Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday.

Steve’s contributions to the technology world can be seen on every personal computing device in the world. The device you’re reading this article from, whether it be on a PC, Mac, or on a Smartphone, has been greatly influenced by Steve’s work.

I won’t attempt to articulate or summarize his vision, passion, or his vast list of accomplishments. Many have already done so, far better than I ever could. Here are a list of my favourite:

Walt Mossberg – The Steve Jobs I Knew

Vic Gundotra – Icon Ambulance

New York Times – Steve Jobs’s Patents

I will, however, describe what his work has meant to me on a personal level.

Pixar

First, there was Pixar Animation Studios. Steve founded Pixar in 1986 after buying The Graphics Group, with his personal funds, from Lucasfilm. Dr. Ed Catmull and Steve saw the potential in 3D movies and animation before anyone else did. Steve was Pixar’s CEO from day one up until the company was acquired by Disney.

I fell in love with Pixar at a young age. Movie after movie, they challenged traditional animation and shaped modern day cinematic story telling. I was taken back by watching how both children and parents genuinely enjoyed their films. Pixar masterfully used animation as a means to tell the stories they believed needed sharing. It wasn’t just about the box office, it wasn’t just about making the next generation of loveable characters that children adore. It was first and foremost about telling great stories. The box office numbers and loyalty from fans came from that dedication. I just needed to work for this company. I did research and found that a graduate from the University of Waterloo (I believe it was Dr. William Reeves) worked at Pixar and played a key role in its technical success. I told my parents I needed to attend UW to have a shot at Pixar. They agreed.

The following 5 years at UW I was blessed with opportunities at Nuance, RIM, and Amazon, I met some of the best friends of my life, and I was introduced to the woman that I soon after married.

If I wasn’t so deeply inspired by the Pixar that Steve helped build, I don’t know if my path would have ever lead to Waterloo and the opportunities and people that surrounded it.

Apple

Something else happened while at UW; I fell in love with Steve’s other company.

I had always known about Apple but I was late to understand how remarkable the company really was. It was only during Steve’s 2005 keynote, where the iPod Nano was introduced, that I realized how special Apple was. At the time, the iPod Mini was Apple’s best selling iPod. Everyone had one. I really wanted one too. Then, in what seemed like a split second, Apple ended it. Steve spoke proudly on stage as he replaced the iPod Mini with the impossibly small iPod Nano. Looking back, it seems like the obvious thing to do but at the time it was very risky. It seems so clear now that casual music listeners want an ultra portable slim MP3 player, but at the time, no other company invested as much R&D in developing such a device. What impressed me more was the decision to end the iPod Mini. Why not release the Nano and have the Mini available at a lower price point? The Mini would have still outsold every other MP3 player in the market while the Nano could have widened Apple’s lead in the market even further. Every other company I knew wouldn’t just end their best selling product. Steve ended the Mini because he stuck to his goal with the iPod : to make the best portable MP3 player possible. The Nano was that for him, the Mini wasn’t. It was as simple as that and I was amazed by his conviction to bet on the Nano.

That moment was the start of my admiration and appreciation for Apple. Many product launches later, there was the iPhone. It blew me away. Then, soon after, the iPad. It changed my perspective on personal computing forever. I’m now dedicated to developing products for these devices.

Steve lead both Pixar and Apple to what they’ve become. These companies have been and will continue to be huge sources of inspiration in my life and I have Steve to thank for shaping them.

Building Products

Aside from the companies that Steve has built, his leadership and ideologies related to product design are things that have changed my perspective on developing products. He wasn’t perfect, nor did he do everything correct, but his beliefs in how products should be ideated is worth admiring.

For me, what illustrates this best is his Q&A session during the 1997 Apple WWDC. This was an uncensored question period that Steve had not prepared for, he gave natural on-the-spot responses. At the time, he had just sold NeXT to Apple. It was before the iPad, before the iPhone, before the MacBook, before the iPod, and even before the iMac. At the time he wasn’t even CEO yet but his interview shows his vision for product design. I’ve cut out the parts that I have stuck with me the most below.

