The man who dared to simplify

It is known that Nicola Tesla discovered the alternating current, which allowed the efficient generation and delivery of electricity. It's also known that Daimler built the first internal combustion engine and car. Still, many believe that Edison had "invented" electricity, and it was Ford's Model T to become the first car to sell more than a million (and later 10 million) copies.

How did that happen?

These people took existing products, discoveries and ideas, polished them, simplified them and made them accesible to the masses. Tesla did discover AC current and efficient way to generate and conduct it, but Edison became famous because he let people see in the dark and listen to music. Daimler did build the first car from the engine and up, but it was Ford who found a way to build them cheaply and on a massive scale.

Same goes for Steven Jobs: Creative and Cowon were already making digital music players a few years before the iPod arrived. Sony Ericsson and HTC were selling smart phones long before the iPhone was announced. Tablet computers have been there, in one form or another since the mid-1990s, but it was Apple's CEO who popularized them, made them a success and establish an emotional connection between the costumers and their devices.

But the greater thing Apple and Jobs are responsible for is ushering the age of personal computing. They did so by creating devices that were increasingly easy to use, functional, good-looking and relatively affordable. It started with the Apple computers, through the MacIntosh computers, and on to the recent i-devices. All of these devices either created whole new industries or at least made the competition work harder.

We shouldn't also forget Steven Jobs' activities in the years of his exile from Apple. His investment in Pixar, George Lucas struggling software workshop, ultimately led to a revolution in animated movies with masterpieces like the Toy Story series, The Incredibles and my favorite, Wall*E. His work at NeXT led to the creation of the object-oriented windowing systems we see today in every operating system, from OS X, through Windows and to Linux. Also, it should be mentioned that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the HTTP and the first web browser, used a NeXT computer both for the work and as the world's first web server.

Some time ago I called Apple a religion and Steven Jobs the prophet of that religion. I meant it as a parody, but in a way it is true. And sure, I never owned an Apple product and probably never will and I do not like Apple's business practices. But as a technology enthusiast I have to appreciate Jobs, because he dared seeing the big picture clearly, and then repaint it the way he thought is best.