RIP Steve Jobs

Yesterday, another round of rumors were put to rest and totally sweet technology was unveiled as Apple rolled out the iPhone 4S. It was all the same hype and secrecy and shiny new metal and never-before-seen capabilities. Some people can't wait to line up to pay absurd amounts of money for their new gadgets. Others are vocally underwhelmed with what they think could be possible in the newest Apple product. Still others are holding out for the iPhone 5. No matter your opinion, you likely shared it yesterday afternoon with your online world.

We love this stuff.

But as we watched the presentation of this new piece of machinery turned art, there was something amiss. It wasn't Steve Jobs that was telling us about it. It wasn't Steve Jobs seemingly prank calling a neighborhood Starbucks by pretending to order 300 lattes while showing of that new iPhone. It wasn't Steve Jobs telling us piece by piece what was new and different about this one. It wasn't Steve Jobs standing there in his jeans and black t-shirt, simultaneously nonchalant and totally stoked for you get stoked about what was in his hands.

It's hard to even know what to say, because I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro -- the third Apple computer I've owned. I just got a notification about a Steve Jobs-related Facebook post on my iPhone 4 -- the second iPhone I've owned, not counting the three iPods I owned before that. Music is playing that I bought on iTunes. Every day my life is genuinely improved by a product that first had life in the mind of Steve Jobs. His influence on my generation is so pervasive. We don't even say mp3 player anymore -- it's just iPod. The first one I owned was bigger than the iPhone I have now, and I'm pretty sure it held like 8GB of music or something. But I distinctly remember the magic of being able to play all the music I had -- to make playlists on-the-go! -- on that fat white machine. And how far Apple innovation has come. How far it has taken us!

I mean, I send email from my pocket! I play hangman with Fletcher -- 3000 miles away -- from my pocket! I look up stuff on Wikipedia and make plans with other people and buy music that I can instantly listen to and watch videos of cats and check scripture references and keep track of sports scores and take photographs and order shatterproof wine glasses online and make video phone calls -- !!!! -- all from my pocket! My ability to interact with the world around me is unreal. It was made real by a lifetime of innovation from Steve Jobs.

An all-too-short lifetime.

The death of Steve Jobs is not the death of Apple. He has thousands of innovative employees working around the clock to make the next incredible piece of equipment we won't believe we lived without. But those people may never have come to be who they were without Apple and without Steve Jobs.

Rest in peace, Steve. Cancer sucks. But this world is better, faster, more magical and more fun because you lived. Know it.