If you look up “innovator” in the dictionary, you won’t find a picture of Steve Jobs. Not yet, anyway. You will, however, find a simple definition-“to begin or introduce something new.” It’s nice, compact and true. But it falls short of what Steve Jobs did. And not just for computing—for humanity.
When Steve was 17, he dropped out of Reed College, but stuck around looking for something interesting to fill his newfound free-time. Eventually, he ended up taking a calligraphy class. In that class, he learned the art of making letters, properly spacing them and what a difference good typography makes in communicating ideas through the printed word.
10 years later, Jobs built a computer that included the principles he learned in a calligraphy class. He described the experience of learning typography as “beautiful, historical and artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture.” And when he was working with his team on the development of the Macintosh, he saw to it that this new personal computing machine was as beautiful, historical and artistically subtle as a well-formed set of alphabetic characters. But he didn’t stop there.
By definition, an innovator deals in newness. But what Steve Jobs did with the Macintosh and every other Apple product since was introduce ideas that were better than new.
For Steve, form and function were companions that made every Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, mouse and keyboard his company ever created a pleasure to have, hold and gaze upon. His vision wasn’t just to introduce us to something new, it was to introduce us to new ideas that were elegant in form and as high functioning as any technology that had ever before seen the light of day.
Steve Jobs the man oozes from the products that represent a life he spent making things that didn’t suck. A life in which his main function was to lead a team of specialists in computer hardware and software design to sift through all of their ideas to find the ones that would adhere to his minimalist and intuitive sensibilities. And then making those ideas available in technology so virtuous, people fall in love with it, literally.
Jobs never ignored the simple fact that what he was creating was meant to be used by people. People with hearts and minds, not just needs. He saw beyond simply working to finding and filling technological functional needs.
Along with apple products comes a sense of importance and a pleasurable user experience that no other technology has. And thanks to Steve jobs, the world will never settle for technology that comes with anything less.
