Thursday, October 6th 2011 was a strange day. I had gone to bed unusually early the night before, and was awake slightly earlier than normal. My morning ritual usually includes me checking my iPhone for emails and having a quick look at Twitter. But not this morning. I was up, showered and ready to go, well ahead of schedule.
My partner and I travel to work by train and she picks up the free paper on the way. I usually catch up on my RSS feeds on the train, but not this morning, we chatted and laughed about our lovely meal out we had the night before.

Just before our stop, I received an SMS.
“I take it you’ve heard the news?”
“What news?” I replied. I never received an answer.

I arrived at work, and sat down at my desk, next to my colleague.
“Have you heard the news?”
“That’s strange. I received an SMS asking me the same question earlier. What is it?”
“Steve Jobs has Died.”

The look on his face and the tone of his voice meant he wasn’t messing around. I immediately opened Safari and read the news. I was stunned.

It wasn’t until I started to read all the tributes that the news started to take effect. I had to leave the office for a few minutes to pull myself together.

I never met Steve. I never even got the chance to attend any of his Keynotes. But the work he did and the products he developed had a profound effect on me from a young age.

I must confess to not having any interest in the Apple II. That was way out of our family’s price range at the time. I was brought up with a Dragon 32 and a BBC Micro. But in the late 80’s My sister started working for a Liverpool based company called Bit 32, run by a very charismatic and visionary man named Roy Stringer. Roy’s aim was to make computers accessible to everyone, including the disabled, and through use of the Mac he developed systems that disabled people could use. These products were amazing. The times when my sister brought her SE/30 home were like Christmas!

I spent my work experience and summer holidays at Bit 32 writing Hypercard applications on the Mac. I don’t think any of my apps were used by the company, but that didn’t matter to me. i was having the time of my life using the most advanced computers I had ever seen. This helped me make up my mind to become a developer. It was the inventions of Steve and Apple, along with the goodwill of Roy Stringer that pointed me in the direction I would follow throughout my Career.

Sadly Bit 32 went out of business in 1990 and Roy Stringer passed away in 2001.

I’ve had a love affair with Apple and the Mac ever since then, watching all of Steve’s Keynotes and owning a Classic for a short period, a PowerBook 170, a Performa, and a G4 Graphite, usually acquiring them after they had become discontinued. However it wasn’t until 2007 that I was finally able to afford to take the plunge and buy a MacBook Pro as my main machine. I used this mainly for photography, because I had been a Java developer for many years by this time and my interest in programming was waning to the point that I was considering a career change and becoming a full time photographer.

The iPhone changed this.

The Introduction of the iPhone SDK in 2008 was like a breath of fresh air for me. It heralded the return of the bedroom programmer, and rekindled my interest in programming again.

Im now a full-time iOS developer and I love everything about the platform.

So I would like to say thank you, Steve for inspiring me all those years ago, and just when I was about to throw in the towel, inspiring me again.

God Bless you, Steve. Rest In Peace.

James

• It’s my main phone
• some of my most used apps were a bit crashy (including one of my own)
• 4.0 really doesn’t offer a great deal on the 3G