Apple - Steve Jobs

Youth

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. His unwed biological parents, Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, put him up for adoption. Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a lower-middle-class couple, who moved to the suburban city of Mountain View a couple of years later.

Paul Jobs and his son

The Santa Clara county, south of the Bay Area, became known as Silicon Valley in the early 1950s after the sprouting of a myriad of semi-conductor companies. As a result, young Steve Jobs grew up in a neighborhood of engineers working on electronics and other gizmos in their garages on weekends. This shaped his interest in the field as he grew up. At age 13, he met one the most important persons in his life: 18-year-old Stephen Wozniak, an electronics wiz kid, and, like Steve, an incorrigible prankster.
Five years later, when Steve Jobs reached college age, he told his parents he wanted to enroll in Reed College — an expensive liberal arts college up in Oregon. Even though the tuition fees were astronomical for the poor couple, they had promised their son's biological parents he would get a college education, so they relented. Steve spent only one semester at Reed, then dropped out, as he was more interested in eastern philosophy, fruitarian diets, and LSD than in the classes he took. He moved to a hippie commune in Oregon where his main activity was cultivating apples.
A few months later, Steve returned to California to look for a job. He was hired at the young video game maker Atari, and used his wages to make a trip to India with one of his college friends, in order to 'seek enlightenment'. He came back a little disillusioned and started to take interest in his friend Woz's new activities.

Apple's origins

The Jobses garage

Woz, whose interest in electronics had grown stronger, was regularly attending meetings of a group of early computer hobbyists called the Homebrew Computer Club. They were the real pioneers of personal computing, a collection of radio jammers, computer professionals and enlightened amateurs who gathered to show off their latest prowess in building their own personal computer or writing software. The club started to gain popularity after the Altair 8800 personal computer kit came out in 1975.
The knowledge that Woz gathered at the Homebrew meetings, as well as his exceptional talent, allowed him to build his own computer board — simply because he wanted a personal computer for himself. Steve Jobs took interest, and he quickly understood that his friend's brilliant invention could be sold to software hobbyists, who wanted to write software without the hassle of assembling a computer kit. Jobs convinced Wozniak to start a company for that purpose: Apple Computer was born on April 1, 1976.
The following months were spent assembling boards of Apple I computers in the Jobses' garage, and selling them to independent computer dealers in the area. However, Wozniak had started work on a much better computer, the Apple II — an expandable, much more powerful system that supported color graphics. Jobs and Wozniak knew deep down it could be hugely successful, and therefore Jobs started to seek venture capital. He eventually convinced former Intel executive turned business angel Mike Markkula to invest $250,000 in Apple, in January 1977. Markkula was a big believer in the personal computing revolution, and he said to the young founders that, thanks to the Apple II, their company could be one of the Fortune 500 in less than two years.

Apple II Forever

Although Markkula was a bit too optimistic about Apple's growth rate, he was right that the company quickly became an American success story. Because of its beautiful package, ease of use, and nifty features, the Apple II crushed most of its competition and its sales made the Apple founders millionaires. The biggest surge in sales came after the introduction of VisiCalc, the first commercially successful spreadsheet program: hundreds of thousands of Americans, whether they be accountants, small business owners, or just obsessed with money, bought Apple IIs to make calculations at home.
In the wake of Apple's success, its investors decided it was time to go public. The IPO took place in December 1980, only four years after the company was started. Steve Jobs's net worth increased to over $200 million, at age 25.
Apple's success attracted the attention of the computer giant IBM, which until then was still only selling mainframe computers to large companies. A crash project was started and in August 1981, the IBM PC entered the personal computer market. It was the biggest threat yet to Apple, whose reputation was being put into question after the flop of the Apple III in 1980. Most hopes rested on a business computer project, called the Lisa.

