This week claims a weird set of anniversaries. The Mac Observer reminds us that Thursday 4 October marked the seventh anniversary of Siri joining iOS. Some say it was Siri’s birthday (even Siri does, it turns out), though Siri was actually an app that worked great on iPhone 4 until Apple bought it and eventually turned it off for anything before an iPhone 4s.
The introduction of iPhone 4s and Siri was a weird for a few reasons. First, it was the first iPhone in a while that hadn’t been introduced at WWDC. Of course, the first one wasn’t. That was introduced in January 2007 at Macworld. But that first one was re-introduced in the summer of 2007, then every new iPhone until iPhone 4s was introduced and launched in the summer. The shift to the fall was one reason that that iPhone presentation was weird. The other reason was the guy presenting it. Apple’s then new CEO, Tim Cook, was the first to show off iPhone 4s. That had always been the duty of Steve Jobs, though he’d stepped down as the company’s CEO less than two months before.
And the next day - he’d be gone. The other anniversary is today’s. It was 5 October 2011 that Steve Jobs died, after a seven year fight with pancreatic cancer. Of course, we all saw it coming… but we didn’t see it coming.
iPhone 4s was introduced on a Tuesday. Steve Jobs died on a Wednesday. I used to do a show on Wednesday night called Mac OS Ken: Live… and we did one that night, which is still available. I don’t think I’ve ever gone back and listened to it, but it’s still there if you want to. I remember being glad that we were all planning to get together that night anyway. The news was shocking. It was good to be with friends, even if I didn’t know a lot of them.
Of course, there was still a Mac OS Ken to do. The next day was kind words and remembrances from people who’d known, worked with, worked against, or simply been influenced by Jobs. That Mac OS Ken is still available as well.
Above is the Mac OS Ken: Live from the night Steve Jobs died. Below is the Mac OS Ken from teh following day.