With the death yesterday of Steve Jobs, we have lost one of the world’s great innovators. President Obama’s statement describes him well: “…brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.”
The world is a better designed and connected place for his having been in it. In addition to the millions of well-loved Macs, iPhones, and iPads (not to mention their beautiful, intuitive interfaces), Steve’s legacy includes 317 patents that illustrate his commitment to every detail of Apple’s designs, some of which are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Patents that include his name cover not just the expected hardware objects and elements of the Mac OS, but packaging and headset lanyards. For serious Apple fans, unpacking a new gadget has always almost as much fun as getting to play with it. Almost.
Patent geeks/Apple fans will enjoy perusing a collection of Jobs’s patents put together by the New York Times at the time of his retirement from Apple in August. See also the related article.
So long, Steve, and thanks for all the magical toys.