By: Brooks Clark Editor-in-Chief

I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but in case you haven’t, Apple’s C.E.O. Steve Jobs died on Wednesday, October 5. Nobody really expected him to live long after stepping down as head of the company he built, was fired from and then built again, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted that he would go so soon.

Seeing the disparity between a healthy Jobs in 2005, and how frail he looked at this year’s W.W.D.C. always triggers some innate fear. Like, no one should fall that far in such a short amount of time.

He may not have created a cure for AIDS or solved world hunger, but, like him or not, Jobs was a modern day Renaissance man. He saw the future before anyone else, and made us genuinely believe in his vision of it.

Now, I don’t claim to know the man. On the contrary, up until a few years ago, I really had no idea who any of the big computer executive were, with the exception of Bill Gates. When I did hear about Jobs, it was always talk about what a taskmaster he was, and how Apple was this evil empire of greed.

It is true, Apple charges a pretty steep premium for their products. But think about how often you complain about things being made of cheap plastic in China. In my view, Apple products are solidly built, functional pieces of art.

As for Jobs being a jerk; he probably was. But he wasn’t mean because he hated the world, or was anti-social. He demanded as much out of his employees as he did himself.

There have been stories of his ridiculous attention to detail, and desire to see projects completed expeditiously.

How would this newspaper get put together if I waited until the last second , or accepted lackadaisical stories for you to read? That’s not good enough, and to accept anything less than A+ work is to do a disservice to you all.

Point is, there’s a reason Apple is in a position to be hated by everyone in the first place.