ReadWriteWeb

It's time for free software to find a new voice. Once again, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman is putting his feet firmly in his mouth. This time, Stallman says that he's glad Steve Jobs is gone.

It's no secret that RMS and Steve Jobs held firmly opposed views when it comes to software freedom. I didn't expect Stallman to hold a vigil at an Apple store for Jobs, or even to say much of anything at all. But his ill-considered response does nothing for the cause of free software, and actually does a lot of damage.

Sites across the Web created some amazing tributes to Steve Jobs over the last day. One of our favorites was our friends at Boing Boing, who overhauled the theme of their front page with a touching, nostalgic classic Mac look. The team at WordPress loved it, too, so they worked through the night to make a retro Mac theme for WordPress users, and they're giving it away for free.

On the main WordPress blog founder Matt Mullenweg writes:

We work harder and have higher standards because of the bar set by Apple's experiences, and I don't know what WordPress would look like today if not for the inspiration he gave all of us.

This is not an Apple-bashing piece. It is also not an attempt to cut an American icon down to size at a time when we're remembering the magnificent contributions of its fallen founder. This is about how failure makes us better.

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard, seen, or read comparisons of Steve Jobs to Thomas Edison since early yesterday evening. Jobs did not invent anything - not the personal computer, not the MP3 player, not the tablet. But besides that fact, there are certain other stark similarities. One: Jobs, like Edison, was a fierce competitor who sought to control not only the delivery channel for his products, but the market surrounding those products. Two: Like the finest scientist, Jobs studied his failures and Apple's very carefully, and unlike Microsoft, built his next success upon the smoking ruins of his failures.

Following the news of the death of Steve Jobs on Wednesday night, millions of people took to the Web to mourn the founder and former chief executive of the biggest technology company in the world.

Everyone from Apple customers and admirers to other tech luminaries and the President of the United States expressed their condolences in the form of obituaries, blog posts, tweets and status updates on Facebook and Google Plus. Somber homepage tributes went live on Apple.com, Google.com and other major websites, and some publications like Wired and Boing Boing altered their homepages dramatically to pay tribute to Jobs.

Earlier today, the tech world was rocked by the sad news that Steve Jobs had died. I'd like to pay tribute to Steve Jobs, on behalf of ReadWriteWeb, for what he brought to the Web world. There will be hundreds of different tributes written by many tech publications - deservedly so, as Steve Jobs had a huge impact on many aspects of technology.

In this post I want to highlight 3 main things that I'm grateful to Steve Jobs for: 1) re-defining mobile computing with the iPhone and iPad; 2) his design philosophy; 3) his leadership. Steve Jobs strived for greatness in the products his company built, which resulted in a great user experience on the Web for millions of people.

The technology world was saddened to learn today that Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc., has passed away. He was 56 years old.

Apple's board of directors released this statement:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

One of the announcements from today's Apple event was iCloud, described as "a set of free [with iOS5] cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices." In other words, iCloud is a file synchronization and sharing solution for Apple devices. Similar in some ways to Dropbox, the leading independent sync solution and arguably the world's 5th most valuable startup.

The big question is: can Apple finally get sync right? Apple promises that iCloud will integrate "seamlessly with your apps, so everything happens automatically." It's absolutely crucial that Apple delivers on that promise, because sync is a key part of the multi-device world that we now live in. Perhaps for the first time since Android appeared on the scene to challenge the iPhone, Apple is at risk of losing customers if iCloud fails.

It is time to take a step back from everything Apple and the nonexistent iPhone 5 for a minute and put everything into perspective. The summer of 2011 has been a building tidal wave of rumors, speculation, false leads and outrageous claims. When you look back at the roadmap that led to what Apple released today with the iPhone 4S, you have to step back and ask: What should you have really expected?

Was it too much to expect an iPhone 5? In retrospect, yes. Making a giant jump in its product line is not in Apple's DNA. Look at the iPhone 3GS in comparison to the iPhone 4. The 3GS was a great improvement on the 3G and it ran iOS 4, but they looked very similar. The 4S runs iOS 5 and looks basically exactly like iPhone 4. Come next summer or whenever the iPhone 5 comes out, it won't look anything like the 4S. But, the iPhone 5S will look a lot like the iPhone 5. Incremental improvements to satiate demand while still leaving consumers wanting more.

Apple announced a new in-house app called Find My Friends today as part of the forthcoming free update iOS 5 - and it sounds a lot like what other services already offer. The service will allow iPhone owners to selectively and for a defined period of time share their location on a map with their friends and family. But apparently it's just for finding other iPhone owners. Who else would you want to find, anyway?

Persistant location sharing on demand is clearly a growing trend, witness Google Latitude, Glypmse and startups like Geoloqi and EchoEcho. What has Apple brought to that party? Maybe improved usability, ease of installation, accessibility for everyday iPhone owners - but also a feigned ignorance about all the other options and all the other phones on the market. Imagine how many more friends I could find if Apple released something that was interoperable with other services and other devices. Just like I can call them by voice. But no...it's just for Apple Friends to find Apple Family. I love Apple devices, but this is just obnoxious. The time for siloed, single-vendor, location sharing apps has passed.

The market is hungry for today's iPhone launch. Existing iPhone customers are ready to upgrade. Nearly a third of Android users are would consider switching to iPhone, but only 11% of iPhone users would give it up. Sprint is making a big bet to become the third major U.S. carrier.

Apple just announced the iPhone 4S, a significant update to the iPhone's existing design. The iPhone 4 far outshone its predecessors, and a bump to that phone will surely prove popular. More importantly, the iPhone 4S is now a "worldphone." It contains both GSM and CDMA radios, so all carriers can now support the same hardware. Furthermore, the old iPhone 3GS is now free with a contract. But several Android phone manufacturers are neck and neck with Apple, and most of the mobile world doesn't even have a smartphone yet. Amidst the world's many phones, smart and dumb, where does the iPhone stand?