The biography of Steve Jobs is popular, even in Hong Kong.

I wonder how you translate, “Boom!”

Yes, I really did meet Steve Jobs in real life. Really. It was completely unexpected, but boom, there he was. Sadly, time has dulled the memory, but on Steve Jobs Day, here’s my story of when I met Steve Jobs.

It must have been 2002 during a visit to see Kim and Stewart in San Francisco. It was my first visit to the Apple Company Store on the Cupertino campus. This was the time before iPhones and Google Maps, and I think printed MapQuest directions brought my wife and me to 1 Infinite Loop. But, we got there too early, maybe around 8am. I think the store opened at 10am, maybe 9am.

We drove down the street, ate breakfast, and headed back. We were still early and waited outside the store’s glass doors. With a clear view of the outside parking lot, I noticed a car pull into one of the few empty stalls. I think it was a BMW. As the driver walked across the way, it looked like Apple’s iCEO himself.

This is what I was thinking – it’s odd that THE boss would park in an outdoor lot, not in the underground parking fronting the main building. So I had my doubts it was Mr. Jobs, and I don’t think he was wearing his signature black turtle neck and jeans. But as he approached, I recognized the Apple founder.

I told my wife that that was Steve Jobs, but she was unconvinced. We walked closer to get a better look, and I started to power up my newly bought Canon PowerShot S30 digital camera. Then I had second thoughts about snapping a picture remembering horror stories of Steve’s tirades. I didn’t want to get yelled at or booted off the campus on our first visit.

Instead, my wife calmly approaches Mr. Jobs and simply asks, “Are you Steve Jobs?”

“Yes,” he says.

In disbelief, we ask if he’d mind taking a picture with us.

“Sorry, I’m late for a meeting” was his cordial reply as he hurried off into the main building. And that was it, our short moment meeting Steve Jobs. Sure, at the time, I was disappointed not getting a picture, but now I know Steve had industries to revolutionize and insanely great products to create.

While I don’t have any pictures to show for this personal encounter, all I can offer is this blurry picture of me at 1 Infinite Loop with the EXIF timestamp of July 1, 2002.

In this digital age of the iPhone, iPad, iBooks, and even the Kindle, owning a printed copy of the authorized Steve Jobs autobiography seems like the best way of holding on to this icon.

Even at 656 pages, it’s all about Steve. Read the description:

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Appleâ€s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Pre-order your copy of the autobiography of Steve Jobs.

• Cheetah (Cheetara)
• Puma
• Jaguar (Jaga)
• Panther (Panthro)
• Tiger (Tygra)
• Leopard (WillyKit, creatively speaking)
• Snow Leopard (WillyKat, creatively speaking)

And announced today is Mac OS X “Lion” aka Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats.

Props to @valdezign for the Mac OS X Lion-O design.

I can see Steveo doing this and explaining to the guards that it wouldn’t make sense to hijack his own plane (using the shuriken). Steve is a ninja!

And add to your vocabulary the word “Balkanize:”

to break up (as a region or group) into smaller and often hostile units

That multitasking globe is a hoot!

Complete album purchases still cost the same but will be of the DRM-free and higher audio quality variety. Users will be able to “upgrade” previous EMI song purchases to the DRM-free versions by paying $0.30 per song.

This is the type of game changing activity that revolutionizes everything. Other music companies are sure to follow in the near future to stay competitive. I’m not sure how much direct influence Steve Jobs had in this DRM-free proceedings, but I think EMI struck a good balance typified in Apple’s moves in the music and movie distribution channels. The desires of the users are taken into consideration and implemented to the greatest extent possible without sacrificing the solvency of the company. What you get is a win-win situation where both users and service providers (the music companies in this case) both prosper.

Technorati Tags: Apple, music

What we have are people in power who have no muse and wouldn’t recognize one if they could even hear her. Steve Jobs knows his muse.

Against a century-old tradition of corporate bloat, Jobs successfully preaches (and proves) that smaller is really better. How else can Apple compete with Microsoft AND Dell and HP, and still have $8 billion in the bank? Because smaller is better and cheaper, too, when it comes to creative development.

I still don’t like Steve Jobs. I’ve known too many people he has hurt. But this is clearly his time, maybe even his century. And what of Bill Gates? Bill Gates is a very successful philanthropist, but he’s no Steve Jobs.