Steve Jobs.

ROL (return on life) is the normal Thursday post. This week's ROL is postponed one week due to the death of Steve Jobs.

I received a text from my local TV station last night at 6:59 P.M. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. had lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 56. Immediately the e-news purveyors and e-news aggregators sprang into action providing biographical information. The social media sites were full of tributes as Wednesday became Thursday. A true visionary would dream no more.

source: morgueFile

I'm about as far from an Appleophile as you can find. Except for some mid-generation iPod Nanos and Shuffles there are no Apple products in my house. When I finally got a 21st century smartphone, it was an Android. When I eventually get a pad, it will be an Android (I'm a fan of open-platform). It's important to remember that my smartphone and eventual tablet are responses to Apple, responses to the vision of Steve Jobs.

Information Is Power.

Steve Jobs changed the way information and entertainment are originated, curated and disseminated. The fact that someone else would have eventually developed the same vehicles does nothing to diminish the fact that Steve Jobs was the first. Steve Jobs ability to make tech tangible to the technophobic is true genius. Without Steve Jobs consider the state of computer accessibility, mobile entertainment and movie animation. That's quite a diverse portfolio, yet Steve Jobs managed that portfolio seamlessly.  Steve Jobs is undoubtedly the model of the 21st Century Renaissance Man.

Farewell, Steve Jobs.