to go work for the state legislature on education technology policy and to this date I still have my "Think Different" poster that I have had since high school in my office right next to my picture of JFK and RFK.
 
I enjoy Apple products, therefore I have a great respect for SJ. The iPhone, iPod, Mac, etc. I must say, have made a huge impact on my life. You're quite right, a lot of us never knew the man (aside from his charisma) but we are deeply saddened!
 
Aside from apple fanboys, exactly who?

Do enlighten me, brah.

Well, go to google plus and look at the posts there. And believe me, G+ is not full of apple fanboys (it has a lot of google fanboys instead). I mean I expected to see people here upset, I really didn't expect near as much on G+ (in fact I haven't even seen any one act smug about it til you. Most people, even people I know who don't like the direction Apple goes in, seem to be able to give credit that he had a large affect on things and that he contributed a lot to the technology we use today).

Go read Michael Dell's tribute, or Larry Page. Or the responses back to them from people following them. From people who didn't even use or like Apple products I have seen post that they are sad to see him go (I'm sure it doesn't affect them as much as some one who liked Apple's products).

He had an effect on people, even those who didn't even like his products. Many of them can still admit he had a large influence on tech today.

Now go back in your hole, troll.
 
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I care out of utter respect for him and for the way he revolutionized the tech I have around me today.

Secondly, my family have personally been touched by cancer. Most people who have seen someone degrade thanks to the illness will have some idea what his family have been through and will hopefully have some compassion for them.
 
It's sad to me because he lost a long battle to cancer at a relatively young age, and the public has been watching it happen for years. The fact that he founded Apple isn't really that significant for me in all this, I'm not saying he 'touched my life' or anything like that. Simply, it's just sad to watch this happen to anyone.
 
I always dissed (apple) iphone when it came out. I was a htc wm guy been that way for years. Iphone 4 came out and i switched because my wife wanted to face time. I always watched the keynotes just to see what was going on before the iphone 4 and the day i got it i was like wow, this phone is awesome. After that day i was on apples side. Ive been saving since the iphone to buy a mac and set the pc aside. Last month i bought it and was like wow, this is the best user experiance that ive had on something (besides iphone). I took his death hard for some reason i dont knw. I guess it is that connection from the device to Steve. If Gates dies tomorrow i would say rip, but it wouldnt feel like i lost a close friend, and ive used pc since late 80's.

So for those that have used mac for ages i envy you, that you got to feel that much closer to him
 
I'm glad you asked this question because I felt weird not having commented in the main thread that's going, having been an Apple fan for God knows how long and having been a member here since 2003. Your question helped me think about it all. And I wrote, probably too much, and actually not even as deeply as I wished I had. I found out when I was in class and started to tear up but couldn't really process it in the middle of a 3 hour history lecture. And I'm tired. I feel like I should have something more cutting to say about how I feel because I felt it in class, felt it without words. And now that that moment's passed, I don't have the words for what I felt at that moment. Anyhow:

When I saw the news it hit me and I knew I cared.

I don't know exactly why.

I talk about him all the time

It's someone my dad and I talk about.

How many American heroes are there. I mean, I know he's not a hero, hero, but I don't follow sports or anything. And I don't even know if he was the nicest guy--but I'm not the nicest guy either. He was someone to admire. For his accomplishments. I don't see the ability to do that a lot. Like in a big way. A bigger than life way. I would talk about him as if I knew the way he thought. He was like a force in the world to talk about. Like the way I talk about the president. I somehow feel in the old days there were more iconic people like him. I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. It matters that he existed. And he existed at the same time I existed and I cared about the force he had in the world.

I actually wrote a paper about him in 9th grade when in my biology class (who knows why in biology) we were asked to write about an inventor. I wrote about Steve Jobs and stretched the parameters of the assignment a bit and wrote about the upcoming iMac (the first one—it hadn't come out yet) as one of his great inventions. Later in college when I took a public speaking class, I gave a talk on his life using Keynote, which at the time was really impressive looking.

