YODA SAYS... This morning I sent Sharmayne a text message from our truck stop resort in Ozark, Arkansas. It failed to deliver so I touched the icon to resend it. When I did, a pop-up menu came up on my iPhone screen. One option was Try Again. I was amazed that Steve Jobs, who was keenly attentive to every detail of his creations (hence all the awesome stuff Apple has created), would allow the message, Try Again to appear on any of his products. Im sure he was well aware of the truth that Yoda summarized in his (or its) statement, Do or do not... there is no try. Steve Jobs was one who knew that we either do or do not do things. We enjoy some incredible electronic technologies because he did. Some of the things he did were wildly successful and some werent so successful... yet he did them wholeheartedly. The Lisa computer didnt do well but the Graphical User Interface (GUI) was created (or perfected) as a result of his painstaking attention to details on the Apple Lisa computer system. He put so much emphasis on details that it made the computer cost-prohibitive when it was introduced in 1983. It was a personal desktop computer that cost $9,995.00. After Jobs was fired from his own company (Apple), he started NeXT computer company but it didnt do so well either (relatively speaking). However, when Jobs was asked to come back to Apple (because the folks who fired him couldnt keep the company viable), Apple bought NeXT in the deal to get Steve back (a deal worth around half a billion dollars). Even though the NeXT computer system was not a personal desktop computer to fit into Apples offerings, the software system Jobs developed for the NeXT computer would be married with Apples hardware platforms to ultimately create OS X and iOS operating systems. Since Steve Jobs was a doer, we are benefiting from his cutting edge products today. Amazingly, Jobs didnt invent the personal computer (it was invented by an Italian engineer) but he built on what was out there. He had a vision of what the personal computer could be and he went for it. Jobs didnt create the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The original version of a GUI was created by Xerox but it was essentially hyperlinks that were text-based and could be accessed by clicking on the words with a mouse. There were also menu lists, radio buttons, and check boxes. Steve had a vision of what a GUI could be... a simple way for users to interface with the computer so the user could produce desired results. His vision was for users to be able to click on icons to access programs. However, he didnt create the concept of icons either. That was created by a guy named David Canfield-Smith and he invented the concept of the icon (as far as operating systems are concerned) and coined the term icons in his doctoral thesis at Stanford University. The icons on a GUI on the personal computer screen would be activated by moving a pointing device over the icon and clicking on it. However, Jobs didnt create the mouse either. That was invented and developed by a guy named Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s before Jobs was even a teenager. Steve Jobs didnt invent the personal computer. He didnt invent the Graphical User Interface - the GUI - that would allow anyone to easily use the computer. He didnt invent the mouse that was the key to navigating in and using the GUI. However, he saw what was possible - what a personal computer could be - and he went for it. He did it instead of trying and most of us consider it the best computer and operating system in the marketplace today for personal use. Jobs stood on the shoulders of other people and their technologies and built his vision from there. Steve Jobs didnt invent the MP3 file storage technology and he didnt invent the MP3 player but he saw what was possible and created the iPod and he changed the way the world would buy and listen to their music via the iPod and iTunes. To their dismay, the music industry was majorly revamped. CD sales tanked and iTunes downloads boomed. Jobs didnt invent the cellular phone but he saw what it could be... more than just a telephone, it could be a multimedia communications device that could connect people to the world. Wala the iPhone was born. I believe Steve Jobs was one who either decided to do or do not do and wasnt a tryer. When we are whole-hearted doers, I believe we also encourage others to be whole-hearted doers as well. Jobs created the personal computer with his own proprietary operating system (referred to as the Mac) while other people and their companies were creating their versions of the personal computer using the Microsoft DOS operating system (referred to as PCs) Microsoft created their version of a GUI to compete with Apples version. In fact, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement and claimed their Windows interface was stolen from Apples GUI concept. Apple lost on most of the points of the suit because the Copyright Law states that a person cannot copyright an idea but only their unique expression of the idea. If Jobs hadnt done his thing, Bill Gates and Microsoft might not have created Windows and we might still be staring at that intimidating MS-DOS prompt. Jobs didnt do too badly with Pixar Animation Studios either. He ultimately guided it into an incredible animation movie production company (Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and Toy Story 3, Cars and Cars 2, Finding Nemo, Monsters University, and more). In 2006, Pixar was sold to The Walt Disney Company for a valuation of $7.4 billion, which made Jobs Disneys largest shareholder. As Christ followers, we are told to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. I believe that being doers of the Word excludes us from being tryers of the Word. Whatever you do, do your work heartily... -- Colossians 3:23
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 20:41:39 +0000