This past Wednesday evening, 5 October 2011, I was sitting in my office at our Bakery in Inglewood, CA talking with my son and a friend of his about our plans to camp out at the Apple Store in Manhattan Beach, CA to buy the new iPhone 4S when I got an SMS text message BREAKING NEWS ALERT from KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles:
"Apple reports that Steve Jobs has died".
My reaction was immediate and visceral. I jumped in my chair as if my iPhone had become instantly white-hot and exclaimed: "Oh, shit! Steve Jobs died!". I immediately turned to my keyboard and my fingers flew across the keys, trying to confirm (yet secretly hoping not to have to) the awful news.
I asked them to give me some time to absorb the news and I turned to the Web to the absolute TORRENT of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ updates as the news spread across the globe like wildfire.
As I sit here in my office over 72 hours later, I am still puzzled and trying to sort out why I feel the way I do. Over the last 3 days, as I've read countless stories, remembrances, anecdotes, memorials, Facebook status updates and tweets, I've come to the conclusion that I am overwhelmed by a sense of disorientation.
That's the best way I can put it: DISORIENTED.
I think the the reason I am grieving as if I've lost a member of my own family is because I have a relationship with my Apple gadgets that transcends a normal person's level of interaction with their electronic devices.
I guess also that I'm so sad because Steve Jobs is gone and in death he takes with him the spark, the essence, the "id" that all Apple products are imbued with. A part of me fears that nothing will ever be the same again and that the special feeling I had of owning the greatest smartphone, tablet and personal computer on the planet has been slightly extinguished.
I didn't know Steve Jobs, but I felt like I did. In using his products constantly, every single day of my life, I felt like I owned a part of something that Steve Jobs designed and now, going forward, the very last product created while he was still alive is the new iPhone 4S coming out next Friday 12 October.
I've only been using Apple products since December 2006, a relatively short amount of time, but in that time I've grown to love what Apple products represents: The very best consumer electronics available.
Well, I'm probably rambling, so I'm going to close by saying:
Thank you Steve, for being you, for pusing industrial design forward, for relentlessly pursuing perfection until the objects you bestowed upon the world filled all of your fans with absolute delight.
Rest in peace, man. I'll see you on the other side.
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