Yesterday we learned of the death of a man who had a profound effect on the course of my life and the life of this company. I am sure that this sentiment has and will be reflected many times, but it makes it no less true in our case. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and all of those whose lives were touched by him.

I never knew the man personally, although I stood in the same room with him many times. I have owned at least one Macintosh since 1984 (including a dark period where I carried a trusty Thinkpad and had a rickety Mac at home that I still used much more joyously). I have been a Apple developer since 1985 and have attended all but a handful of the WWDC events since 1989.

The Macintosh was an early embodiment of the idea that computers could truly be appliances for humans, and not task-masters. And I immediately knew that was where I wanted to follow. As a developer since an early age, I had been focused on how the computer could assist without getting in the way. How they could conform to what we needed and not the other way around.

Steve lead with this thinking, and pulled the world along with him. During that time, he made people delight with devices that acted intuitively and pushed developers to achieve more to make their software truly be productivity enhancers and not just one more archaic system to learn. He recognized excellence and pushed hard against complacency.

None of our recent products were ever noticed by Steve. However, he will continue to inspire our work to improve, re-think and create.

Thank you, Steve!