I didn't like you, Steve Jobs.

2009 Sketch of Steve Jobs

We've had our issues since you put an end to Power Computing. You stomped out third-party hardware and kept your margins high. It worked out great for you, less so for me.

I've still used your company's products for almost 25 years. I hate closed systems, engineered obsolescence, and tight message control. But here I am, generating this post using a damn iMac.

Years of using your rivals' wares in the workplace never broke me of the Apple habit at home. Whenever the time came to make my personal computing choice, I always rationalized my way back to you.

The things you did right (innovation, beauty, and sometimes usability) made me resent the things you did poorly even more. I suspected that no misfire was accidental.

I always pictured you barefoot in Palo Alto, walking through your orchard, plotting and plotting and plotting it all out. How many hours past warranty expiration gives you plausible deniability for that fading, irreplaceable battery?

One day about four years ago crapple was born in response to twenty years of wanting more from you. A simple slogan defacing a single t-shirt. It was to be my response to you, but you didn't last long enough in this world for me to take you on.

I may fight you in your repose, because in the Kenobi cliché, you've only become stronger in death. Respect.

I'm a little lost without you, hated friend. And I suffer with the site of your wasted body, imagining the end, and reliving the memory of a loved one taken by the same misery.

Here I am alone at the beginning of your end. What NeXT?