Steve Jobs 1955-2011: You’re responsible for this

Steve Jobs has died. Everyone knows about it. A great many had tweeted about it before I woke up this morning. I learnt the news reading about it via @LewishamDreamer whilst sitting on the toilet. Later while the kettle was boiling, I followed a colleague’s tweet to the touchingly simple tribute on the Apple homepage … On my iPhone.

Jobs’ achievements permeate my day to day life. I’m taking all three Apple devices to work today. One to monitor, one to design and one to stream music via. I could probably use a PC in the office to do all three. But sometimes – I confess – some days need the ‘big guns’. Everyone else’s equipment always feels so clunky in comparison.

But Jobs is also responsible for something else. The darker side of his work. His shiny, utterly gorgeous and desirable objects inadvertently fuel an addiction. Jobs’ work is one of the reasons I can reach for my phone and chat with my friends from under the duvet before my partner has woken up beside me. It’s also his work which enables me to exploit the dead time on my commute and create stuff. Sometimes, the harder-core stuff is done on the MacBook.

Whatever the device, whatever the task, Steve Jobs is an enabler. I’m drawn to the Apple hardware because it looks nice, because it performs well and because using it makes me feel good. They also keep me connected to the internet. If the tools didn’t achieve that, I would find it easier to crack my addiction to the web.

And it is an addiction. I can feel it in my upper-arm when I stretch. The RSI I had in my wrist in January of last year has reappeared in my upper-arm. And the heated discussions I often end up having with my significant other stemming from my distinct inability to switch off almost always touch on the intrusion of these electronic devices into our lives. Mr Jobs, you are in part responsible for that.

But in marking his passing, it’s impossible not to pause and reflect on his relatively short life. A visionary. A leader. A remarkable achiever who created a brand and led a group of stalwarts in building it. It is a remarkable thing. How do some people do what Jobs did and others don’t?

The answer may be found in something a friend said to me nearly twenty years ago. “There are movers and shakers and then there’s the rest of us. And the rest of us just have to come to terms with that.”

Mr Jobs. Well done sir. Sadly missed.