
President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World" - hornokplease
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/05/president-obama-passing-steve-jobs-he-changed-way-each-us-sees-world
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coderdude
You know you're a big deal when the president of the United States makes a
statement about your death just hours after the news breaks.

~~~
rphlx
It saddens me that the engineers and workers who actually designed and built
the stuff will die unknown. Just reinforces that fame, popularity, charisma,
self-promotion, wealth, and the ability to "manage" trump deep technical
abilities.

~~~
kamechan
<https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/121744770480615425>

a retweet (not me). but, it struck a chord with me.

~~~
ubi
"Why do we care more about salesmen than scientists?"

Saying Jobs was /just/ a salesman is beyond incorrect.

But on a deeper level: making a useful widget is one thing, succeeding at
convincing the world that they need it is quite another.

ideas are nice, products are better, but Jobs could execute like none-other

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abbasmehdi
"And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that
much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented." <\--- This
is most telling.

~~~
badclient
Not to be a douche(I shed some tears upon hearing the news and remain a tad
shocked), but the accuracy of the above statement by Obama is very
questionable IMO. Vast majority of the world still doesn't own an Apple
device, I'd argue. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

That said, I did hear the news from my iPhone. And this comment? It's also
coming from the same thing.

~~~
snippyhollow
It's not only about Apple products, it's about personal computers, or large
touch-screen based smartphones. Without the (first) Macintosh, the PC
ecosystem would be different.

~~~
AppSec
Xerox might have something to say about that. Considering they were widely
regarded as having the first Graphical UI. And some of the first Mac team came
from Xerox. Who knows what would have happened if Xerox moved forward with it.

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channelmeter
[http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment//2011/10/03a11...](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment//2011/10/03a116f771ea60014f6c3a77a65effc7/original.jpg)

~~~
bitstream
Very apt.

There is an easter-egg from this 'Think Different' campaign in OSX.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different#Mac_OS_X>

~~~
kenferry
If you look super carefully at the book emoji on the iPhone, same deal.

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kamechan
"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think
differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented
enough to do it."

"think differently" <\-- i wonder if this was intentional.

~~~
mirkules
I thought the same. Nice homage, to be sure.

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yesreally
And yet, he uses a Blackberry.

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r0s
That's a bit hyperbolic.

~~~
Cushman
No it isn't. It's 100% true.

If we can't honestly appreciate the incredible magnitude of the effect this
man had on our world today of all days, when will we be able to?

~~~
hackinthebochs
I'm gonna have to agree and say that the hyperbole about what this man
accomplished is over-the-top. He didn't change the world in any meaningful
way. He made great products, and that's about as far as his influence extends
to the world.

The guy who invented the toilet "changed the world". Mark Zuckerburg has
changed the world far more than Steve Jobs. Sometimes people need a reality
check.

~~~
Cushman
Oh, yeah. Facebook would definitely have happened the same way without the
_Macintosh_.

Seriously, do you guys not know who we're talking about here?

~~~
hackinthebochs
Perhaps I'm a little too young to fully understand the history here, and yeah
he's had his influence on computing in many ways. But so have a lot of other
people who were far more influential that have wallowed in obscurity. Correct
me if I'm wrong, but macintosh didn't usher computing into the mainstream. Up
until the ipod, apple has always been a very niche company.

He's as popular as he is precisely because he's charismatic and filthy rich.
He embodies the "New American Dream" (wealth and fame). That's why we have so
much reverence for him. Then we exaggerate his actual impact on the world to
square with our inflated reverence.

~~~
Cushman
The Macintosh wasn't the first personal computer the same way the iMac wasn't
the first all-in-one, or the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player: it wasn't,
except for most people, it was. It wasn't anything fundamentally new or
special, but it changed everything.

As for influence... True, lots of people have been strongly influential. Take
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented HTTP, HTML, and the first web browser... On a
NeXT, a computer built by one Steve Jobs.

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maratd
Mr. Jobs was an amazing person. I sincerely hope the President is mourning his
loss. Unfortunately, his prior statements make me wonder whether he truly
understood what Mr. Jobs added to our culture through the inventions he helped
pioneer.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7702359/Barack-
Obama-criticises-iPod-and-Xbox-era.html)

~~~
danssig
Is the Telegraph one of those rags that tries to be controversial just to get
views? I was (before today) under the impression that they were a reputable
paper but they also had to take some shots at Jobs' personal live in his
Obituary. What Steve did in his personal life is none of our business. Maybe
he did treat someone in his life poorly. That might mean I wouldn't have
wanted to be his personal friend, but it doesn't change the fact that Steve
literally changed the world.

