THE HIJINKS ENSUE STORE IS A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BUY STUFF!!!
Time to retire his black turtleneck into the rafters.
I honestly feel that Steve Jobs, and his singular vision for his company, have done more to increase the acceptance of technology by the general public and the integration of that technology into our daily lives that any other single person in the last 50 years. Like his products or hate them [for whatever arbitrary reason] they have consistently strived to make high end, seemingly “magic” devices accessible to technophiles and n00bs alike. Your mom has an iPad. A device that wasn’t even on the horizon 5 years ago. Steve helped bring us [that] much closer to the future, and for that I will always be grateful to him. Not to Apple, but to him directly. Ever since he returned to Apple in the 90’s, Steve’s drive, commitment, integrity and borderline certifiable insanity have directly influenced how we interact with technology. He’s a total nutter, but great men often are. I think you’d be hard pressed to find any one person that REALLY changed the world (for better or worse) that wasn’t at least a little unhinged. Here’s hoping he’s in better health than I expect he is, and that his input will continue to lead to wonderful shiny gadgets for years to come.
- A list of Steve Jobs‘s best quotes
- In a post Steve Jobs world, we’ll be OK
- How Steve Jobs changed Apple
- What will Apple under CEO Tim Cook look like?
- Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO (Updated)
I hesitate to speculate on the future of Apple as a whole. Can they stay on the path Steve set them on, or will they falter under new leadership? My friend Bill Barnes of Unshelved and Not Invented Here wrote some nice words about Steve, and my friend Adam Koford drew this subtly touching and ironic (using the literall meaning of the word) cartoon.
COMMENTERS: Is Apple still Apple without Steve? Should it be? Other thoughts on Steve Job’s departure from Apple? [Please no Apple haters or pointless negativity]
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-apple-ceo-ti…
Well, I could sure use some bacon-wrapped, gravy-stained offal. If Josh really wants to stab his insides out I'm happy to help. Because I'm a giver.
I'm getting flashbacks to the "BRING ME MY LARGEST DIAMOND!" strip because of the news of that supposedly diamond planet. Is that where he's going to spend his retirement days? Godspeed you Fancy iBastard!
I personally feel Jobs is smart enough to leave the company in the hands of people who will keep his vision for the company alive.
At least we now have someone other than the dude who invented AOL to blame for the millions of people who have access to tech without the capacity to understand or intelligently use it. Hurray for making things accessible to the masses!
(And c'mon, everyone knows Steve-o is just retiring now to preserve his legacy. He doesn't want to be the dude that brought iOS into existence onto to see it raped into oblivion by Android. At least now the zealots will have someone else to blame.)
I think this is the start of the decline of Apple. Not to say that the people who are taking over for Steve are bad, but Steve Jobs IS Apple. I really don't think that they can do the same things he has done. It will take quite a while, but I think in 10 years we'll be viewing this as the point at which Apple turned downhill.
I'm worried that recent trends point to an Apple that stops innovating and starts litigating instead.
I feel like the senseless litigation comes with the territory. Why file a patent if you arent going to enforce it? The problem is that patents like "a method by which a computer does stuff on the internet" shouldnt be awarded in the first place.
Do you think his letter of resignation said iQuit?
it didn't but it should have.
*sniff* This news made me a sad monkey. I wish Steve the best and hope his health takes a turn for the better. Some of my best memories as a kid are my older brother teaching me Basic on our shiny new Apple ][e. I was eight.
I think Apple will be just fine. I like to think of 1 Infinite Loop as Willy Wonka's factory. A place where Steve has his teams of Apple-Loompas trained to work as a well oiled machine of innovation. Maybe they even break into songs full of expository lyrics for visitors.
I bet I know what would make Josh feel better though. A nice batch of my bacon chocolate chip cookies with a maple glaze!
The litigation and patent protection bit is actually at the heart of the apple/google/microsoft competition right now. Hopefully with Google buying Motorola it will help deter some of it, because the way the patents are setup, they are going to start stifling innovation. The three need to come to a somewhat tense agreement to just leave the other alone for the most part and keep working on tech
No matter what, they will infringe on the patents. Some of them are titled "electronic devices for online media". How generic is that? No matter, Apple is going to continue to develop innovative products, they just hopefully install someone in Job's place who wants them at breakneck speed, because that's one thing he had that made it so successful
Apple drones are so damn funny…
i guess you didnt read the part about "no pointless negativity." One more and you get blocked.
