Thoughts on Steve Jobs while listening to George Gershwin

As I listened to Oscar Levant play the Three Preludes of his mentor George Gershwin this morning, I thought about Steve Jobs. Steve died too soon, as did George Gershwin; but left a vast legacy behind him.

The first item I would like to deal with is Steve himself. Steve was often difficult to deal with, and a lot of people who felt the lash of his tongue and temper have often dreamed of the day when they could…dance on Steve’s grave. His personal life was not perfect. None of our personal lives is perfect.

Having said that, I should state I feel very glad that Steve did not see Apple as his family’s business, like the Ford family from Henry Ford on down has seen the Ford Motor Company. I assume his children are exceptional and will achieve great things. If they get free MacBook Pros for life to aid them in that creative process, that’s fine. But Thank God and Steve that some 21 year-old kid is not expected to replace their father at Apple’s helm. Thank you, Steve, for institutionalizing your way of doing business at Apple.

It’s true that Apple and Steve didn’t invent many of their products. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player in 2001. When Apple introduced the iPod, they built on the iTunes music software, with a track record of ripping CDs into MP3s successfully and burning CDs from those MP3s. A lot of Windows software back then sputtered and failed in those simple tasks. Apple also had a high-speed interface in 2001 in Firewire 400, which allowed you to fill up the 5 GB of your iPod with music as quickly as possible. Everyone else used USB 1.1 or a kludge through the Windows machine’s printer port. You had to wait and wait for your MP3 player to fill up with music. But Apple’s iPod/iTunes? It all just worked together the first time.

I just put on John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which I bought from iTunes some years back, on iTunes for Windows. Later on tonight, I’ll put on some Beatles. That’s my way to remember Steve and what he brought into my life.

And to quote from the first Pixar movie, “To infinity-and beyond!” Bye Steve, I’ll see you in my iPad next year.

Tom Briant

Editor, Macvalley Voice