Marcus Costello,

Thanks for your take on Steve Jobs’.

I did not know that he existed, but days ago, in a Westfield Mall, getting out from a Dick Smith’s near desert store, I noted an impressively new Mac shop that offered an Apple machine together with a year, one to one, free tuition on how to work with it, and the service of transferring all data from a PC to a Mac.

Nothing unusual in a world of Business, thought me.

Then Yabby mentioned Charities and my mind moved from business to dirty business

Whether or not Jobs was the inventor or producer is irrelevant,
Otokonoko,
I tend to think that nowadays inventions aren't really inventions as such anymore. It's a LEGO of ideas continually building on the back of runaway technology. People like Steve Jobs have the nuance of realising potential for the benefit of so many. Because they make an absolute fortune as a result is resented by many who would like to but can't make such contribution.

I agree with you there, individual. Invention nowadays tends to be more about 'building a better mousetrap' than 'inventing a new mousetrap'. It's about finding better ways of doing things we already do. Obviously, that doesn't go for all inventions - I'm sure some wondrous things are being cooked up in brilliant minds all over the world. But in a practical, everyday sense, the 'new' things we see are usually little more than streamlined, more efficient versions of 'old' things.

Or combinations. When the iPhone first came out, I was a bit of a cynic. I doubted that Apple had what it took to enter the telecommunications industry, and I saw little point in combining two tiny things - the iPod and the phone. I was the same with camera phones - I didn't have the foresight to see a world in which we could take photos of things that amused us and share them with our friends instantly, without any cables or printing or scanning or anything like that. I'm clearly not a visionary. I saw these things in the same light as the LG internet fridge, which was laughable at the time. Of course, now that online groceries are a reality, the internet fridge doesn't seem so silly after all.

But, back to Jobs. I agree with your summation - that he had 'the nuance of realising potential for the benefit of so many'. Whether he realised that potential for altruistic or entirely self-serving means is irrelevant to me.