I went to the Apple Store at Chandler Fashion Center this noon with some flowers, if I can't be at Cupertino or Palo Alto, an Apple Store is somewhere I can at least visit. It was moving, seeing candles and flowers under the Apple logo, reminds me that photo of people at 1 Infinte Loop cherish the memory of Steve.
Ever since I heard the astonishing news, I wanted to write something, but just don't know where to start from. I'm deeply saddened like many. Never spoken to Steve, not even met him in person, I have a lot personal emotion in that sadness. From my experiences with Apple products dated back to my 3rd grade, to all the stories on how he brought Apple back to business, to my studies and researches that're mostly influenced by Apple's and Steve's design philosophy, I felt a connection between me, Apple, and Steve.
Apple made its way to China with the iPod and the iPhone, but my story with Apple was way back to the late 90s, when I got my first computer, a Macintosh G3. Then PowerBook, Macbooks, iPods and iPhones and many more to come. But it's not only about its products, I started my undergraduate research after transferred to ASU, focus on HCI and user-experiencs studies becuase of Apple. Among all the people, Steve is the one who influenced me the most with his pursuit of perfection in design and user-experiences, I even put "Inspired by Apple’s and Steve's design philosophy and pursuit of perfection, ..." on my resume, and refuse to change it even when I apply at Microsoft.
I see Steve in many differernt roles: An artist, I enjoy using Apple's products that have been engineered to perfection and put user-experiences to the highest priority; A mentor that I've never talked to, but teaches me with all his ideas and products, and eventually leads me, as a computer system major student, became an engineer not only trys to engineering to specification, but trys to engineering to perfection with every end-users in mind; as a person, taught me to stays hungry, stays folish; as a role model, who points me the direction I should be going.
Many people tweeted about this, many people talked, but I cried. You said that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. You are certainly one of them, and the world would be very different without you. Steve, I miss you. RIP.
