( CNN ) -- Just imagine , for a moment , a world in which Steve Jobs had never lived . How might daily life be different ? Computers are still around , but not as you know them . They 're complex , hateful things , mostly used in the office for spreadsheets and other business applications . Nobody bothered to sell a good-looking user interface with a desktop and mouse , because nobody could be sure there was a mass market for it . Thousands of people use PCs at home , but they 're mostly hobbyists and amateur programmers . If you want to have fun with electronics , you hook up a videogame console to your TV . The Internet still exists , but it never really had as much of a platform to take root on . There 's a thriving market in trading MP3s online , but all of it is illegal . The record labels never got their act together on selling digital copies of songs . MP3 players are large , clunky things with too many buttons . No movie studio makes really good computer-animated films . Smartphones are bulky bricks with thick keyboards . Touchscreen tablets exist -- as prototypes in a few computer labs . Okay , so maybe things would n't have been quite that bad without Jobs . Perhaps Xerox PARC 's management would have figured out it was sitting on a goldmine in its Graphical User Interface and early-model mouse . Microsoft might have come up with Windows without the example of the Macintosh . Maybe Steve Wozniak would have found another compadre to help him design , sell and market the Apple II , the PC that started it all . But none of that seems very likely . Many words have been written attempting to distill the magic of Steve Jobs . To my mind , it boils down to this : He saved technology from itself . He stopped it from being scary to a mass audience . He took the excitement and optimism that Silicon Valley already felt about computing , and never ceased to find new ways to communicate that to the world . For all of his celebration of crazy revolutionaries who liked to `` think different , '' Jobs was a champion of the mainstream . His business idols , he liked to say , were the Beatles . That was n't just because the way their four personalities balanced each other was a good model for management . It was also because what they made was accessible -- and enjoyed by everyone on the planet . I 've written about my experiences interviewing Jobs for Time magazine here , but the first time I ever spoke to him was a prime example of his mainstream approach . This was shortly after his return to Apple , in an interview for a now-defunct supplement called Time Digital . After a handful questions , Jobs suddenly lost his temper . `` I know hundreds of people who read Time Magazine , '' he fumed . `` I do n't know anyone who reads Time Digital . '' With that , the interview was over . Thankfully , we had dozens of pleasant encounters after that . But I would always understand that he knew exactly who he was talking to , and that he was always laser-focused on reaching as wide a readership as he could . He gave great quotes -- quotes that did n't talk down to the reader , but rather let them peek behind the scenes at Apple . `` The dirty little secret of the iTunes store is that there 's no way to make money , '' he told me when it launched on the PC . `` We do it because we 're selling iPods . '' iPods , iPhones , iPads -- Jobs had his product road map worked out way in advance , and it was all about getting supremely easy-to-use products into the hands of as many users as possible . Compromised , committee-designed devices , such as the ho-hum Motorola Rockr iTunes phone , only served as examples of what Apple should n't make . So what now ? Is there another visionary in the world with that kind of drive , ambition , focus and zeal ? Plenty of pundits have said we 'll never see the likes of Jobs again -- but I hope they 're wrong , and I think Jobs would hope that too . Because who wants to see a world without the mid-21st century equivalent of the Macintosh , or the iPod , or Pixar ? If someone does pick up that baton and champion mainstream-friendly , fear-free technology , think where we 'll go next . Just imagine . © 2011 MASHABLE.com . All rights reserved .
Apple genius always kept users in mind . I think the reason why people are so upset is because they feel like their privacy has been violated. Jobs always knew exactly whom he was addressing .