The headline of the Oct. 6 front-page article marking Steve Jobs’s death, “Apple’s visionary changed computing,” didn’t capture his broader legacy at home and abroad. At a time of faltering American competitiveness, Mr. Jobs stood out as an iconic symbol of the ingenuity that has helped us serve as a commercial, technological and ideational beacon for others.
Mr. Jobs’s platforms spawned entirely different business models in the recording industry and beyond, while fueling the growth for applications that would leave users wondering how they ever made do without them. He drove social technologies that ultimately helped empower the “Arab Spring” and other popular movements in closed societies. Meanwhile, his transformation of Pixar into a cutting-edge animation juggernaut captivated audiences worldwide, inspiring dreams and firing the imagination of millions of kids (and adults).
Mr. Jobs showed how individual drive and the ability to visualize how things could be can move mountains. The fact that young netizens from China to Brazil mourned his passing alongside Mac-loving evangelists here at home speaks volumes. Although we can’t quantify the number of lives he touched or the risk-taking ventures he influenced, it’s safe to say that his ripple effects will live well into the future.
Craig Denny, Reston
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Regarding the front-page obituary for Steve Jobs:
Mid-morning of the day after the news of Mr. Jobs’s death swept the country, I settled into a coffee shop in Fairfax and saw nearly every customer intently engaged with an Apple laptop, tablet or cellphone — some with multiple such devices at the ready. And I thought immediately of the inscription on the tomb of the great 17th-century architect Christopher Wren in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. The English translation of the Latin is this: “If you seek his monument, look around you.”
Kenneth Barry, Vienna
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●Tom Toles’s Oct. 7 cartoon showed Steve Jobs offering to help St. Peter manage his list of names at the Pearly Gates. How better to suggest that Mr. Jobs continues to work his magic in a better place?
James Reed, Waynesboro, Va.
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●While it is difficult to quantify the impact of one person on an entire generation, it is safe to say that the passing of Steve Jobs had the same impact on the younger generation of today that the death of John F. Kennedy had on the youth of a previous generation. Those of us who witnessed both events will always remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard that these heroes had passed on.
Paul Jankovic, Bethany Beach, Del.
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