Steve Jobs R.I.P.

Today I took delivery of an iPad 2 wifi, courtesy of the AFR Smart Investor SMILES survey. Today also happened to be the last day the founder of Apple Inc was of this earth.

Typically, using Apple devices gives me a little taste of what it's like for my parents when they use Facebook, but the iPad is proving to be very intuitive.

I've been a big fan of desktops but the iPad is definitely changing the way we connect on the go. It's little wonder that now more Australians use mobile connections than DSL with such lightweight devices.

The popularity of iPads and iPhones is such that the next iteration of my e-textbook will be in VitalSource as the company's iApp is proving very popular with my students. So popular, in fact, that the success of the earlier version was limited by its accessibility via an iApp.

Jobs' enthusiasm for an interconnected world will be sorely missed, as will his presence in an industry that has been dominated by only two uber-geeks for most of my lifetime. But as Henry Ford was the mass producer who set the tone of the 20th century, Jobs and Gates have certainly set the scene for the information revolution that still, after all these years, seems just that little bit around the corner.

For Jobs, not being here to witness the fruits of his foresight in its full glory is one of the all-too-common tragic consequences for many of history's great visionaries.