How Steve Jobs Changed The World: How Did Steve Jobs Contribute To The World
Even if all he gave us were Apple computers, Steve Jobs would still be among the most important people of modern times. The late Apple founder and CEO whose vision and relentless drive helped change technology forever. And thus the world forever. But Jobs's influence went far beyond Apple.
From the start, he was branching out and taking both creative and financial risks. Many of them not only paid off for his bottom line, they also helped mold our society for the better. In 1995, Steve Jobs, the man synonymous with Apple, left his own company after a major spat with his chairman. Within the year, he founded a company called Next.
They still made computers, but next computers were meant for businesses and education primarily. You likely haven't heard of next. That's because the company never really got off the ground. SALES wise, in 1997, after over a decade of treading water, jobs sold next to his old pals at Apple for four hundred and twenty nine million dollars in return.
Jobs agreed to both return to Apple and use next software on upcoming Apple products. He did just that and it turned out next technology was way ahead of its time. Much of Apple's most successful hardware runs on next software such as Mac OS, Io s watch OS and TV OS.
In short, if you enjoy Apple computers, tablets, watches or television, Steve Jobs and next are to thank. If that's not enough. Several popular video games were written and designed on next computers.
The famous first-person shooters, Wolfenstein and Doom, to name a couple, came to life through next cube stations. When a company can legitimately claim invention of an entire game genre, you know that company made history.
Just a year after founding next, jobs branched out even further. He spent $5 million to purchase the computer graphics division of Lucas Films, which might not sound like much until you learn what Jobs renamed the company later on. Pixar yes. For a measly 5 million Jobs owned Pixar.
And while the company didn't bear much fruit until 1995's mega blockbuster film Toy Story, once it started making money, it couldn't stop by the time Jobs sold Pixar to Disney for $7.4 billion in 2006. Its movies had grossed over $3.8 billion.
More importantly, Pixar films changed animation for good. Once Woody and Buzz entered the mainstream, traditional animation began to fall by the wayside in favor of CGI. The new gold standard virtually every animated movie we've loved for the past 25 years owes a debt of gratitude towards Steve Jobs being on the money about how he spent his money just six years after Toy Story changed everything.
Steve Jobs once again changed everything. In 2001, he and Apple launched a little device called the iPod, which completely revolutionized portable music. Now, instead of toting around c.D galore, music fans could fit hundreds, even thousands of their favorite songs on one small piece of hardware. Just four years later, in 2005, Joerres began dreaming and plotting for a complete reinvention of the smartphone.
In 2007, his visions became a reality as Apple rolled out the very first iPhone. It featured touch controls, along with the ability to listen to music, make calls, send texts, surf the web and download apps. This proved an evolutionary leap for phones, unlike any since the first cordless model decades prior.
Three years later, in 2010, jobs was added again, changing the game with the i-Pad. While this was not the first tablet, it was the first to eschew a keyboard for touchscreen capabilities. Also, it could do anything an iPhone did only as a super portable computer. Judging by the gigantic tablet industry that sprung up since the first iPod, the public approves.
Sadly, Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer the following year in 2011. By then, however, he had cemented his legacy as a technological game changer. Many times over. But even more importantly, he was a life changer. Though he chose not to speak about it much. Steve Jobs was a huge philanthropist who donated tens of millions to various charities over the years.
Most notably, he gave over $50 million to Stanford hospitals and spent untold millions on funding organizations battling the AIDS virus. Considering how far we've come in the battle to eradicate HIV and AIDS worldwide, it's safe to say Steve Jobs quietly helped save the world. All the fancy smartphones in the world can't compare to a legacy like that.
* This article was originally published here
