by Ramon Pastor
(One of our founders’ thoughts on Steve Jobs. Re-published from techadok.wordpress.com.)
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs
I don’t often admit that my path in life was forged by someone else’s hard work. However, I’m not ashamed to say that, without Steve Jobs, my personal & business life would be a lot different than it is today. In 2008, when Numlock was starting out and Apple opened the App Store, I had a choice of studying Objective-C & Cocoa, or learning a web development framework like Ruby or Flash. I had a 1st generation iPod touch, and I loved it, but we were a fledgling web company back then. Still, my new-found love for Apple’s iPhone platform inspired me, so I bought my first Mac (a white MacBook which I still use today), and jumped right in. Less than a year later, we released our first iPhone app (WalletWhiz), and started getting inquiries for iPhone development work. Today, I’m proud to say that we are one of the few purely mobile development companies in the country, and I’m happy to admit that Steve helped make it happen.
Beyond the business, I enjoy using my Apple devices daily for work and play. My iPhone & iPad have become such an integral part of my life. The mind-blowing thing about these devices is that are such a joy to use. I used to believe that you needed to be a geek to truly appreciate technology. But now I realize that Apple’s greatest accomplishment is that they helped make technology accessible to non-techies. Steve Jobs did not set out to make the most tricked-out computers, the most feature-packed phones, or the most powerful tablets. He just wanted to create gadgets that work beautifully and make people happy.
In short, I owe a large part of the future success of Numlock and my love of joyful technology to Steve’s vision. May the present & current members of Team Numlock, as well as fellow mobile developers and development companies, iOS or otherwise, learn from Steve’s example, and strive to create apps that work beautifully and make people happy.