Lisa & Xerox PARC

Steve Jobs was a big believer in the Lisa computer initially. It was he who came up with the name. Indeed, in 1978, his ex-girlfriend from high school Chrisann Brennan gave birth to a little girl, who she named Lisa. Steve denied paternity, although it was ovious to everyone who knew him that he was the father, given the on-and-off relationship he still had with Chrisann at the time. Jobs refused to give any money to Chrisann, despite the millions he had accumulated at Apple. While in denial, he came up with the name Lisa for the new computer Apple was building…
The following year, a tour of the computer research lab Xerox PARC made a huge impression on him. The scientists who worked there had invented a number of breakthrough technologies that would mark the industry for the coming decades, including the graphical user interface (GUI) and the mouse, Ethernet, laser printing and object oriented programming. Jobs became obsessed with the GUI which was a lot easier to use than the command-line interfaces of the day, which required any PC user to learn a computer language. He insisted the Lisa had a GUI and a mouse, too.

Macintosh

However, because of his hot temper and his relative inexperience in technology or management, Steve Jobs was thrown out of the Lisa project. He felt absolutely crushed by this decision. As a revenge, he took over a small project called Macintosh, a personal computer that was supposed to be a cheap appliance, 'as easy to use as a toaster'. In 1981, Steve Jobs became head of the Macintosh project, and decided to make it a smaller and cheaper version of the Lisa, complete with a GUI of folders, icons and drop-down menus, and a mouse.

Photo by Norman Seef

The three years it took to develop Macintosh were some of the most productive and intense for Steve Jobs. He formed a small group of dedicated, young, brilliant engineers who stood fully behind his vision of a computer 'for the rest of us'. They saw themselves as 'pirates' against the rest of Apple, 'the Navy'. The team antagonized both the Apple II group and the Lisa group, because the Mac was competitive of both. Yet in 1983, after it became clear the Lisa was turning into another major flop for Apple, all of the company's hope started to rest on the Macintosh. Steve was supported in his mission by John Sculley, Apple's new CEO whom he hired in 1983 to help him run the company and groom him into a future chief executive.

Leaving Apple

On January 24 1984, after Apple had run a very memorable TV commercial for the SuperBowl ('1984'), Steve Jobs introduced Macintosh at the company's annual shareholders meeting. The product was launched in great fanfare and for the first few months, it was very successful.

Jobs and Sculley, 1984

However, by early 1985, sales were plummeting, but Steve Jobs refused to acknowledge it and continued to behave as if he had saved Apple. This created a lot of tension within the company, especially between Steve and the CEO, John Sculley, who used to be very close but now stopped talking to one another.
In May 1985, Steve Jobs started trying to convince some directors and top executives at Apple that Sculley should go. Instead, many of them talked to Sculley, who took the matter to the board of directors. The board sided with Sculley and a few days later, announced a reorganization of the company where Steve Jobs had no operational duties whatsoever — he was only to remain chairman of the board.
Steve was aghast: Apple was his life, and he was effectively kicked out of it. After four months spent traveling and trying out new ideas, he came back in September with a plan: he would start a new computer company aimed at higher education, with a small group of other ex-Apple employees. When Apple learned of the plan, they declared they would sue him as he was taking valuable information about the company to compete with it. As a result, Steve Jobs resigned in September 1985, and sold all but one of his Apple shares, in disgust. He went ahead with his plan anyway, and incorporated NeXT. Apple dropped its lawsuit a few months later.

The NeXT years

Steve aimed at the highest possible standards for his new NeXT machine: he wanted the best hardware, built in the world's most automated factory, and running the most advanced software possible. He decided that the computer's operating system, NeXTSTEP, would be based on UNIX, the most robust system in the world , used by the military and universities— but that it would also be as easy to use as a Macintosh,with its own GUI. NeXTSTEP would allow for object oriented programming, another breakthrough from Xerox PARC, that made writing software much faster and more reliably. These ambitious plans put off the release date of the computer — called the NeXT Cube — to October 1988.

