Friday, October 7, 2011

Where did you hear about Steve Jobs passing away?

People of a certain generation always remember where they were when they first heard the news that John F Kennedy had been assassinated. I was only 14 months old when JFK passed away, but I still know where I was when the news came through because my father said that he had just come home from work and I was sitting on his lap when he turned on the TV news.

Hearing about the passing of JFK was a real shocking moment for Irish Americans of my father's generation. In many ways the passing of Steve Jobs was an equally tragic moment for geeks of my generation. Apple computers was founded around when I was finishing up in secondary school and was learning about computers for the first time. When I was in college I followed with envy the exploits of the two Steves. I was personally more of a fan of Steve Wozniack than Steve Jobs, but I must admit that I would have loved to be more like either of these giants in the computer industry.

I use Google Listen application on my phone to listen to a selection of Podcasts on my commute to and from work. On Thursday morning I was reviewing the podcasts that had been downloaded overnight to see which I should add to my Listen queue when I noticed that the TWiT network had just published a Steve Jobs Special episode. I suspected that the reason for the special episode was because he passed away, so added the episode to my Listen queue and then I checked the RTE news app to see that there was indeed a short story about Steve passing losing his battle with cancer..

Listening to the show was a great review of a wonderful life. Steve Jobs was 7 years older than me and Steve Wozniack was a further 5 years older than him, but their growing up closely mirrored my growing up and the growing up of the computer industry. I know Steve Jobs would have probably preferred if I had been listening to the program on an iPhone rather than on an Android phone, but it was nevertheless a tribute to his contribution to the change in the computer industry that I was getting my news through a podcast from the other side of the globe rather than a local TV or Radio program.

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