“The Sum Of The Parts”

Steve explains why Apple decided to stop supporting a specific technology. He says that there are products where “the total is less than the sum of the parts” and that Apple needed to focus. This is true for so many products today. Companies add features and increase the power of specs but the total of these features often don’t add up to being a better product.

“I Want To Be Better, I Don’t Care About Being Different”

This at first seems contradictory to Apple’s “Think Different” campaign but if you listen closely, it’s not. Steve says: “I want to be much better, I don’t care about being different. We’ll have to be different in some ways to be much better but (being much better) that’s the prize.” To illustrate what Steve meant, take Apple’s decision to support MP3s on the iPod as an example. Sounds like the obvious choice now, but what was the leading audio player manufacture at the time doing? Sony, maker of the popular Walkman, developed their own propriety audio format and didn’t support MP3s until much later. What Steve says in this clip is that the challenge for a product developer is to figure out which aspects need to be different/innovated and which aspects need to be emulated. It’s about perfecting the wheel, not reinventing it.

“Making Something Wonderful That They And Their Friends Wanted”

This is one of my favourite videos of Steve and I think one of the best things I’ve learned from him.

Do what you love. Do what you believe in. Care deeply about making something wonderful that you yourself would use.

That’s what Steve did and so many others before him who made great products. It’s what I pray I can do too.

I’m pleased to announce a new update for Ottawa Library Find Barcode Scanner for the iPhone.

Version 1.3 includes
- New mobile website of the Ottawa Public Library which shows book location, book description, and much more!
- New Retina graphics
- New back/forward buttons added to sort through search results
- New ‘Mail’ option to send search results via email
- Changed name from “Ottawa LibraryFind” to “Ottawa Library Find Barcode Scanner”

I would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to support for this app and share their appreciation! Your emails go a long way. The library played an important part of childhood and I’m so glad I could do something small to give back to it and others.

Today, we officially launched Keep Up! 2 for the BlackBerry Playbook. To download the app, visit Keep Up! 2 at the BlackBerry App World.

I recently joined szello and was given Keep Up! 2 as my first starter project. I have extensive experience in Flash development and so thought it would be a good project before getting into iOS.

Keep Up! 2 is a worthy update to Keep Up!. We were surprised at how well Keep Up! was received and wanted to deliver a sequel that improved upon it in every aspect. We looked at every detail of the game, from sound, to graphics, to ball size, to even the blending of the grass. When we weren’t happy with the physics engine, we wrote an entirely new one from scratch. Keep Up! 2 is simply the best ball tapping game out there and we’re so excited to share with BlackBerry PlayBook owners.

Today, we officially launched our TEDxCalgary 2011 app for the BlackBerry. To download the app, visit the following address on your BlackBerry device’s browser: http://www.szello.com/tedxcalgaryapp

TEDxCalgary is the official TEDx conference for Calgary, Canada. Guests are invited to push the boundaries at the Glenbow Museum on June 4, 2011, in order to better understand and work with the complex systems that surround us: agriculture and food, education, energy, global conflict, leadership and collaboration, and more. Speakers such as Satya Das, John Reilly, and Alanna Mitchell have visited the frontiers in their fields, bringing back their perspectives on moving forward toward the future.

Many thanks goes out to the entire TEDxCalgary team. It was great working with Jonathan Perkins (@perkinsjonathan) to customize the TEDxCalgary application to fit the conference’s needs.

All the best to TEDxCalgary! Looking forward to hearing how the event goes and how the app’s received.