Jobs unveils the NeXT Cube, 12 October 1988

When it came out, the NeXT Cube was indeed a great machine. But it didn't sell — it was late, and way too overpriced: universities has asked for a $3,000 computer, and Steve Jobs had built a $10,000 workstation. After two years of very low sales, NeXT launched the cheaper NeXT Station, and expanded its target to businesses, in addition to higher ed. It didn't work: the number of NeXT computers sold each month remained in the hundreds. The company was bleeding money and all its co-founders left one after the other, as well as its most prominent investor, Texan billionaire Ross Perot. By 1993, NeXT had to give up its entire hardware business to become a niche software company. Steve Jobs had failed, and he was devastated. He started focusing less on work, and more on his wife Laurene (who he married in 1991) and his newborn son, Reed.

Pixar

To understand how Steve Jobs got out of his nadir, let's go back eight years earlier, in late 1985. At the time, George Lucas, who was in the middle of an expensive divorce, was selling the computer graphics division of his Lucasfilm empire. Steve Jobs had millions in the bank, after having sold all his Apple stock, and was interested. In early 1986, he bought the small group of computer scientists, and incorporated it as Pixar. The founders of Pixar, Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, had gotten together in the late 1970s with a common vision of making films using computer animation only. But they also knew no computer was powerful enough at the time, and they would have to hold out for a couple decades before their dream could materialize.

Tin Toy

For the first five years of Pixar, Steve Jobs set a goal for the company to sell high-end computer graphics workstations for institutions, such as hospitals or even the army. The animations group led by John Lasseter was very small at the time, and only survived because it provided good publicity for the power of the Pixar rendering software. Steve Jobs understood this when the studio won an Academy Award for its short movie 'Tin Toy' in 1989. However, just like NeXT's, sales of Pixar hardware were microscopic, and the company went software-only in 1990.
Pixar then became a software company, developing the RenderMan 3D rendering software. Its animation business was kept alive because it was the only one that brought some cash in, with various 3D TV commercials for consumer brands. However a decisive contract changed everything: in 1991, Disney signed with Pixar for making a full-feature computer-animated movie. The script had to be fully approved by both parties, and the very hands-on head of Disney animation Jeffrey Katzenberg halted the production several times out of creative disagreements with John Lasseter and his team. But in 1995, the movie was finally starting to take form, and Steve Jobs became increasingly enthused by it.

Steve as Woodie

Although he had used his personal money to fund Pixar for nine years, Jobs had never been implicated that much in the company, which was always more of a 'hobby' to him compared to NeXT. But by 1995, NeXT had more or less tanked, whereas Pixar was obviously going to benefit widely from the Disney marketing machine and make a hit with Toy Story. Steve understood this new momentum full well: he planned to take Pixar public the week following the release of the movie, in November 1995. He was right, and Toy Story's box-office success was only surpassed by the Pixar stock's success on Wall Street. Steve Jobs, who owned 80% of the company, saw his net worth rise to over $1.5 billion — five times the money he had ever made at Apple in the 1980s!

Back to Apple

Business wasn't all sunshine and roses at Apple. In the decade following Steve's departure, the computer maker had milked all the cash it could from the Macintosh and its successors, surfing on the wave of the desktop publishing revolution that the Mac and the laser printer had made possible. But in 1995, after Microsoft had released Windows 95, which was a pale but working copy of the Mac OS, sales of Macintosh computers started plummeting.
A new CEO, Gil Amelio, arrived in early 1996 to save the company. He cut costs, got rid of a third of the workforce, and decided that instead of writing a new, modern operating system from scratch to compete with Window, it was better for Apple to acquire one. Eventually, Amelio chose to buy NeXTSTEP, NeXT's operating system — and Steve Jobs convinced him to buy the whole company, for a whopping $400 million. The deal was made in December 1996: Steve Jobs was back at the company he founded.

