I am saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Jobs. Unfortunately this was not unexpected. My condolences to his family and close friends.
His products changed my life life. I have been an Apple user since 1983 when I bought an Apple IIe. Little did I know that computers would become a large part of my work and life. My brother and my dad were the eletronic wizards in my family. I was mechanical, film and videotape based.
In 1984 I purchased my 1st Macintosh computer. I have been using them ever since. I bought into Steve's vision that a computer should think like a human being instead of a human being having to think like a computer. Not only were the computers visually very well designed but they very useful visually. That has always been a trademark of the Macintosh and I feel it is because of Steve Jobs. He was always pushing us and the industry in new directions.
He had greater dreams not yet realized when he got bumped from Apple in the mid 1980's. I still bought Mac's. I was one of the first to have the color Mac, the Mac II. I started doing color television graphics with Photoshop 1.0 and editing video in a tiny window in Premiere 1.0. I saw the future that Steve had invisioned for the Mac. Years later before Steve had come back to Apple, I built a non-linar video editing system for my television work. I was still using the computer he had introduced to the world.
After Steve left Apple, it had lost it's way and focus. Apple was predicted to fade away. I neve lost faith, even in the dark times.
Fortunately he had made some smart investments while he was away. He bought Pixar from Gearge Lucas and created the NeXt operating system, which OSX is based on.
When Steve Steve came back to Apple in the late 90s he envisioned new ways to use computers. I was pleased to see him return. The rest is of what legends are made of. The iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone and now the iPad, on which I am writing this.
The world is not the same because of him. We live in a digital world and I could not do what I do with out the vision and leadership of Steve Jobs. I will miss you.