Yesterday the world lost a visionary. Steve Jobs was one of the most influential men of the last 50 years. I’m not a MACHEAD and I don’t go crazy every time there is a release. I do not pledge some weird devotion to Steve as a man, but I have always been amazed by his leadership and creativity. My conversion to Apple took place in 2006 when I was at the end of my Windows rope. For 10+ years I had been frustrated with computing and thought it was just a way of life. I thought that running daily virus scans and adware scans was a way of life. I thought the “blue screen of death” was something you were supposed to see a couple of times per year. I thought that constant jittering in my videos and an hourglass icon were always going to be with me while video editing. All of this changed when my good friend Jared Glover accidentally left his G4 macbook at my house over the course of a weekend. I pulled it out and opened iMovie and edited a movie. I was simply amazed that his 4 year-old computer was faster than my brand new Toshiba Quosmio (which was touted as a multimedia powerhouse.) Needless to say, one weekend was all it took for me to realize that the mac was a far superior platform and I didn’t need an instruction manual to figure it out. I sold the Toshiba and bought my first macbook pro in the summer of 2006. For five years I lugged that 17 inch macbook pro around with me everywhere. Why my friends were sitting in class frustrated with their new laptops that were already slow, my 5 year old machine was flying along just as it did the day I bought it. You just turn the things on and they fly. No virus software, no adware software, no blue screens of death. The stress levels I had known before simply melted away. Computing had finally become fun and my photos and videos went through the roof in terms of quality. I got a new quad core 17 inch macbook pro for graduation and I gave my 2005 model macbook pro to my brother who swears it’s the fastest thing he’s ever owned. (he’s only owned PC’s.) I bought my first iPod in 2004 and still use an iPod video from 2005. My wife has owned an iPad, and now uses an aluminum macbook. We both have iPhone 4′s. iPod shuffles, and we share an apple 30 inch cinema display. It’s hard to imagine our lives without Apple’s revolutionary products. Steve was the visionary of Apple and his influence changed a generation. Steve changed the way we interact with each other. He changed the way think. He delivered products that we couldn’t imagine in the present. He took a company he started in his parent’s garage and made it the most profitable company in the world. Steve you will be truly missed and I know we’ll see your influence in every Apple product that is made from here out. Thanks Steve for making the world a little brighter and thanks for never settling for the Status Quo. -Barnezy-
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