Steve Jobs has died: A farewell letter
Dear Steve,
I knew it: you are very ill. But I did not want to have it true. Now you're dead. This morning, when the radio alarm clock delivered the message to me, there it was: the void. A world without you is like a phone call without an iPhone, music without an iPod - a life without apples.
We met each other almost exactly 22 years ago - You've already moved out of the garage and I'm about to move in: in my dorm. Punch cards and continuous paper were not quite from the market, to use computers you still had to master programming commands, and I needed something to do housework write. Such an uncool giant PC, for whose use one had to know a computer nerd, was out of the question. You had the solution: small, compact and so trendy. All hip people - and I - had this little classic apple. As big as a shoe box, the screen had just photo dimensions, estimated 13x18 cm. Of course black and white, but without PC commands to use. And there was already a small trash can: drag and drop - what a luxury! Together we wrote good and bad lines. We were always happy. And when his hour had hit and the next generation of Apple computers was on my desk, I could not part. To this day, he stands in my parents' memory - and one of his big brothers in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
What can I say? It was followed by many years of deep friendship, unconditional trust and the feeling of being in-crowd, the revolutionary underdogs: everyone bought PCs and laptops that became cheaper and cheaper and got more and more gigantic memory cards. I bought expensive, but happy my bit of design and tried with more or less success to exchange documents between the worlds. Yes, I renounced much: games, cheap (because copied) software, affordable modems. But I also got a lot back: Joie de vivre - never, never had a virus on my computer.
Thankfully I stayed loyal to you and your products: With the iMac you brought color into my life, the first iPod expanded my taste in music - finally I could hear more than the six CDs from my CD changer in the car.
And then the iPhone: Freedom in the flatter format. You made me dependent on your legendary press conferences on new products: Nobody will ever talk so lovingly about storage capacities, keyboards and screens as you, connecting phones and heart wishes in such a poignant way, so convincingly bring their visions and ideas to life. And nobody will ever look so disturbingly skinny and at the same time disarmingly unpretentious in jeans and a shirt.
Well, I have to admit, since the iPod at the very latest our friendship was not that exclusive anymore. And since the iPhone, we also have some disagreement. You've become a bit control-addicted, you want more of me than I'm ready to give. And a bit bitchy, your latest products are also: vulnerable, sensitive and sometimes difficult to achieve.
But sponge over it - without her I did not want to live. The iPad is already on my Christmas wish list and the iPhone 4s will probably soon belong to me. Without you I have to live now. I will miss you!
Farewell Steve!
Your Sinja