Today, we officially launched our TEDxAlAin 2011 app for the BlackBerry. To download the app, visit the following address on your BlackBerry device’s browser: http://www.szello.com/tedxalainapp

TEDxAl’Ain is the official TEDx conference for Al’Ain, UAE. A traditional Arabic atmosphere will greet attendees at the gorgeous Al Ain Municipality Theatre on May 7, 2011, where they will enjoin in discussion on Al Ain’s rich cultural heritage, as well as the recent changes and developments taking place in the city. Notable speakers include H.E. Mohammed Abdul Jalil Al Fahim, former CEO and honorary chairman of the Al Fahim Group, Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis, professor at the UAE University, and Iman Ben Chaibah, founder of Sail eMagazine.

It was a pleasure working closely with the event’s Chair, Sajjad Kamal (@s3kamal), to make this app feel personal and customized for attendees. We’re looking forward to hearing feedback and we wish Sajjad and his team all of the best!

For more information on the event, visit their website: http://www.tedxalain.com/ or facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/tedxalain

Today, we officially launched Keep Up! for the BlackBerry PlayBook. To download the app, visit Keep Up! at the BlackBerry App World.

Technically, the app was released along with the PlayBook on its official April 19th US/Canada launch. However, we didn’t get to test our app until today when our *free* BlackBerry PlayBook came in! We participated in RIM’s free BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet offer that awarded a developer who submitted a PlayBook application to the BlackBerry App World before March 31st, 2011.

Keep Up! was a fun, experimental, hobby project for our team. Our commitment remains to the iPad and although we didn’t want to dilute our focus, developing Keep Up! made sense for the following three reasons:

(1) The PlayBook runs Flash. Although I’m not yet a strong believer in Flash as a mobile software platform, especially for touch screens, I was excited to port my past Flash games to the device. I had written a Keep Up game for Macromedia Flash 4 (yes, I’m that old) almost 10 years ago and thought it would be fun to bring back some memories.

(2) We predicted there wouldn’t be many apps for the PlayBook at launch. We were right as recent reports say there are only 1,700 apps so far. It’s easy to be discovered on an App Store with so few apps and so if adoption of the PlayBook is high then being discovered early on will help future sales. We wanted to test the waters with this app and ride any waves that the PlayBook experiences.

(3) C’mon, a free BlackBerry PlayBook! Who doesn’t like shiey new toys?

Overall, the app was fun to build. It was fairly simple and using Flash to build it was surprisingly enjoyable. The PlayBook’s development tools weren’t great but I’m hoping they’ll improve within the next few months. I haven’t yet spent much time with the PlayBook itself but I already feel it’s quite different in use (both software and hardware wise) than the iPad.

I’m hopeful for the PlayBook and for Keep Up!. RIM has made a fairly good start but needs to continue to push (seriously, no native email?). Should be interesting to see how well the device is adopted in the coming months.

Why reinvent the wheel when you can perfect it instead?

Today the iPad 2 was announced. The device looks absolutely incredible.

Most people will comment on its new front and back cameras as a major feature but that’s not where I feel the product succeeds. The iPad 2 is at the heart of what Apple does so well to stay ahead of competition; it is an improvement in aspects of the product that people value most.

With the iPad 1, Apple nailed a new form of tablet computing. With the iPad 2, Apple has nailed how to better that experience. They first invented the ‘what’, now they’re improving the ‘how.’

The iPad 2 has a faster processor, new graphics capabilities, double the RAM, new screen technology, 10hr battery life, and is both thinner and lighter – all at the same price.

We can list and compare specs but the brilliance of the iPad 2 comes down to how ‘good’ the device feels, which, in the end, is all the customer truly cares about. I truly feel that the faster processor, new graphics capabilities, and RAM increase will make the already snappy device seem flawless. I think its new light and thin form factor will make it more comfortable and natural to use. These changes are easy to list and sound fairly straight forward, but they will have profound effects when one uses the device. The skeptics will still complain about the lack of Flash, still object to no built-in USB ports, and will still criticize the so-called ‘closed’ app store, but I truly believe that once someone picks up an iPad 2, just like so many did with the iPad 1, they’ll only then understand its value and its potential.

