Steve Jobs Passes Away

[Guest]

No one else posting on this yet?

 

I guess it's up to me to start the thread then.

 

I'm sure many of you, like me, post here on a Mac. I've owned so many I forget which number of Mac I have now. We have three at our house, plus an iPad and iPhone.

 

Thank-you Steve Jobs for your innovation and determination. Since 1984 you have made my life better, when I started wowing teachers in grade 10 with professional laser printed term papers that no one could match.

 

Thank-you for providing the hardware and software that allowed me to edit two feature films in the comfort of my own home, and saving tens of thousands in the process.

 

Apple products are, and always will be, superior to anything the PC makers put out.

 

Thank-you Mr. Jobs.

 

R,

[Stuart Brereton]

Whilst I recognize his vision, he was not a friend of film, as Apple have just dropped all support for Final Cut Pro & Color, leaving many users with large $ investments high and dry. He was a guy that sold very pretty computer hardware at 3 or 4 times the price that anyone else was. If that is genius, then I guess he was.

 

I'm not trying to speak ill of the dead, but all over the web, people are eulogizing a man who was, by all accounts, an irascible, rude, arrogant person who became famous for selling us stuff we didn't really need at hugely inflated prices. Would he have gone on to become a philanthropist in the Bill Gates mold? Perhaps, but we'll never know.

 

Let's leave the myth building to Apple.

[K Borowski]

How much revenue did his company gain from taking it away from other industries, say at the expense of quality :)

[Geoff Howell]

I was never a fan of his products (computers are tools nothing more); but in this age of 'focus groups' and 'design by comity' anyone who was able to be so single minded and force the agenda in any kind of large industry must be respected.

[Kieran Scannell]

My condolences to his family and friends.

I type this on my MacBook Pro which is the best laptop computer I have ever used.

[John Sprung]

He was a guy that sold very pretty computer hardware at 3 or 4 times the price that anyone else was. If that is genius, then I guess he was.

 

Apple has always been sort of the Starbuck's of computing. There seems to be a stable five percentish niche market for that, and Apple owns it. They're a great profitable closed proprietary consumer gadget company, nothing wrong with that.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[George Ebersole]

No one else posting on this yet?

 

I guess it's up to me to start the thread then.

 

I'm sure many of you, like me, post here on a Mac. I've owned so many I forget which number of Mac I have now. We have three at our house, plus an iPad and iPhone.

 

Thank-you Steve Jobs for your innovation and determination. Since 1984 you have made my life better, when I started wowing teachers in grade 10 with professional laser printed term papers that no one could match.

 

Thank-you for providing the hardware and software that allowed me to edit two feature films in the comfort of my own home, and saving tens of thousands in the process.

 

Apple products are, and always will be, superior to anything the PC makers put out.

 

Thank-you Mr. Jobs.

 

R,

I used to shoot his board of directors way way back in the day, discussing strategies for Apple, the next move for what used to be the "Macintosh", and a bunch of other stuff that's come to pass. A couple friends knew and met him, but I only ever worked for his VPs. I never met the man himself. I'm sorry he's gone.

[Guest]

Geez I can't imagine what some of you guys will say about me when I kick off. :(

 

R,

[Adrian Sierkowski]

It'll be hard to say anything Richard, as I'm sure we'll all be to busy having a large skull-keg party

[Tom Jensen]

Richard died? I'm glad he's gone. If his wife reads this, can I have his car?

[Guest]

Just as I figured! I am willing everything to Stephen Williams!!

 

R,

[Stephen Williams]

Just as I figured! I am willing everything to Stephen Williams!!

 

R,

 

Thank you very much Richard, I will be able to retire early,with all those residuals coming in.

 

Stephen

[Tom Jensen]

Richard's alive, I guess I don't get the car. Steve Jobs might not have been the perfect person but his contribution to the world has been immense. He might not have been the most charitable person in the world but his products sure made a great contribution to our daily lives. I couldn't bash Richard Nixon in death because in death, all is forgiven or it should be. Death is the end.

