Tonight, I used the Yelp app running on my iPhone to find a Malaysian restaurant near my hotel.  I used my iPhone to call and order a take-out dinner.  I used the iPhone Map app guide me from my hotel to the restaurant.  As I walked to pick up dinner, a news app on my iPhone sent me breaking news: Steve Jobs has died. 

It’s surely a sad day for his family–as it would be for any family–when a relatively young man with a wife and children dies.  It’s our collective loss that Jobs won’t have another 20 or 30 years to come up with more innovations that transform the way that consumers use technology.  However, in the short life he had, Jobs managed to accomplish a lot.  As person who grew a small business into a thriving international engine of innovation, Jobs was in so many ways a man that all software entrepreneurs–including myself–could admire–and aspire to be: a man who made a difference and created a successful business in so doing.

Tomorrow, I’ll walk down the street to spend the day with my client.  As I do every day, I’ll listen to the news on my iPhone iPod app.  Since I’m travelling on Friday, I might check into my flight on my iPhone using the Safari browser.  I’ll probably use my iPhone to inform and entertain me in other ways as I enjoy a beautiful, crisp, New England fall morning.  I’ll be surrounded by other people doing the same, many of them using their smartphones as well.  I’ll be reminded, as I am tonight, of the epitaph on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of Saint Paul’s Cathedral and of so much of classical London: “If you seek his memorial, look around you.”