The iPad 2 seems to be better in all the ways that matter and I think it’s going to do phenomenally well. I can’t wait to get my hands on one and I look forward to seeing how well it’s adopted.

My prediction: it’ll sell 40 million units in the first year.

Today, we officially launched our TEDxWaterloo 2011 app for the BlackBerry. To download the app, visit the following address on your BlackBerry device’s browser: http://www.szello.com/tedxwaterlooapp

TEDxWaterloo is the official TEDx conference for Waterloo, Canada. The conference takes place on March 3, 2011 in Kitchener at Centre In The Square. It will bring together many leaders and thought provoking speakers from the community to speak on their passions and ideas. The event will be streamed live, for more information, visit the Official TEDxWaterloo website.

We’re absolutely thrilled to have had the opportunity to collaborate with such an amazing event. It was a pleasure working with the entire TEDxWaterloo team, including Ramy Nassar (@ramynassar), Alain Gaudrault (@Gaudrault), ChristineHamon (@ChristineHamon), and Joanna Woo (@joannawoo).

There is already a lot of positive buzz on twitter, but we can’t wait to hear more feedback. For more information, visit our TEDxWaterloo 2011 app for the BlackBerry page.

We would also like to make a shout out to our friends at EndLoop, who made the TEDxWaterloo app for iPhone. They did an amazing job and it was great working with them, download their app at http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/tedxwaterloo/id419132806?mt=8

Apps4Ottawa, an open data contest designed to foster innovation in the city, was a great idea to motivate Ottawa’s most creative developers to build city-based apps. We were proud to be there with our app, Ottawa LibraryFind, and got the opportunity to meet a lot of cool people.

One of those cool people were Chris Wise, the creator of GoLocavore. Currently being used in Ottawa, GoLocavore, is a website to find locally grown goods from vendors in ones city including markets, farms and roadside stalls.

Besides the the Apps4Ottawa Award show being a great way to meet other developers in the city, the highlight of the night was how it showcased the potential of app developers in Ottawa and the willingness of the city of Ottawa to support those developers. Think of it this way – it’s like food. You need great ingredients and great cooks to make an amazing meal. The city of Ottawa provided all the great ingredients by being willing to open up its local data, the developers were the great cooks who were able to be incredibly creative with ways to make that data useful for local citizens. You can’t have one with out the other.

I applaud both groups and I can’t wait to see more exciting things come from the city of Ottawa and its geeks. Thanks again Apps4Ottawa!

We’re now incorporated thanks to the wonderful people at FMC Law, our website is up in all its glory, and we’ve released our first ever app for the iPhone: Ottawa LibraryFind.

Ottawa LibraryFind

Ottawa LibraryFind was a brainchild that took place after we heard about Apps4Ottawa, an open data contest designed to foster innovation in the city. A great idea to motivate Ottawa’s most creative developers to build city-based apps.

We developed Ottawa LibraryFind to do one thing exceptionally well – allow users to find if a book, DVD, or game is available in the Ottawa Public Library. Our developers had a lot of fun working on it and we’re hoping Ottawans really find value in it. Download it FREE for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3gs here.

If you love using the app as much as we loved making it, please support szello by voting for us at the Apps4Ottawa contest! We can’t wait to hear your feedback!

Our Thanks

It’s been quite the past few months! We wanted to extend our sincere thanks to all our close family and friends who have worked tirelessly to support us. Your love and assistance has meant the world to us and we cannot wait to share our new projects with you.

Also, a big thank you to Nawshaba Zaman and NZPhotography.ca for an amazing executive profile photoshoot. Thanks also to daryl_mitchell, groovenite, and jorgeg82 for their photos too.

More to Come!

We’re just getting started and are so excited to share some of the cool apps we’ve been working so hard on! Go go gadget szello!