[Nottingham] [OT] Tribute to Steve Jobs: sign of an epoch

[Martin]

Folks,

OK... So there's been far too much of this in the news not to make comment.


I think this blog post sums up my view nicely:

Tribute to Steve Jobs: sign of an epoch
http://brunocornec.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/tribute-to-steve-jobs-sign-of-an-epoch/

"I’m among the people who are puzzled by all the fantastic tributes
that you can find around Steve Jobs. Not that he doesn’t deserve to be
recognized as the CEO of Apple, one of the most brilliant marketer of
easy to use IT products.

Of course he helped his company realizing products which have had
influence on lots of people worldwide. But for me, this manifestation
of over celebration doesn’t place the emphasis on the right level: the
inventors, the engineers, the creators. ..."


Also, in amongst that great success for Marketing IT to people, there
is also the aspect of how the Marketing and the IT products themselves
have shaped those people's use of 'consumer' IT.

All for the good? For the user's freedom? Or is all this something
that is inexorably pushing deeper into corporate restrictiveness and
lock-in and entrapment?


There's certainly a lot of nice shiny clever products that people seem to want.

But is all that at a necessary or acceptable cost?

Is there anything better? An 'anything' that is better and that is practical?


Cheers,
Martin