The Gravity of Apple

Finally, at 5:30 p.m., August 24, 2010, I looked into my hands with tired eyes at my iPhone 4. I had just completed a marathon wait of over eight hours to own this treasured device.

I know, crazy, right? But I was one of hundreds who came every day to Winnipeg's Apple Store just to have a chance (yes, a chance) of owning an iPhone 4. Apple stores across the world easily ran out of iPhone's before they did customers. By the time I was guided into the store to get mine, there were only about a dozen iPhone's remaining for the day. The only memories I have of waiting in line for anything before this was for rock concert tickets in the early 1990's before the advent of online ticket sales.

For me, this best describes the emotion Steve Jobs intentionally/unintentionally created for his products. They are rock stars, and if you owned anything Apple, you were part of a kinship that stretched across the entire planet. This kinship was never more strongly felt than with Steve Jobs' death on October 5, 2011.

I first heard the sad news on that harbinger of Breaking News, Twitter. I tapped into my feed to blithely scan the days events to see @glendaollero, a former college classmate, simply express, "Oh, Steve. :((("

The world had known that Steve had resigned from Apple as its CEO six weeks earlier due to his health. I felt the worst had occurred, and sadly, I was right. Steve had lost his valiant fight with cancer. I immediately switched the television to CNN. Reports and tributes poured in from millions of people who thought of Steve like he was the beloved uncle they never had time to spend with. People created memorials at the news and lit candles, left flowers, cards, and yes, apples, at Apple stores in cities all over the world.

Through the devices Steve created, many of us felt connected to his vision. Steve was a technological rebel whose innovations rose above (I think) even his own expectations. Apple's product reputation is built on the premise that, "they simply work." By merely adding electricity to an Apple device, it lived up to your expectations within minutes.

A caveat. I've only ever owned Apple computers, but it's for the reason that I just described above. By simply adding electricity, Apple devices have given me, and millions of others, years of virtually stress-free computing (the one time I thought my iMac had died, it had become unplugged). None of my Apple products have ever failed to a point of repair. Reliable software updates and product improvements have made this a reality, and the only Apple product I no longer use is my first, bubble-shaped, iMac G3. I no longer use it because it was stolen years ago during a break-in. Thieves typically have a sharp eye for quality.

Thomas Edison designed inventions that captured electricity and improved the lives of hundreds of millions in the process. Steve Jobs captured the same innovation at Apple and seized the interest and imagination of the entire world.

@RIPSteveJobs  1955-2011