A couple of friendly publications have asked me to write about the very recent passing of Apple’s former CEO, Steve Jobs. I refused. While some of the stories published in the past 24 hours are moving, interesting, informative and even funny, some are also inappropriate, self-serving, offensive, vapid, or overly sentimental. (And few people agree as to which are which!)

I also have, in the past, refrained from writing about personal stuff here. There are people (both living and deceased) who I admire for certain personal qualities, but it would be unseemly for me to publish a “fanboi” list of these people, much less directly address the departed ones or their families. What I can mention about Steve Jobs is:

• I’ve been a few feet away from him twice at trade shows, but that’s it. No conversations.
• I’ve been an Apple customer, almost exclusively, since 1977, a Mac developer since 1984, and a (very modest!) Apple stockholder since the beginning of the millennium.

As often happens with such public figures, a good part of the public’s perception is shaped through anecdotes and legends which may not closely correspond to what really happened. While I’m as happy to repeat such tidbits in personal conversation as anybody else, there’s only one that I feel completely comfortable to express here: all agree that Steve Jobs really cared about building better things – hardware, software, but mostly better systems.

Which happens to agree with my personal philosophy here – if you’ve looked at my products page, the header says “finely crafted software for the Macintosh”. So, the best way to do something that Steve Jobs would agree with is to go on building better stuff.

I have been remiss in mentioning my current work here, and I decided it’s time to give at least a hint. So, here are the icons for four forthcoming Mac utilities:

The top two should come out first. They’ll all be on the Mac App Store, if all goes well. Details, prices and so forth are still in flux but should be available soon. Some of their functions are intended to replace parts of my defunct XRay application, but Quay will also be updated afterwards to work in concert with the new apps. Current customers of both applications will get free updates within the (unfortunately) narrow conditions imposed by the Mac App Store.

More details will be published as things develop (hehe). Stay tuned. I’m working hard on better stuff.

By the way, the icons are by Sergio Bergocce.