Steve Jobs and Gil Amelio, December 1996

The Amelio-Jobs cooperation didn't last long, though: Apple lost $700 million in the first quarter of 1997, and the board decided to get rid of its CEO. Jobs effectively organized a board coup with the complicity of his billionaire friend Larry Ellison, and after a tenure that lasted exactly 500 days, Amelio was gone. In August 1997, Jobs took the stage at Macworld Boston to explain his plan for Apple: he had gotten rid of the old board of directors, and made a deal with Microsoft to settle patent disputes and invest $150 million in the struggling Silicon Valley icon. One month later, on September 16, 1997, Jobs accepted to become Apple's interim CEO.

For the loser now will be later to win

The few months after Steve Jobs came back at Apple were among the hardest-working in his life. He later told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he was so exhausted, he couldn't speak when he came home at night (remember he was also running a thriving Pixar simultaneously). He reviewed every team at Apple and asked them to justify why they were important to the future of the company. If they couldn't, their product would get canceled, and there was a high probability they'd have to leave, too. Jobs also brought with him his executive team from NeXT, and installed them in key positions.

iMac introduction, May 1998

Critics started to believe in Steve Jobs's ability to run Apple when he unveiled his first great product, the iMac. Introduced in May 1998, it was Apple's first truly innovative product since the original Macintosh of 1984. Its translucent design blew away the whole PC industry, which had failed to produce anything but black or beige boxes for over a decade. Moreover, it was a hot seller, and played a key role in bringing back tons of developers to the Mac platform. Design innovations continued throughout 1998 and 1999 with the colored iMacs and the iBook, Apple's consumer notebook. After three years in charge, Steve Jobs had brought Apple back to its status of cool tech icon.

At Macworld in January 2000, Steve Jobs made two significant announcements: first, he demoed Aqua, the graphics-intensive user interface that Apple would use in its next-generation operating system derived from NeXTSTEP, Mac OS X. Second, he announced he had accepted the Apple board's offer, and became the company's CEO, dropping the 'interim' from his title. It was not an obvious choice because he remained CEO of Pixar, too. Mac OS X had not shipped yet, though, and would take another year to ship.
The simple fact that such a massive OS transition happened is a technical feat in itself. The Mac OS X team worked very hard and released six major version of the system every year or so, between 2001 and 2007, each time with more stability, rapidity, and features. Although Steve Jobs buried Mac OS 9 on stage in 2002, most observers acknowledge that the transition from the old Mac OS to OS X was really finished only in 2005, with the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The continuous improvement of Mac OS X and the powerful core technologies and development tools it provided proved key in the Digital Hub strategy that Steve Jobs described in January 2001.

The Digital Hub strategy

Once Apple had been resurrected by the iMac, Steve Jobs started focusing on ways to make the company's shrinking marketshare (around 5% of PCs) grow. He decided to use Apple's unique knowledge of making both the hardware and the software to do just that: not only would Macs be very powerful and attractive machines, but they would also run software that no Windows PCs could. His first move was to bet on what he called 'desktop video', the ability to shoot and edit personal movies on your Mac. He was convinced that desktop video would be as big a deal as desktop publishing had been in the 1980s, and in 1999, he introduced the iMac DV and a digital movie editing software, iMovie, to pioneer that concept.
The iMac DV was a hit, but desktop video failed to catch on as Jobs had hoped. After a much introspection, in 2000, the Apple executive team came up with a new paradigm for the Mac that would set the company's destinies for the coming decade. They took the idea of desktop video and decided to expand it to the other consumer digital devices that were rapidly becoming mainstream at the time. Apple would write software for the Mac to edit and store all the new digital content that consumers created — and these apps would be so powerful, delightful and easy to use, that they would entice PC users to switch to the Mac. The Digital Hub strategy was born. Steve Jobs explained it to the Apple community at Macworld in January 2001, the same day he unveiled the 2nd and 3rd of the iApps: iDVD, to shares iMovies with family and friends on DVDs; and iTunes, a digital jukebox software. Other iApps would follow: iPhoto in 2002, GarageBand in 2004, and iWeb in 2006.

