Visionary, CEO, Messiah

“Where were you when Steve Jobs dies?”

“Me? I was in bed. Why? Where were you?”

If Apple can keep control of the phone and tablet markets for the next half century, by some miracle, it will be down to the foundations that Steve laid, built upon, and reinforced with space-age consumer foresight. After those 50 years are up, we'll probably find ourselves asking the above question. Last decade's big celebrity death may have generated the same sort of cathartic wreath-casting response, but Michael Jackson's death was hyped by the scandals of his own life, lifestyle, and death. Steven Jobs has drawn a (frankly) not at all surprising outpouring of sympathy and eulogy. World leaders, CEOs and competitors are all crying to have their voices heard as they seek to praise his works and deeds louder than the next man. No one wants to show apathy for a man who, in more ways than one, has evolved the western world. No scandals blighted his career; his death was expected, and he went quietly with family. Even Samsung, embroiled with Apple in over a dozen lawsuits across the globe as the iphone/ipad and galaxy lines duke it out, stepped forward to gush praise upon the competition.

I'm no Apple fan, and I never will be, but there's nothing stopping me (indeed, there's a lot encouraging me) from seeing what the man has done, and what he may continue to inspire in death.

Apple polarises. It's regularly the Marmite of the technology world, and even if you don't think you're a particular fan, there's a good chance they've got their sleek hooks into you anyway. Not many people go iphone and then 'advance' to Android. No matter what side of the fence you're on, Steve Jobs has undeniably made lives better across the western world. He's built up a sleek white empire, employed 50,000 people in the process, and flooded the world with gadgets that, to many, may not be all that important. To others, the ipod and the iphone were revolutionary devices, and they genuinely believe that their lives are better with them than without. The truth of that matter is irrelevant, and comes down to opinion anyway, but if you perceive something to have made your life better, then it has. There are plenty of Jobsians out there that perceive precisely that, and Steve made that possible.

If you still don't accept that Steve made the world a better place, consider this: he forced Google and Microsoft to get better, and Apple will continue to force its competitors to raise their game. Even if you never buy Apple, you know that Google is fighting harder than it ever would have if it led the market, just to keep up. He raised the bar.

Steve has done some incredible things over the years, gathering followers and making something out of nothing. The Jobsian cult is now a fully formed religion, complete with a messiah who threw his life into his work to rescue common man from the curse of the phone that was only a phone all those years ago. His success was somewhat appropriately miraculous itself; the ipad in particular still doesn't actually fulfil a consumer need. It doesn't have a purpose, but it found a niche and wedged it open with titanic force. Still, Jobians snap them up by the bread and fish-basket load!

The man has been called visionary more than once, and some have satirically compared him to the Christian messiah, not without some justification. Did you know that when a new Apple store opens up the employees are whipped up into a fanboy frenzy, that the part of the brain stimulated by love of Apple products is the same that shows greater activity in religious fanatics?

This is definitely another heretical post – hearsay can wait.

Only time will tell what Steve Jobs' death will do to Apple, for while he had given up day to day running of the company, he was still its face, smiling assuredly from the trademark turtleneck. Could the cult take another step forward, idolising its great leader? Will his icons continue to lead the surge of Apple's quarterly figures or stem the growing tides of Android and Windows 8?

Cupertino has its work cut out for it after the collective media grouching that was the 4S launch, and without Steve to pick up the slack, times could get tougher for Apple, but I seriously doubt it.

Apple still has its zealots, and no religion was ever weakened by the death of its founder.