He passed away today at 56.  Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs.  I only recently became an Apple convert, and I'm glad I did.   He was a visionary, and he'll be missed.

Couldn't have said it better myself, Kyle

In 1987, Apple made a video, showing their vision for the future. I post it here, for you all to see.

Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator Video	Small | Large

In 1987, I was four years old. In 1987, Apple had already come up with the ideas for the iPad, Siri (the "new" AI-based voice control tech on the iPhone), the Web, Facetime, and software agents. I was a snot-nosed brat with knobbly knees and dirty feet, and they had already invented 2011.

RIP, Steve.

Regarding the "Knowledge Navigator," I read a bit about that concept in the book Infinite Loop (a history of Apple and its founders through 1999). It was apparently John Sculley's pet project, occurring shortly after Steve Jobs was forced out of the company. The book credited the Knowledge Navigator for sidetracking the company at that time, and was used as an example of Apple's poor management in the time when Jobs wasn't there. It was a cool idea at the time, certainly, but it was foolish to devote any resources in 1987 to making it into a functioning product. The basic technology was nowhere near where it needed to be to make such a device possible.

In 1987, trying to build it as shown would be a fool's errand. But Steve helped make it real, today. The iPad, Siri, Facetime, all that? Looks to me like the realization of a twenty-four-year-old dream.

So guess what.  The Phelpsians are protesting Steve's funeral.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/westboro-baptist-church-uses-iphone-to-announce-steve-jobs-funeral-protest/2011/10/06/gIQAJqBjPL_blog.html

From someone who owns no Apple products and has a serious dislike of some of the decisions made by Apple about how they'd interact with the rest of the world:

Steve Jobs took a dying technology company and revolutionized it to the point where it could revolutionize an entire industry.  And he did it a second time.  He wasn't a programmer, nor an engineer, nor a tech guy in any sense.  But what he did was make tech cool again.  He made people crave tech.  And he reminded tech designers of something they had managed to forget, the fact that their ultimate question should be "How do I make something that people will want to use."

So I look at Steve Jobs with all his many faults, and all of the ways that I feel that he's hurt computing (and there have certainly been several).  Weighing the good against the bad, I'll certainly lift a glass to his memory.