I was driving home from dinner tonight when I heard on the radio that Steve Jobs had died. This blog post will be one of zillions proclaiming how Apple, under Steve Jobs’ leadership, changed lives.
My story is simple. My many Apple products made it easy to share the wonders I call my sons and made technology easy at home. I’ve been an Apple fan for a long time and have slowly accumulated a collection of Apple products.
Apple Should Have a Campaign About How Macs are for Moms
My Mac is my mommy machine. I use iPhoto to store and manage my over 30,000 photos, mostly of my sons and photos from our travels around the world. And when I want to share photos with my family, I select the photos I want and then ask iPhoto to send lower resolution versions, so I don’t clog e-mail inboxes with photos that are 4MEG each — no need to resize the images first, which means my mom gets photos nearly every week!
At the end of each year, I made video slideshows of my children’s activities using iDVD. The themes make it easy to put together a great looking DVD and I get a terrific keepsake from the year.
My older son learned how to use a computer on our Mac (the baby isn’t old enough but he’s definitely interested). He immediately understood the intuitive user interface and can play games, watch videos and surf the web.
iChat and now FaceTime make it easy to stay in touch with Grandma, who lives in California. She loves that she can see the boys, although she often frets about how she looks (as if the boys care, they love her!).
Apple Devices Make Home Networking Easy(ier)
I joke with my techie husband that setting up a home wireless network is not for mere mortals, although I have to admit that Apple has made it easy. We have Airport base stations around the house to ensure that have a good wi-fi signal thoughout our 4-story townhome.
We’ve set up speakers in the different parts of the house and downloaded an app that lets me control the Mac and send music or radio programs to different parts of the house.
We’ve owned an Apple TV for many years. We use it to watch movies, watch YouTube videos on the big screen, and enjoy our photos. We were worried that Apple would discontinue the Apple TV for lack of sales but it looks like this device will be around for a while. Thank goodness!
I don’t think I could live without my iPad at this point. My husband, older son and I were vying for iPad time so much time that we now have 2 of these tablets at home. I use my iPad to check my schedule, check weather, check e-mail, surf the web, find recipes, play games, manage my user manuals, listen to music, watch movies on Netflix, and so on and so forth.
Finally, I love how all my Apple purchases (music, apps, games, movies and shows) are done through my one iTunes account. And I absolutely adore how synching my devices regularly means I can enjoy these purchases on all (or most) of our devices — PC, iPad, iPod Touch and Apple TV.
Thank you, Steve Jobs. Thank you, Apple
If you haven’t already noticed, I’m a huge Apple fan and a big consumer of Apple products. I’m passionate about Apple products because the products clearly were developed with end users like me in mind. I love the form factor of the devices, I love the easy user interface, I love the diversity of the apps and functions, and I love how all the products work together.
Thank you, Steve Jobs for making my life as a mom better.
6 replies on “How Steve Jobs and Apple Changed My Life as a Mom”
Great post, Joanna!
Whether a person is an Apple fan or not, there is no denying that Steve Jobs truly changed the world.
One of my favorite bits from him was from his speech at the Stanford commencement in 2005:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve has been an idol of mine for a long time. He has achieved what so few can: make millions of lives better.
Just two days ago, I had a conversation about iPhones with Kevin (a fellow Project Manager). He said: “People who don’t have an iPhone don’t understand. Once you get one, it changes your life.”
There is no doubt that he has had a tremendous impact on Apple and the world. I think one of his primary skills was his ability to put together a team of people to achieve his vision. He didn’t make Apple the most successful company in the world without the significant, Herculean efforts of his staff and thousands of Apple employees. He knew he couldn’t do it alone, and he didn’t try.
I still have one of his original Mac’s. If you open up the case, you’ll find signatures molded into the inside of the case – one from each key member of the Mac team in 1983.
Steve’s greatest achievement was convincing his team to think of themselves as artists. Their goal was never to beat the competition or to make a ton of money; but it was to make the greatest thing possible, maybe even a little greater.
Dream big, think differently, and don’t worry about the other guy. Do your thing as best you possibly can. Everything else will come along.
I’m a latecomer to the Apple revolution. Got an iPhone middle of last year, followed by a MacBook pro.
What surprised me was the quality. Everything is thought out and considered. Other laptops feel like cheap pieces of plastic and tin. My MacBook pro feels like a piece of art.
While I love the hardware & applications, my favorite thing (and what I can say I’ve learned the most) is a mindset. Technology should be elegant, easy to use, and right-sized. It should be designed to be something that people can actually use. It should not be something we need to worry about, but instead an enabler of ideas and life. From a corporate perspective, Apple took risks. They saw things other companies did not see and seized the opportunity. The original iPod launch was laughable, Apple was chided. iTunes was a joke. And look where it is now. They stuck to their guns. What can we learn from this?
I’m sure that Steve has done an amazing job in something else. Transition. I’m sure that he has done the best job a human being can possibly do passing the torch to Tim Cook and the team at Apple. They are going to keep rocking because he passed on this mindset to them, too.
Garry
When I heard the news last night, I found myself deeply saddened like millions of other people across the globe. Steve Jobs was by far one of the great innovators the world has ever seen. We can’t imagine our life without Apple.
I remember the first time I learned how to use the computer. It was at a summer computer class when I was a child and it was on a MAC. It’s amazing how Apple has continued to be a part of my life. I don’t know now what I would do without my iPhone.
One of the other things that I admired about Steve Jobs was his ability to find successes even in failures. As I was driving into work this a.m., I actually heard how he invested in Pixar and how the company was not doing very well at first, and then came out Toy Story. It’s just amazing.
He will be truly missed, but his ideas and philosophy on life will continue to live on, hopefully helping to inspire other people to move forward with their dreams.
He will be missed. I wonder how his passing will affect Apple – will they be able to maintain the innovation and daring? I think back on days with Gil Amelio and John Scully, when Apple lost its mojo. Or how Microsoft is now, increasing clueless and irrelevant.
Great post!
I am also a fan of iPad, for different reasons.I’m not really much of a computer user , managed with our old slow computer quite happily—– but I have cancer, terminal lymphoma and as time goes by can do less and less. MY son and I decided to treat me to this lovely IPad and I can be found sitting, blanket over knees, listening to music,and now—— Iwent to art college—— drawing and painting . I M thrilled . So someone else with a very big thank you to Steve. Jobs and apple mac.
Diane Hoskins .