I think as the years went on, I became less and less passionate about Apple--pretty much correlating with Apple's rise in popularity. But I always thought of Steve Jobs as a force in the world. And I cared about him the same way I would care about anyone else who influenced the world the way he did.

I don't know him. He was intensely private. But I'm writing on a MacBook Pro right now in large part because he existed. I feel there's something to tap from my more intense admiration I had earlier in my life. I'm tired, though. But there are a lot of things. Like the fact that he could handle being fired from a job and move on. And then go back to that job and go on to leave with the bang he did. I mean basic things: like how did he live with his illness and just go to work let alone keep focusing on the future. His life really does seem too short. So many are. I wonder if the world will be a sleepy place without him in terms of technology. He cut through so much to move to the end goals. Apple's products always seem simple. The end result is simple. And that was Apple's greatest advantage over its competitors. The ideas Apple created were self-evident and obvious. But simplicity and self-evident solutions seem to be something a lot of companies struggle with executing. The world does feel a bit empty when I think about technology. Like if in 15 years I'm using a Google or Microsoft or Apple phone, will it be sleepy? Will someone have seen something in the distance? He definitely saw into the distance, sometimes eschewing little niceties along the way for a new paradigm. His approach reminded me of pile-driving and knowing the end result would be worth it once people caught up.

But to sum up as I was saying before, I cared because he was a person in the world that was a force, someone I talked about, as if I were staying close to the movers and shakers. I mean I don't think of myself as a peon and I don't think of him as a king, but I think in our minds we have narratives of the leaders of various industries or governments, we feel close to them, whether we like them or not. We talk about them as if they are pieces on a chessboard right in front of us: "Did you see what Steve Jobs announced?" "Oh yeah, that's gonna give Google a run for its money." As if we were part of it all. I guess we are. There's something sweet and innocent about being able to have coffee table talk about these people who we don't know. I don't know how else to articulate it. And I feel I connect to other people through talking about them the same way I talk about politics with family and friends as if I am a mover and shaker there, the way people talk about sports teams as if they are a part of them. They are our nobility, perhaps. And part of me is to care about people like that. Call it human nature.
 
Funny that someone forgot to tell Ford and Sony to go out of business.

You are forgetting something. Ford is now just a generic car company making pretty ordinary cars. Sony is the same with regard to electronics. Without Jobs, even offering advice in the background as we thought he would be doing, I feel that Apple will very gradually go the way it went when he left it originally.
 
Some people are inspired by philosophers, politicians, authors, or religious leaders. I am certainly inspired by all of these, but each in different aspects of my life. Steve inspired me with his work ethic, and his inability to accept mediocrity.

That's not the cool part. He didn't just inspire me to do better, he gave me the tools. Obviously not him acting alone, but I'm among friends, you know what I'm saying. I work with video and live visual presentations. The software in these areas has always been so comfortable with being mediocre, while making sure that the real hardcore tasks were reserved only for those with a budget I'd never have. Steve inspired me to do better, and Apple gave me the tools that I could afford.

He was a man who not only had a vision of changing the world, he had an even more rare quality that was the knowledge of how to make that vision reality, and yet another rare quality that was the drive to actually do it. At least on his death bed he knew darn well what he had done. Not every world changer gets to see the fruits of their labor.
 
The history of Apple and the Mac is an amazing story, and it shows the vision and strenght some people had to follow their dream and acomplish something that changed the way we think about computers.

What both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did in the early history of Apple is already amazing enough, but then Jobs came back to Apple and changed everything again, taking a company that was almost dead to the next level (pun intended :) ). He revolutionised computing not once, but twice.

It's easy to admire someone like him, even with his flaws (but who doesn't have flaws?).

And maybe this time around he left Apple at a point where it has enough momentum to do well and continue on its path without his assistance... I certainly hope so...
 
???

honestly, if this were any other CEO or the like, I'd just post an RIP in a thread and be on with my life (no disprespect). But for some reason SJ's death has significance to me (a sadness of sort). I'm not sure why at the moment.

(this is probably the wrong subforum, not sure where to post it though)

Personally, I don't care about CEOs. Why should I? They have their job, I have mine.

