Joshua Mamis Photo
He helped write it. Sort of.
The 12-day-old Apple store on New Haven’s Broadway was business as usual mid-afternoon on Thursday, the day after Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. The only sign — if you looked carefully (or asked one of the blue T‑shirted employees) — was that the large, metallic silver Apple logo in the center of the entrance way above the door was turned off.
Just below it, on the ground, in one corner of the street side of the facade, mourners had placed some flowers. And, tellingly, an apple.
At about 1:30 p.m., the people in the store talking about Jobs were a New Haven Register photographer, a radio reporter and, well, me.
One employee said he had not heard of any official plans to commemorate their visionary founder. Another called Jobs’ passing “a sad event,” but said no one had brought it up to him. The store had its usual low-volume hum of people talking about operating systems, software and cellular phone technology.
Few people seemed to gather at the store with the specific intent of paying their respects. Or, if they did, they did it privately. (Unlike stores in New York, China and Europe, which attracted scores of devotees.)
These words, however, were written on a 21.5‑inch iMac at the Apple store, on technology that Jobs shepherded through from conception to market.
It is based, of course, on technology that he recognized as revolutionary — the graphic user interface, the mouse, the humanization of the personal computer through the ability to work with on-screen images rather than arcane coded prompts. The relentless quest for elegant, simple, artful design.
This story was then transmitted to the newsroom via the iPhone, which likewise revolutionized personal communications, putting a powerful little computer in the palm of your hand.
Yes, much of what Apple offers can be said to be overpriced, gadgets that we don’t need, monuments to 21st century consumerism. They perform functions that, if functionality is all you are interested in, can be performed (mostly) by other products, from other companies, at a lower cost.
For today at least, so what.
The hum remains at the Apple store. This iMac will go on its elegant, purposeful way. Customers gathered around the iPad table, still wondering at its sleek beauty.
Yes, few people seemed to be memorializing Jobs at the Apple store while I spent an hour there. But perhaps there was no need. Every time their phone rang, every time they checked an e‑mail or logged on to Facebook, there he was, behind every keyboard and every touch screen. Whether you are an Apple-phile or not, there’s no denying that Jobs was no ordinary titan of industry.
New Haven’s Apple Store was at half-logo Thursday.
And so with so little telltale sign of Jobs, I booted Safari on a MacBook and typed in apple.com. And there, finally, was an image of Jobs in the store.
It only seemed fitting.