[K Borowski]

Thanks for the tip Tom. You've opened my eyes. . .

 

 

Personally, I am not on a mission to glorify rich tycoons who hurt my field far more than they helped it. I'll leave that to others, making a fuss about people they never spoke a word to. Hero worship is alive and well in western culture.

[Tom Jensen]

Karl, must you always be so cynical? You should know in this business that you never know who ones knows or have met. Hero worship? I can't remember him doing anything I would consider heroic. Admiration for his drive and accomplishments, absolutely. I'm curious as to how his contribution were detrimental to your field. Mac's have played a very significant part in animation, post production and production. I would say they have helped your field more than they have hurt it. If anything has hurt film, it's obsolescence.

[K Borowski]

Tom, all I know is that this is the second time you've called me out for not heaping praise upon the dead. Instead of the passive aggression, why not a separate thread or a PM? You're very quick to pass judgement on someone merely for having a different set of beliefs, different background than yours. It's not as if I'm desecrating their graves, airing all of their dirty laundry. I view the cultural notion of saying only good things about the dead in the same light as whitewashing history, glorifying the past.

 

 

 

Job's role in this industry was driven entirely by a desire to divert income away from other players into Apple's coffers. "Pirates of Silicon Valley" paints him as Bill Gates' victim; I think he just beat Jobs to the punch line. I tend to take the same view as Stuart on this one, surprisingly. The man was a key player in the "Planned Obsolescence" movement.

 

In any case, I think you're being hypocritical talking about how the dead deserve only praise, then taking a cheap shot at film. Steve definitely played a big role in brainwashing everyone into believing everything visual, audio required Mac OS Lion Cheetah Leopard whatever compatibility to be relevant in the 21st century. There's an irony in defining as obsolescent everything that is not tethered to an industry with a 2-4 year product life cycle.

 

 

 

 

I hope you'll forgive the cynicism that goes hand in hand with staying on a sinking ship: I'd love to have something positive to talk about!

[K Borowski]

"Because of Steve, we no longer take photos on Kodak film, write checks and mail them, we now buy books in a few moments, all stored digitally, hundreds of pounds of paper now on a 1.4 pound tablet."

 

From "Hollywood Today" No Less!

 

 

Basically this author is heaping praise on the man for decimating professional photography, filmmaking,the music industry, the print & graphics arts industries, and replacing recyclable paper with metric sh--tonnes of nickel, cadmium, arsenic, lead, and mercury.

 

Since I never met the man or even toured any of his facilities, I guess I shouldn't be angry at him, rather at what people attribute to him, what he represents.

 

I find that my criticism of the like of George Lucas was unfair when I saw a pair of 35mm projectors and a real live projectionist instead of a HAL 9000 in his screening room, not what I'd heard rumored!

 

 

 

I guess my feelings can best be expressed as such: "It's not you that I hate, Cardassian: I hate what I became because of you."

 

At the same time, I am not celebrating his death like when Osama bin Laden got gunned down in May.

[Tom Jensen]

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I never said to heap praise, I said I don't like to bash the dead. I forget, who was the first dead guy you bashed and I heaped praise upon? Hey, I agree with the pollutants. You are spot on but the fact that he came up with these things is pretty amazing. If not him then maybe someone else would have. He's made his mark in history, that's for sure.

[K Borowski]

Tom: I guess I owe you an apology. Having gone back and looked at the last thead where I spoke negatively about the dead, it was someoen else who called me out, not you (although your being in the thread is what I guess set me into giving you "guilt by association")

 

I am not putting words in your mouth, I may have paraphrased, but if not hero-worship, then there is certainly at least praise going on here, no?

