The Ukrainians join the whole world saying: “Thank you, Steve!”

“Three apples have changed the world: one was eaten by Eve, another one fell on Newton’s head and one more was founded by Steve.”

Commentaries from the Internet

“He was courageous enough to think differently, brave enough to believe that he can change the world and talented enough to do it,” it is difficult to disagree with the words of the American president about Steve Jobs.

Today hundreds of people all over the world bring flowers and light candles near Apple Stores to commemorate this really unique person. The understanding of the fact that one of Apple’s founders will never create a new product is a great loss for many people. Convinced that there will be a lot of grateful people among the Ukrainians, too, my colleague-photojournalist and I visited three Apple Stores in Kyiv but found neither flowers nor even Steve Jobs’ portraits there… Of course, it is not the reason for general conclusions but can our society recognize and value Unlikeliness? As for me, the category “unlike” characterizes Steve Jobs the best. The protest against cliches and traditions in this narrow area, ambition and will for change and, the essential, understanding of the practical implementation possibility are the features that can be successfully extrapolated on more global things; the Ukrainian often lack such thinking today…

The first know-how Steve Jobs is believed to develop in the 1970s in cooperation with Steve Wozniak (Woz, as Jobs called him in his famed Stanford speech, who, by the way, was born in a family who had come from Bukovyna) is Apple I. They did not create an absolutely new computer (the first one was Altair 8800) but changed its purpose – to be used by ordinary users. Certainly, the “information revolution” could not have happened without Jobs’ participation and the next Apple II became nearly the most demanded computer in the world. I suspect that it was quite difficult to achieve such result in the condition of serious competition and new technological products by the Silicon Valley companies. Steve Jobs once used Xerox’s development, the mouse, adapted it for the new computers Lisa and actually started the new era of PCs perception.

Computer is not only the means to fulfill technical tasks but the cultural artifact. In fact, Steve Jobs monopolized the high-tech aesthetics and combined them with simple use. This approach became an alternative vector of information technologies development. After Jobs returned to Apple, the company switched from computers to multimedia. The creation of the first iPod that completely changed the idea of how the music player has to look and work was a certain revolution in the mentality of many electronic gadgets users. I do not think that the only reason for Apple’s success is the right marketing strategy. The creation of the demanded product at the right time and place automatically makes the market. But there are also hundreds of nuances and if even one of them is absent the product will not be special but will become one of the many similar ones. The new approaches to the electronic products creation and charisma of the former director general of the company clearly reflected on sales ratings and simultaneously influenced the idea of how electronic gadgets – computers, telephones, music players or tablet computers – have to look. The vision of Job’s innovations gave the consumers the possibility to admire the products they use. Steve Jobs spurred the creation of a certain new pop-culture that, although “stained” by the company’s success in the market, is not groundless. Moreover, he became the unsurpassed trend-setter. I concede that the fanatic love for the “bitten apple” is not just blind ideology following but the sensible choice to feel a part of the Apple family (stylish and modern people who do not “go with the time” but leave it behind).

One can say for sure that all the Apple’s products hide a much deeper ideology than just nice design or tailored and functional system. Living with a gadget means not only possessing it; intelligent people who care about their future constantly search what to fill these good products with. If we reject the technical component, Steve Job’s message he implemented in his ideas is the dilemma: should everyone realize their participation in creating better oneself? Should we stay average consumers or become creators?

“HE TEMPTED THE WORLD WITH HIS GENIUS”

Yevhen MARCHUK:

“For me Steve Jobs was a person from heaven, a person of science, intuition and presentiment. I think that if he had lived 20 or 30 more years (if God had permitted him) he would have transformed the world beyond recognition. Such personalities as Steve Jobs are not the people of the world but the people of civilization that were modest and did not long for politics or public life but really changed the world for better. I think that regardless of whether they will erect him a monument or not everyone holding Apples, iPods, iPhones and iPads in their hands is a monument to him embodied in millions or even billions of people.

“I have an association. Apple’s symbol is a bitten apple meaning that Eve had tempted Adam… As Barack Obama said Jobs was courageous enough to think differently… The bitten apple symbolizes that he tempted the world with his genius and now the world has to try to thank him for his temptation. May he rest in peace. His name will not just go down in history… I remember attending a lecture of a famed professor who started it with the words: ‘The Earth appeared from nothing and will once disappear in the world ocean – this is the law of being.’ It is clear that it is mea-sured by billions of years. I think that Steve Jobs will go beyond the limits of the planet and will stay in the Universe with his genius concentrate and will look for a place to land and realize his genius and talent.”

“JOBS’ EFFECT”

Larysa IVSHYNA, editor-in-chief of Den:

“Has the show-business history ever had a person whose death the world reacted at this way? By the way, this is one of ‘Jobs’ effects’ – he united the world so much that, probably, there is no a single country where at least a couple of dozens people do not know about Steve Jobs’ death and do not feel united. Today the virtual world became very real and tangible.

“Owing to Steve Jobs we felt the inhabitants of a ‘virtual global village.’ He was one of the ‘united world’ creators.

“I have had the idea of the ‘union of the high-speed Internet Ukrainian villages’ for years now. Owing to Jobs this dream came true. A couple of days ago I was in Alushta and simultaneously communicated with our author Volodymyr Panchenko who was in a village in Central Ukraine and Den’s web-editor Artem Zhukov who was in Kolomyia. The geographic distance did not prevent us from sharing ideas on-line without losing our ‘autonomy.’”

