Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple more than 30 years ago in 1976. Since then Apple has grown to be the most valuable company with some of the best products in the world. Think about Mac and iPhone, they really care about the user experience more than anything else.

I completely understand why many people can’t see why we love Steve Jobs so much. He was just a man, right? Of course, but his brilliant and crazy ideas changed the world forever. Steve knew technology alone wouldn’t do any difference. You have to make the products fun, magical and easy to use in order to make the customers excited. Do you remember how you felt the first time you touched an iPad?

In 2010 after introducing the iPhone 4 he said something which I think really describes the company.

What made Steve Jobs truly legendary for the Apple fans was the keynotes where he got to introduce all of the new products, just like the video above. Steve had the magical ability to sort of catch the audience. In many ways I think the audience was more excited to see Steve Jobs than the actual products. He was simply amazing and I can’t describe why.

My favorite moment with him is the iPhone 2007 presentation. You can really see how excited he was and today we know it was a revolution in technology.

Ultimately, Steve Jobs has been a huge inspiration for me. He’s why I love and care about technology and I personally see him as one of the greatest men who’ve ever lived. That’s why I still can’t believe how such a genius could pass away so early in life.

Rest in peace, Steve. We’ll all miss you.

Here’s the heart breaking official resignation letter from Steve:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

We all knew it would happen at some point in time. Steve Jobs has been seriously ill for years now and in 2009 he underwent a liver transplant. But why is he so special? Simply because he’s one of the few people who has changed the technology industry completely!

Steve founded the company with Steve Wozniak exactly 35 years ago. Since then Apple has introduced many revolutionary products that’ve just changed everything. Think about the Machintosh, the iPod and the iPhone. Of course, Apple wasn’t the first to invent the phone. Instead they reinvented it by making it incredibly easy to use with new advanced technology. Apple has done this with many products and even if you don’t like the company I hope you’ll eventually admit it.
Personally I’ll never forget when Steve Jobs walked on stage in 2007 to introduce their first phone.

I found this little tribute to Steve Jobs and his work on YouTube. It’s nothing special but I like it.

For me, Steve Jobs wasn’t just the leader of Apple. He has also been a role model and he always will be. Almost a friend. He didn’t just invent products to sell them, he cared about every single detail. Nothing was too small to be closely examined and I hope other companies will eventually understand that.

I send the best wishes to Steve and his family. I hope he will continue to work with Apple and I hope they’ll always remember his visions and ideas.

The biggest thing is the release of OS X Lion, the next major version of their operating system. It’s only available to get online as a download on the Mac App Store and the price is only 29.99 dollars.
In terms of hardware The MacBook Air and Mac Mini have been updated with better processors and a Thunderbolt port. The Air also gets a backlit keyboard but surpringsly they’ve decided to remove the SuperDrive for DVDs and CDs on the Mini. A new Cinema Display with Thunderbort has also been revealed today.
On the other hand they’ve decided to kill maybe their most famous computer, the MacBook. It’s simply not on their website anymore.

I have a MacBook Pro myself but I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be buying Lion. It seems like a nice release and most reviews are positive but it doesn’t really seem like a must-have. But then again, the price is really nice so I might end up doing it anyway.
The only thing I’ve mixed feelings about is the MacBook. I’m not sure whether I think it’s good they’ve decided simply to remove it completely. It seems like the MacBook Air is their notebook for everyone now and it’s definitely a nice computer but now you’ll have to pay even more than 1000 dollars just to get something bigger than 13 inch. Only the future will tell if it’s gone forever and whether it was the right decision or not.

You can check it all out in their website, Apple.com.

As you can see… it really is different! It doesn’t look like Windows as we know. It’s more like Windows Phone 7, their OS for phones.

It’s very clear that it’s definitely designed with touch in mind and personally I think it looks very interesting. I think it’s a good idea their trying something new out but can this really replace the old user interface? Apple are also working on a touch version of their OS called OS X Lion but they are focusing a lot more on multi-touch trackpads instead of actual touch screens.
I’m sure Microsoft will tell us a lot more in the future!

You may or may not see more posts on the website from me in the future.

They’ve also made a video about it, watch it here:

Are you going to buy it? I’m not sure myself. I want to buy one expensive gadget in 2011, but I’m not sure whether it’s going to be this one. It’s awesome… but also a lot like the original and do I really need one? I don’t know…

Oh, and maybe the best thing. Steve Jobs did the keynote!

However, what I didn’t notice is that they also published some new information about their upcoming operating system, OS X Lion (version 10.7).
If you go to apple.com/macosx/lion, you will find lots of new pictures and information. It’s even possible for developers to download preview versions now.

There’s also a video on the site, but you can just watch it here.

What do you think? I’m really excited myself and I’ll probably be buying a copy at release.

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Today is Steve Jobs’ 56th birth day. As you probably know already, he’s the co-founder of Apple, and also the guy who saved the company a decade ago when they needed it the most.

Lots of other websites are wishing him a great day too. Here’s some articles:

• MacDailyNews: Happy 56th birthday, Steve Jobs!
• BusinessInsider: The Life and Awesomeness of Steve Jobs
• TUAW: Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs

Apple has also launched some new MacBook Pro models today, but it wasn’t really a surprise because of all the rumors lately. You can check them out here.

That’s why I recently bought this book on Amazon. “Beginning Mac Programming – Develop with Objective-C and Cocoa” by Tim Isted. I’ve already read some of the chapters, but from now on I’ll try to take it seriously and see if I can actually learn to make real apps.

The book is for beginners with no knowledge, so if you got a Mac you can go buy it as well.

The application is completely free and you can easily download it if you got the newest OS X Snow Leopard update with the Mac App Store.

This is how the user interface looks.

It looks very good, as you can. Everything is simple and feels very natural to use because of beautiful slides when something is clicked.

One the left side we got a menu with 6 buttons:
timeline – shows you all the Tweets from the people you’re following
mentions – Tweets where you’re mentioned
messages – your direct messages
lists – your lists
profile – your own profile
search – the search feature with the current trending topics

So basically you have access to almost the same features as on the website. Very well done, I think, especially when you consider how beautiful the design is.

When you want to write a new Tweet you can just click on the little arrow under the menu and a new little window comes up.

You can also shorten links, retweet and favorite Tweets as well.

Basically it’s like Twitter for iPhone. It works very well and it’s easy to use. Overall I really like it, now I don’t need to have my browser open anymore just to check Twitter.

Good: great design, free
Bad: might be too simple for some users

If you want to try Twitter for Mac out download it here.
There are also other clients available, like TweetDeck, but I haven’t used them.