 

 

I'd say Jobs gets a lot of credit, like Eastman, for technologies he IMPLEMENTED EFFECTIVELY, rather than having invented. I guess what I am calling into question is his place in MOVIE history. Certainly not all daisies when the effect of computer technology on the industry is taken into full account. There's no denying the marvel of the conversation he's enabling us to have right now, albeit indirectly. I don't own an iPod, iPhone, iPad but am sending this from an iMac ;)

[John Sprung]

I'm curious as to how his contribution were detrimental to your field.

 

FCP X?

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[K Borowski]

While I am a user and advocate of NLE over workprinting and film editing, I'd hardly call it a "revolutionary" accomplishment. I'd be just as happy wee timecodes and bouncing tape still the norm.

 

I'm sure someone would've come up with a frame-accurate analog tape format were there demand for it.

 

 

CGI I would classify as harmful to the field of filmmaking at this point. There is no need for entire motion pictures to go through the process. The arts of matte painting, modelmaking, motion control photography are all endangered, which is ironic because they still produce in my opinion, a superior product.

 

Yet everyone cares now about budget and ease-of-use.

 

 

 

At work, I use a 1970s "computer control" timer and a 1980s densitometer with no problems whatsoever. I have the high-tech problems of blown lightbulbs and power outages to deal with. I would like a better timer, but other than that, no complaints.

 

I've noticed that the big names in Silicon Valley get all the credit that is due the little people, or stolen, acquired, or dubiously obtained through shady business deals. So jobs was more like a director or an A-list actor in terms of his actual contributions.

[Freya Black]

I've noticed that the big names in Silicon Valley get all the credit that is due the little people, or stolen, acquired, or dubiously obtained through shady business deals. So jobs was more like a director or an A-list actor in terms of his actual contributions.

 

Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were no saints that's for sure. Theres definitely some truth to what you say here. It's interesting that a fructarian could acquire so much bad Karma! He has paid for it tho.

 

Apple played an important role most of all by providing the only competition that Microsoft had for a long time in the computer industry. It's good to have another option and Apple pushed forward the development of computers across the board through this. So much so that when Apple was in serious danger of going under it was Microsoft that bailed them out! (So it is the case that some of that money going to charitable causes comes from Apple!) It would have looked preety bad if microsofts only commercial competitor of the time went under!

 

I'm sure Mr Jobs had some character flaws. I feel we all do (except those of us who are perfect of course!) ;)

 

Heres a different view on a guy, perhaps older and wiser and a bit less bitter about things.

I feel he has a lot of worthwhile things to say here so do check this out:

 

 

love

 

Freya

[Tom Jensen]

Tom: I guess I owe you an apology.

 

I'd rather have $5.00. Is that O.K?;)

[George Ebersole]

Karl, must you always be so cynical? You should know in this business that you never know who ones knows or have met. Hero worship? I can't remember him doing anything I would consider heroic. Admiration for his drive and accomplishments, absolutely. I'm curious as to how his contribution were detrimental to your field. Mac's have played a very significant part in animation, post production and production. I would say they have helped your field more than they have hurt it. If anything has hurt film, it's obsolescence.

In all fairness a lot of the devices were imagined and thought out decades before Jobs brought them into being. Jobs had the wherewithal for timing, and, unlike the rest of us, knew that his engineers and the R&D boys at Intel, Sanyo and other chip makers, could get those whiz-bang devices from comic books and declassified R&D circles from the 50s into being.

 

The things he "created" were bound to happen regardless of whoever had the capitol to bring the elements together. Back in the 70s it was Chevron, of all companies, that was leading Internet research, which Ma Bell had already conjured in the 1930s. And miniaturization of communications was already planned out. But nobody had the financial legs to bring it to the masses.

 

Steve Jobs, for all his worth, was at the right place at the right time with the right resources to bring that stuff to the consumer. I didn't know the man personally, and I don't think I'd take away from his part in bringing those technologies to us, but he wasn't the one-man renaissance wizard that people are making him out to be.

 

A respectable guy all the same, and I'm glad he did help bring all that technology to us.