“Thus we just skip the post-industrial stage and enter the information era. One does not need to be physically present to cooperate with somebody else creating something and working on common va-lues. This is essential. Apple does not make people using them smart but opens the world and makes us move ahead developing the qualities of a modern and interesting personality… One can choose the way to degradation even holding an iPad. The means of information supply have had a revolution but they are only the ‘way’ that we have to go.”

“WE CAN ONLY JOIN THE WHOLE WORLD SAYING TODAY: THANK YOU, STEVE!”

Vitalii HAIDUK:

“Steve Jobs is a legend of the show-business. But the business is secondary. The essential is that this person gave all of his life and all of his heart to the work he liked the most. His ideas were not only about computers but on technologies in general. Steve did something that fits into the ‘blue ocean’ strategy. He created pro-ducts that were beyond comparison. If he had had other thinking (if he had been just a businessman) his company would have been in the ‘red ocean’ (meaning competition, money and profit).

“Owing to Steve the world received a PC for ‘simple’ users. I do not mention the animation films that have opened the computer animation to the world.

“All of us remember the le-gendary iPod that became the best player and that automatically had the electronic shop iTunes able to store 100,000 melodies: iPod nearly blocked the illegal business of downloading the information from the Internet. Its design was just something incredible. We even had no time to change our perception and got fantastic iPhones. Even those who previously had problems when using multifunction telephones handled iPhones easily. They turned to be very handy. Finally, we did not get used to this new product and received iPads that have dramatically changed the world of tablet computers.

“As for Jobs in business... Steve had created the company and later lost it. He left it because of a misunderstanding with its president whom he had personally taken to Apple. John Sculley worked for Pepsi and Steve thought it would be good if he became Apple’s president even regardless of the fact that John was not good at technologies but knew much in business. Then Steve addressed John with his famous words: ‘Are you going to continue bottling sweet water or are you going to change the world?” Thus Sculley became the president of Apple. However, later because of the abovementioned conflict Steve had to sell all of his shares and kept only one as a symbol. Despite this, he later rose from knees, returned to Apple and became number one again.

“Steve Jobs created products that really changed every of us. Owing to him we started communicating more. He will stay in our memory as a unique person. We can only join the whole world saying today: ‘Thank you, Steve!”

PEOPLE WILL ESTIMATE THIS LOSS WITH THE TIME

Ivan PIETUKHOV, President of the company Adamant:

“Nobody has cancelled the role of personality in the history. Certainly, the appearance and departure of the people like Steve Jobs influence the market development a lot. Firstly, what he did in his company, secondly, the equipment he produced. It was so advanced that made the competitors take everything differently and move ahead. But life is life and nobody can argue with it.

“It is clear that nature abhors a vacuum. There will be someone who will take Jobs’ place. How-ever, the time will show the value of this loss. Certainly, the humankind loses much when such people pass away but only the time will show how much.

“Some time ago Jobs’ inventions and ideas were among the ones that provoked the revolution in communication. However, I believe that this was not the last world-wide IT revolution. The Humankind will completely switch to ‘digits’ very soon. It is inevitable. Let’s examine the example of Estonia. In this country electronic democracy, electronic government and electronic police became a part of the everyday life… It has significantly changed people’s life for better. Firstly, and this is very important, they spend less time for the bureaucratic procedure. By the way, the bureaucratic machine will be the first to disappear due to the information technologies development. Secondly, owing to the ‘digits,’ people received nearly free real-time communication.

“I do not think that Ukraine is far behind the technological progress happening all over the world. Yes, we do have certain problems with the Internet access but we have good dynamics of the broadband access increase. It is important not lose it.

“Looking at some countries today we can say that it is not necessary to go the whole way of the IT-revolution. When Ukraine stood still, as many people believe, or thoroughly examined various possibilities many technologies got outdated. It is natural that we have gone further and used the new technologies at once.

“I cannot see major technical problems in the IT-sector development in Ukraine. I can rather see the problems of administrative pressure. That is why it is very important to remove all the administrative barriers preventing the access of the IT-sector achievements. Today the public and business supported by the government are interested in this. They have made certain progress. That is why we can be sure that Ukraine will not stay aside the progress.”

“SUCH PEOPLE CREATE THE MODERN WORLD”

Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, sociologist, Assistant Director of the Sociology Institute at the Ukrainian Academy of Science, Doctor of Philosophy:

“Steve Jobs practically founded Apple that became a cutting-edge company of the world. For example, in the US Apple computers are the ones for the intellectuals. It is believed that the American intellectuals have to work with Apple’s products. Unlike what Bill Gates and his colleagues offer, Apple has always been considered the most advanced. During the last decade Steve Jobs worked on iPhone and iPad. It was his initiative. What we see today in this sector is to a large extent his merit – the creation of his intellect and persistence. Jobs’ contribution to the modern technologies development and the modern information society is great. He was a nonconformist who broke stereotypes. It is called creativity: the continuous searches of something new and unusual. Such people create the modern world. He combined many features: intelligence, organization business talent, nonconformity and creativity. Steve Jobs found the empty niche where he fulfilled himself. There was nobody else who could have done it. Such people take the lead of the modern development. He was a star.”