2001: An Apple Odyssey

In many ways, the juggernaut that Apple became was shaped by very smart decisions that Jobs and his executive team took in the crucial 2000-2001 timeframe. We've talked of Mac OS X and the Digital Hub strategy, a crucial product and a crucial strategy that were both unveiled in January 2001.
A third key decision was taken in 2000 and unveiled in mid-2001: that of creating a fully-owned retail channel, the famous Apple retail stores. Although it is easy to approve of this strategy in retrospect, it was far from an obvious choice back in May 2001, when the first two retail stores were inaugurated. PC maker Gateway was shutting down its own retail stores one after the other, and the analysts consensus at the time was that niche player Apple would burn precious money in this economic downturn on a foolish and dated idea. On the other hand, Steve Jobs explained that only in an environment fully controlled by Apple, with Apple-trained staff and only Apple-compatible products, could the superiority of Macs be fully appreciated by consumers.

iPod, October 2001

Finally, it was in 2000 that Jobs started realizing his mistake of betting only on digital movies, and reoriented the company's efforts to another media: music. Digital music file-sharing service Napster was at the peak of its popularity, and all the young people were not spending their time shooting movies, but rather downloading and listening to MP3 music files. iTunes was born out of that realization, but there was a problem: although there were great digital camcorders to run in conjunction with iMovie, and awesome digital cameras too, digital music players mostly sucked — not to mention their universal ugliness.
That's why, in March 2001, Steve Jobs started a crash development program to develop an Apple-branded MP3 player before that year's holiday season: the iPod was born. On October 23, 2001, he introduced this cute white digital device to a small group of journalists in the company's campus auditorium. The tagline was '1,000 songs in your pocket', and there was great emphasis on its symbiosis with the iTunes app. But no one in the room, Jobs included, had any clue how important it would turn out to the company's future.

iPod nation

The first digital music player that people loved, iPod was a commercial success from the day it debuted. It was released, of course, as Mac-compatible only, because its goal, just like iMovie or iDVD, was to help sales of Macs. But it came at a time when a lot of people needed a good MP3 player, and despite its rather high price tag, a lot of PC users ended up buying it too, hacking it so they could use it on their machines. This had Steve Jobs and his team think a great deal: should they keep making a Mac-only iPod, or should they open it to Windows, too? Although Jobs was opposed to the latter idea, he eventually relented, and the first Windows iPods were introduced in July 2002 at Macworld New York.
However, it was soon becoming clear that iPod benefited from music piracy, and that its sales could go even higher if there was a legal way to download music. Steve Jobs didn't wait for the music industry to reinvent itself. He went to all record labels to negotiate landmark deals that would lead to the introduction of the iTunes Music Store in April 2003. Ironically, one of the arguments he used was that the risk to music labels was quite low, because of the Mac's small market share (iTunes was still Mac-only). The first compelling legal alternative to illegal music file-sharing, the iTunes Store was an instant success, selling one million songs in its first week. It not only helped the sales of iPods, but it eventually reshaped the whole music industry. It was introduced to Windows as well six months later, in October 2003.
Despite this great success, Apple didn't rest on its laurels. In January 2004, it introduced the iPod mini, a more compact version of iPod that sold at $249, only $50 less than the full featured iPod. It is really after iPod mini came out that iPod became the cultural icon it is now known as. The phrase 'Walkman of the digital age' became commonplace to describe it, and in July 2004, Steven Levy of Newsweek wrote an emblematic cover story entitled 'iPod nation'. The iPod adventure was far from over, since Apple introduced the $99 iPod shuffle and the 'impossibly small' iPod nano in 2005, and the iPod video in 2006. By that time, iPod had become synonymous with music player, and the iTunes Store had sold over one billion songs.

