Jobs Done ... for Good (R.I.P.)

What a day! First folk guitar legend Bert Jansch and now comes news of a much bigger loss in terms of popular cultural impact, the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Despite his having resigned as Apple’s CEO a few months ago due to lingering and serious health issues, tonight’s news still seems shocking – for its rapidity, if not its unexpectedness. (A year from now this news wouldn’t seem so surprising, I think, as it does now.)

Personality aside, Jobs was undeniably a creative and marketing genius whose visionary work has affected the daily lives of so many of us for more than two decades. Literally everyone in the Western World has been touched in some way by the results of his inspired ideas and high standards. Not just the early Mac adopters among us, and not just every iPod-, iPhone-, iPad-touting biz person, hipster or kid even. But anyone who has ever enjoyed iTunes, been able to be more productive and creative with the help of an easy-to-use personal computer at work or home thanks to the user-friendly graphic interface, or even just been exposed to the far-reaching design sensibilities that trickled out of Cupertino, Calif., into so many products and aspects of our contemporary culture.

Let’s hope that Apple can honor Steve by living up to his legacy in the years to come.

This video clip of Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford University in 2005 is one of the more oft-referenced graduation speeches of recent years, thanks in no-small part to 6 million and counting views on YouTube. It’s worth watching if you haven’t seen it, or again, even if you have.

Flexible, Paper-Thin Screens

I’ve been following the development of various e-reader devices and digital edition technology for the past several years. And, despite the significant progress from the relatively simple and limited Kindle (still the best pure book-like reading experience, I’ve seen, with its partially reflective surface) through Apple’s game-changing iPad (with its multifunctional, brilliantly colorful, glowing backlit display), which clearly excels in many other functions, we’re still just in the infancy of e-reader device development.

In only a few more years, the devices and the digital reading experience is likely to be something more like this, I believe. And while it will offer high resolution, brilliant color, unlike today’s computer screens, I think, it will be largely (or wholly) reflective, rather than back-lit, requiring much less battery power and creating an easier experience on the eyes. We’ll see, and most likely sooner rather than later.

Friends As Curators? ... Social Media & Customized Magazines

Yesterday’s Associated Press report on a new Apple iPad app that produces personalized “magazines” – really a collection of links – curated by those in one’s social networks (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) is an intriguing prospect that shows the tech sector’s continuing creative thinking in the face of the publishing industry’s wheel spinning and teeth gnashing.

We’ve all heard about how our society is moving from the information age to the “social age” in media and technology. This new app, called Flipboard, represents one of the more interesting and progressive steps in that transformation. In a nutshell, Flipboard creates a visually engaging consolidated news feed – based on links (to articles, pictures and video) that those in your social network have posted to Facebook or Twitter. The assumption being, if it’s stuff your friends like, you’ll be interested, too.

Here’s the quintessentially Apple-esque promo spot for the app, featuring Flipboard CEO Mike McCue (his partner in the venture is ex Apple iPhone guru Evan Doll) :

There is, however, at least one potential problem with this otherwise clever, useful and interesting app. Namely, the current trend by some of the world’s most reputable media companies (Time Inc., The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist et al) to put the most succulent fruit of their labors behind pay walls. If this trend continues and expands, as some industry insiders anticipate, some of those “socialized” links won’t offer much beyond a graphically appealing headline or image and a bit of teaser copy. The real meat of the content will be locked away out of reach – until you pay for it. Of course, this won't just be a problem for Flipboard, it’ll also affect the value of the links on FB and Twitter, too.

So beyond your friends own photos, videos and text-based diatribes and, inevitably, a plethora of YouTube videos, more substantial news reports and thoughtful analysis could be quite lacking in your Flipboard “magazine.” That, I imagine, is a surmountable problem. For the right price and/or degree of market penetration, I’m sure the media companies in question will be glad to work out deals with the Flipboard folks that will unlock those content doors.

If that happens, then consider me enticed. Off course, I’d want to make sure such an app had preference settings to control who exactly in my social network was curating the content appearing in my daily “magazine.” Having experienced the ... uhh ... “breadth” of our social networks for a while now, I doubt any of us would want every one of our long-lost buddies feeding that stream.

Flipboard will certainly be something I’ll be keeping an eye on in coming months. I just might have to get an iPad sooner than I thought.

Apple Mind Control

On the eve of Apple’s much-anticipated Tablet debut, this is a provocative article from Macworld speculating on the company’s subtle behavior manipulation strategy. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in coming years. Personally, I’m not opposed to losing the keyboard, but I think it’ll take some getting use to typing on the screen that you’re also viewing on when it’s something bigger than a handheld device. But, as the article notes, Apple has already successfully led us down the behavior modification path before (and anybody who has worked in retail in recent years, has already been doing this on the cash register interface).