Steve Jobs

I’m participating in the government’s Jobs Forum today (backing up after two very interesting days at the Tax Forum), but I can’t let the chance go by to say something about the tragic passing of Steve Jobs. If there was a Nobel prize for innovation, Steve would’ve won it. His massive impact on the face of computing can be seen in the New York Times’ graphic of some of the 317 Apple patents that list him as one of the inventors.

Even if you don’t use a Mac, an iPhone or an iPad, your life has probably become better thanks to Steve Jobs, since many of his ideas diffused across to Apple’s competitors. It seems appropriate that I’m typing this on an iPad, a machine that I couldn’t imagine myself using when I first read about it, and one that I now can’t imagine doing without (when I can prise it away from my four year-old).

Steve’s last big announcement, iCloud, strikes me as something that’s likely to be just as groundbreaking. His death at 56 has doubtless robbed the world of more ideas, but he created more than any other tech inventor of his generation. Steve, RIP.

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