This is how the decline of Venture Industries started. Soon, Apple will be a ramshackle compound full of half-invented super-science and broken dreams. Oh, and an underground society made of people who got trapped in there during a tour whose only link to the outside world is VH1 Classics.
Wait, are you comparing Steve Jobs to Jonas Venture Sr., or Thadeus "Rusty" Venture? Because Jonas Sr.'s dead, and Rusty appears in good physical health, and Jonas Jr.'s working hard to keep VI afloat.
Jobs = Jonas Sr. As in, once the man of vision left / died, the company rests on its laurels while incompetent heirs waste the potential that was there. Yeah, Jonas Jr. is picking up where his dad left off, but it was a good twenty year slide until then.
Hopefully this will signal the end of the Apples Monopoly and Apple will become more user friendly by not limiting you to never using anyone's products but their's once you switch.
Monopoly on… what exactly?
@ hijinksensue
Hipster love?
I kid, I kid. ( iKid?)
But really, once Steve is gone from the helm Apple is bound to take a dive unless they get a handle on the whole "copyrighting vague concepts" thing.
I awwgiggled out loud at "I really wanted to stab my insides out". My heart. It breaks.
Hi Joel, I recognize that you are a very funny humor comic person and not a politician type person, but can we please get away from using "your mom" as the quintessentially unskilled user example? Tech circles, including the open source world (of which I consider myself a part) have long-standing phrases like "The Aunt Tillie Test" or "The Girlfriend Test" that just serve to alienate the tons of incredibly smart women who could be contributing to our favorite Open Source projects but are not.
That said, I'm an apple hater, but you make a strong argument about apple's role in attracting the general public to geek out about their technology. Consider me convinced on that front.
Sorry if you are overly sensitive to that expression, but it relates to my experience. You have to be able to generalize sometimes.
@ Larry
The only thing stopping women from joining the heady world of tech is a lack of desire, or choice on their part not to go into that field.
And on another note, most moms do tend to be a little tech unsavvy. It may be a stereotype, but unless you're talking about younger mothers in their 20s and 30s it's true. I've personally spent the last 10 years or so being the designated "tech guy" for my extended family. And 9 times out of 10 it is a female member of my family (usually an older aunt) who calls for help.
Godspeed, Steve Jobs, you fancy bastard…
The good news is he didn't leave an AI copy of his secretary in charge of the company.
He did, however, design a combustable lemon. If you receive a lemon from Steve Jobs, do not make it angry, it will burn your house down.
Josh may have something to look forward to: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/08/25/…
Going past the obvious jokes, it's not that Apple having a gay CEO will necessarily change Apple, but it might help change the world a bit. Role models are important and "CEO of Apple" is a pretty big role model. It's not all he is, but when "first African-American President" is a big deal, so is this.
"Tim Cook is now the most powerful gay man in the world."
That's a pretty fantastic sentence.
Hey as long as the next OS is stable I don't care if the man gets off on stuffing live weasels down his drawers.
Fantastic as in "incredibly great", or fantastic as in "not connected to reality"?
Today's comic answers that. Thank you.
What a great comic. I'm not sure why I like this one more than most, but I do. Perhaps it's the flow. More likely, it contains the kind of wit I only wish I had. Oh I squeeze a good off every once in a great while, but you have it in spades, my friend. Thank you for sharing it with us so often.
As for Jobs, everything ends. And my Nano is The Shiz. So all is right in the universe as far as I'm concerned. 🙂
Very kind of your to say. thanks!
I'm shamelessly stealing this from someone else (I think it was on Slashdot) but part of Steve's genius was in assembling the best team to make his manic vision reality, including his upper level administrative guys. Apple's done well not just because of Jobs alone, but because he's had the sense to surround himself with people who are good at their jobs. I think that if he's chosen to leave someone in charge, the company is in safe hands, unlike when he was forced out in '85 and the bean counters were left to wreak havoc.
But… the Performa! And the Performa infomercial! That family loved their computer so much!
Thank you, Joel for your kind and thoughtful tribute to a man who did so much for technology. I personally don't own an Apple product; however, I absolutely realize how my PC-based products are better because of Steve Jobs. And also, technology aside, it's important to consider the humanity part of it. I am a nurse and spent several years as a palliative/hospice nurse. It's never easy to see someone at this stage in their life. It sucks, plain and simple. Thanks for a great comic as always.