How Steve Jobs Changed the planet
even if all he gave us were Apple
computers Steve Jobs would still be
among the most important people of
modern times the late Apple founder
and
CEOs vision and relentless drive
helped
change technology forever and thus
the
world forever
but Jobs's influence went far
beyond
Apple from the start he was
branching
out and taking both creative and
financial risks many of them not
only
paid off for his bottom line they
also
helped mold our society for the
better
in 1985 Steve Jobs the man
synonymous
with Apple left his own company
after a
major spat with his chairman within
the
year he founded a company called
next
they still made computers but next
computers were meant for businesses
and
education primarily you likely
haven't
heard of next that's because the
company
never really got off the ground
sales
wise in 1997 after over a decade of
treading water Jobs sold next to
his old
pals at Apple for four hundred and
twenty nine million dollars in
return
Jobs agreed to both return to Apple
and
use next software on upcoming Apple
products he did just that and it
turned
out next technology was way ahead
of its
time much of Apple's most
successful
hardware runs on next software such
as
Mac OS iOS watch OS and TV OS in
short
if you enjoy Apple computers
tablets
watches or television Steve Jobs
and
next are to thank if that's not
enough
several popular video games were
written
and designed on next computers the
famous first person shooters
Wolfenstein
and doom to name a couple came to
life
through next cube stations when a
company can legitimately claim
invention
of an entire game genre you know
that
company made history just a year
after
founding next jobs branched out
even
further he spent five million
dollars to
purchase the computer graphics
division
of Lucas Films which might not
sound
like much until you learn what jobs
renamed the company later on
Pixar yes for a measly 5 million
jobs
owned Pixar and while the company
didn't
bear much fruit until 1995 s mega
blockbuster film Toy Story once it
started make
money it couldn't stop while the
time
job sold Pixar to Disney for seven
point
four billion dollars in 2006 its
movies
had grossed over 3.8 billion
dollars
more importantly Pixar films
changed
animation for good once Woody and
Buzz
entered the mainstream traditional
animation began to fall by the
wayside
in favor of CGI the new gold standard
virtually every animated movie
we've
loved for the past 25 years
owes a debt of gratitude towards
Steve
Jobs being on the money about how
he
spent his money just six years
after Toy
Story changed everything
Steve Jobs once again changed
everything
in 2001 he and Apple launched a
little
device called the iPod which
completely
revolutionized portable music now
instead of toting around CDs galore
music fans could fit hundreds even
thousands of their favorite songs
on one
small piece of hardware just four
years
later in 2005 Jobs began dreaming
and
plotting for a complete reinvention
of
the smartphone in 2007 his visions
became a reality as Apple rolled
out the
very first iPhone it featured touch
controls along with the ability to
listen to music make calls send
texts
surf the web and download apps this
proved an evolutionary leap for
phones
unlike any since the first cordless
model decades prior three years
later in
2010 Jobs was added again changing the
game with the iPad while this was
not
the first tablet it was the first
to
issue a keyboard for touchscreen
capabilities also it could do
anything
an iPhone did only as a super
portable
computer judging by the gigantic
tablet
industry that sprung up since the
first
iPad the public approves sadly
Steve
Jobs succumbed to cancer the
following
year in 2011 by then however he had
cemented his legacy as a
technological
game-changer many times over but
even
more importantly he was a life
changer
though he chose not to speak about
it
much Steve Jobs was a huge
philanthropist who donated tens of
millions to various charities over
the
years most notably he gave over 50
million dollars to Stanford
and spent untold millions on
funding
organizations battling the AIDS
virus
considering how far we've come in
the
battle to eradicate HIV and AIDS
worldwide it's safe to say Steve
Jobs
quietly helped save the world all
the
fancy smartphones in the world
can't
compare to a legacy like that