But I was shocked about SJ's passing away, and also a bit shocked about being shocked. I guess it's because he influenced me, indirectly through Apple's products and vision, and more directly through things like his accomplishments and the Stanford's speech.

Why "vision"? I started my university studies on 1995. I was having difficulties deciding what I really wanted to do. I liked computers, I had been already programming for some years (Basic, Pascal, Assembler in 8-bit and 16-bit computers). But suddenly I was feeling it all was a lot of nonsense. Win95 was being announced, and I found myself wondering if I really wanted to get into that kind of world for my professional life. Arid, boring; what exactly for? I seriously considered the possibility of leaving the subject and literally "getting a bike and go see the world".

But then a friend showed me his Mac; the first one I ever saw. It was so simple I could not understand it. How could the guy be composing music without even knowing which sound card the computer had?

That opened a new world for me: computing could be much wider and different than the side I knew.

When Douglas Adams died it was even a bigger shock than now, since I had been feverishly reading anything I could find from him, and sometimes he also wrote in a personal way. He was also a very interesting and very influencing person for me, in a different way. But the interesting point is that he also was a fervent Mac user.

There must be something about it.
 
Because unlike Kevin Bacon, most of us only need 2 degrees to connect to Jobs.
 
Because his innovations and company changed my life. I switched to the Mac after years of suffering from Windows 98 and Windows XP. I feel in love with computers again. The iPhone changed my life because I am now more connected on the go, and have a device that is incredibly intuitive yet powerful. Not to mention a WIMP environments, the mouse etc.

I may never have met Steve personally, but met him indirectly through using his products and innovations, which essentially sum up parts of his personality.

I guess I'm more upset at the fact that it wasn't his time. He was still young, and to die in such a horrific way just isn't fair. It isn't fair on anyone to die young like that, but given what Steve done for the world, and what he still had left in him to continue doing for the world, it just isn't fair..

Perhaps what I'll miss most are the Keynotes. No one could deliver a presentation quite like Steve. If you need reassurance, watch the original iPhone Keynote.

RIP Steve.
 
I care that Steve died, firstly, because he's a human being, but the personal touches that he uttered in his inspiring words in that Stanford University commencement speech really spoke to me and have great applications to my life as I figure out what I want to do post-college. Not only that, but, of course, the products that he envisioned which I now own - the iMac, iPhone, and iPad - have changed the way that I use and think about technology. He left a little piece of himself in each of these devices, so he'll never be forgotten.
 
I always feel a little sad when a character dies. I don't like MJ's music but I felt a bit sad when he passed away. And it's the same for Steve Jobs. I don't always agree with his decisions or his vision of what computing should be - but there aren't many like him. He brought a certain life to keynote speeches that Tim Cook hasn't (so far) emulated or improved upon.

It's when interesting people die that I, personally, care.

(yes yes I know it sounds weird)
 
He was more to people than just some CEO, losing someone to cancer is always sad because it's a fight that far too many people lose, and he has brought so much to so many people.

Mourning the loss of a public figure has often been odd to me. Few have captured my attention past the typical shrug, Steve Jobs is one of them. However, my day and life goes on and my desire to use Apple's products won't change.

As for those who say this thread is inappropriate, it's never inappropriate to ask a question. Why mourn the loss of a figure you've never met and don't know past what you can find via Google? It's a question that can be asked if asked with some class. I don't believe the OP was disrespecting anyone, especially not someone's death.
 
You should ask yourself this:

What other company would be affected in the same way Apple is if the CEO left or died?

Apple under Job's reign was a cultural company that changed how many people interacted with media, phones, and computers. There are very few CEO's who impact anything other than the bottom line.
 
It's hard to put into words without coming across goofy or weird but I'll say this.

I became an Apple fanatic when I was 20, and almost every week since then I've come to MacRumors to see what's going on. I think about his company regularly and I wonder what they're working on.. and really, the only other people who I think about in that way, are friends.

I didn't know him. I never met him, never saw him in person and never corresponded with him.. but for some weird reason I thought about him the same way I do a friend.
 
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