Thoughts from the Media Room: Steve Jobs, Apple and Pixar.

The year was 1985 and I was a wee lad of 8 or 9 years old. That's the first time I used a computer and at the time our school had 3 Apple II computers. They were mostly used for educational games, oh the hours I spent playing Number Crunchers on that baby. The next school year being the geek in training that I was, I had joined the "computer club", which was nothing more then cheap labour looking back at it now. But we did get some additional time to play around with the computers.  Then we had to disconnect them and move the "table on wheels" from the library over to the small "lab" area a couple times a week. Steve Jobs doesn't know it, but he changed my life at that very moment.  Like so many other kids, I knew that I wanted to have a future(play with these things when I became a grown up), these strange things that almost seemed like they were from the future.  I started when I was 8, I'm now 34 and I'm doing it professionally.  Thank you Mr. Jobs.


I was laying in bed Wednesday night thinking of his passing and just how this one man changed my life and the how entire planet functions. I got thinking about the first Macintosh in 1984 and what if that didn't come out.  How would history have played out?  That question then leads into what would have happened to Microsoft? Would they eventually have figured out that a Dos-based world isn't the way of the future, would they ever have created Windows? Would Bill Gate ever gotten past his "640k ought to be a enough for anybody" phase? Which then makes my mind jump to a big one, The Internet. Sure the internet was around before Apple released the Macintosh, but only the military and certain US Government departments were using it.  But if Jobs doesn't get fired from Apple and create the NeXT computer for which the first web browser was created.  What happens to how people access content on the Internet.  To quote Neo from The Matrix, "Woah" Think about that when you read this on your cell phone that has more processing power and memory than the original Macintosh.  Maybe you got to this link via Facebook or Twitter.  If Jobs hadn't laid the ground-work in the 80's chances are we don't have the two biggest Internet sites that changed how the world communicates in my generation.  Thank you Mr. Jobs.


I have an Ipod, I used to use an Iphone and I think my Ipad is one of the greatest inventions I've ever seen.  My Ipad has changed how I easily and how I can use so much more of the Internet.  The Ipod has changed the music industry, how we as a consumer get our music and how we think about music.  But I'm not a "Mac Guy".  My sister has a MacBook and she laughs when I try to use it as I haven't got a clue what I'm doing with it.  Jobs was a Interface and design man; the Mac OS is supposed to be so much easier and friendlier to use than Microsoft.  Maybe that's my problem, I'm a Windows guy and to get things working properly it can get complicated.  Mac OS isn't complicated to use, click the icon you want on the tray and it just works.  The MacBook has taken over the local coffee shop and is taking over the portable market, I can't doubt that fact.  At work, my clients are asking me more and more if I know anything about Macs.  The thing that always frightens me away from a MacBook is often the price, yes I know it's a superior machine.  I've seen it change many a "Windows Man".  I don't really know what's holding me back, maybe one day I'll get there.  Thank you Mr. Jobs.


Now I think back to 1995, I was in my last year of High School.  You were sitting in the movie theatre enjoying some lovely warm popcorn waiting for this kids cartoon movie to start.  The curtain goes up and from the first second you're amazed and entertained at what you're watching.  You might have realized then, maybe not.  But you're witnessing how "kids movies" are going to be made from now on.  Once again Jobs and company have changed the world, he's done it.  He's made computer animation life-like, he's made the characters warm and inviting.  You don't feel like you're watching a cartoon, it's a got a great story and you care about the characters unlike any animated characters before them.  The movie stirs something in children and adults alike.      


Once again, thank you Mr. Jobs for everything you've done for this world. 


Signed, 


Ant