Steve posing with iPod minis, 2004

Although iPod changed the music industry and the way everybody listen to music, the most important change it carried was probably that of Apple. The wild success of iPod proved to all the company's employees, starting with Jobs himself, that they were right to strive for perfection and ease of use — unlike the Mac, which still didn't make it past the 5% marketshare, iPod garnered Microsoft-like numbers of 80% of sales of MP3 players. It was iPod that revealed the future of Apple, not only as a PC manufacturer, but as a consumer electronics powerhouse. It was also iPod that broadened the company's expertise in the manufacturing, logistics and distribution of a mainstream digital device in gigantic proportions. Finally, it was iPod which, through the crowds it attracted to the company's retail stores, finally helped the Mac business of Apple, whose growth rate outpaced that of Windows PCs starting in 2005.

When Pixar met Disney

Steve Jobs and Michael Eisner, 1995

iPod also played an indirect role in shaping the future of Steve's 'other' company, Pixar. After having released hit after hit (A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003)), the animation studio had decided to let go of its distribution deal with Disney, mainly because of increasing tensions between Steve Jobs and Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Steve Jobs openly said he would not make another deal with the Magic Kingdom company until Eisner was out. Turns out his opinion was shared by many an executive at Disney — including Walt's own nephew, Roy Disney, who started a public campaign to oust the company's CEO in late 2003. Th led to the nomination of Bob Iger as new CEO in September 2005.

Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, Disney CEO Bob Iger and John Lasseter on Jan 24, 2006

Rumor has it that one of the first phone calls Iger made after he became CEO was to Pixar CEO Steve Jobs. He was willing to show his good will in ending the Pixar-Disney dispute. Steve Jobs took the opportunity to pitch him his new Apple plan. He was going to introduced an iPod with video capabilities soon, and he wanted a movie store to go along with it. Iger accepted, and both men appeared on stage in October to announce that Disney would sell music videos and TV shows on iTunes. The audience of journalists was pleasantly surprised to see the CEO of Disney appear so friendly with Steve Jobs, and suspected there would soon be news on the Pixar side.
Indeed, on January 24, 2006, Disney announced its friendly acquisition of Pixar, putting $7.4 billion in stock on the table. Jobs became a Disney board member and its largest individual shareholder (owning 7% of the company's stock), while Pixar executives Ed Catmull and John Lasseter were both given critical roles in the new studio.

Momentum

Meanwhile, Apple was seeing unprecedented success in all its businesses, not only iPod and iTunes. The retail stores were hugely popular, and a milestone was reached when Steve Jobs inaugurated the impressive 5th Avenue store in New York CIty, a glass cube facing Central Park. As for the Mac, it was gaining momentum on the market, benefiting from both the aura of the iPod, and the switch to Intel.
Indeed, in June 2005, at WWDC, Jobs made a surprise announcement that after over a decade using the PowerPC microprocessor architecture in Macs, Apple would start using the more power-efficient Intel platform. In the late 1990s, Apple had run several ads to make fun of Intel's Pentium processors, which were commonplace in the Windows world. As a matter of fact, the expression 'Wintel machines' (Windows + Intel) was often used to describe PCs. That move to Intel was thus pretty bold, but in the long run turned out to be another wise decision. Not only did it make Macs more efficient, and pave the way for the super slim MacBook Air notebooks, but it also opened up a whole new set of customers of Apple. Intel Macs could run both Mac OS X (and its UNIX terminal) and Windows, and became the platform of choice for the majority of developers. All Macs were running Intel less than a year after the announcement.

Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini at Macworld 2006

Apple Inc.

iPod made Steve Jobs realize that Apple could become the greatest consumer electronics company on the planet. Around 2003, he started a secret project to develop a tablet. But in 2004-2005, he realized that the technology that this group had developed, including a revolutionary touch-screen technology, could be used in a phone rather than a tablet. After two more years of development, including a harsh internal competition to prove that it was possible to make Mac OS X run on the phone, iPhone was introduced at Macworld on January 9, 2007. This keynote is often considered the best and most memorable of all of Steve Jobs's career.
iPhone was not only a breakthrough digital convergence device ("an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator" all in one), it was also a force of disruption of the traditional phone business. Just like for the iTunes Store, Steve Jobs had negotiated landmark deals with wireless carrier AT&T before he introduced iPhone — without ever showing it to them! In exchange for exclusivity, the carrier would pay Apple a share of all their iPhone subscription revenues. And of course, AT&T could not put any software on the iPhone, and no logo either. This was an inversion of the traditional master-slave relationship that carriers entertained with phone manufacturers. In the long run, it really put the phone industry upside down.

Unlike iPod, all of Apple understood that iPhone would be a successful and rules-changing device, starting with their own company. That's why Steve Jobs announced that its name would change from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. Macs still mattered, but accounted for a minority of Apple's revenues already, and this decline would not stop any time soon. Apple had become the most prominent digital device company.
The original iPhone was successful already: despite its $399 price tag, Apple sold 6 million of them during its existence. But sales really started to skyrocket in 2008, after Apple introduced the cheaper iPhone 3G (at a subsidized $199 price) and the App Store. Just like the Windows-compatible iPod, Steve Jobs was originally opposed to letting third-party software on the iPhone. But the demand was so high that he eventually relented, and introduced the iPhone SDK and the App Store in March 2008.
It is impossible to overestimate the impact of the iPhone App Store, which ushered in a new era in mobile software. Thousands of developers started writing apps for the iPhone platform, which became a competitive advantage for Apple that no other company has been able to catch up with to this day. Apple proudly showed off this rich choice of software in its TV ad campaign 'There's an app for that' that ran for over two years.

Health concerns

Unfortunately, while he had never been so successful professionally, Steve Jobs had to start fighting cancer with renewed intensity.
In late 2003, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer of a rare kind, that could potentially be cured by surgery. However, against everyone's advice, he refused to have the surgery for nine long months. Instead, true to the ideals of his youth, he tried alternative diets and treatments, including acupuncture and seeing a psychic. Only in July 2004 did he agree to have the surgery. He looked healthy for the next five years, and spoke publicly of being 'cured' of cancer at his famous Stanford speech in 2005.
Yet at the WWDC keynote in June 2008, few observers failed to notice how thin he appeared on stage, and concerns about his health started popping up again. They became increasingly frequent until December 2008, when Apple made a shocking announcement that Jobs would not be the keynote speaker at Macworld 2009, and that he was taking a medical leave of absence for six months. Although he publicly denied it, the truth was of course that his cancer had come back. He was actually weeks away from death when he received a liver transplant in April 2009. But he came back to Apple, as planned, in late summer 2009, healthier though still very frail in appearance. He was eager to bring the finishing touches to a new project very dear to his heart.

Ushering in the Post-PC era

WWDC 2011

The iPhone had spun off the idea for a tablet device back in 2005, and it was time to restart that project, which of course led to the introduction of iPad. Although some speculated it would run Mac OS X, it was decided that iPad would in fact run the same operating system as iPhone, now called iOS. It would therefore benefit from the rich variety of apps already present in the iPhone App Store.
Although iPad was welcomed by mixed reviews when it was introduced in January 2010 (some dubbed it a "larger iPod touch"), it was always clear to Steve Jobs that it was 'the biggest thing [he'd] ever done' — the ultimate post-PC device, an eventual replacement of PCs for the average user. He laid out his vision clearly at the D8 conference in May 2010, where he compared PCs to trucks, which still existed after cars were invented but were only for professional, niche use. This perspective on iPad was reiterated in a series of TV commercials where the narrator, the 'Apple voice', explained how revolutionary iPad was and how the revolution had 'only just begun'.
Unfortunately, Steve Jobs' health, which had seem to recover throughout 2010, started declining again. In January 2011, he announced he was taking a new medical leave of absence, this time without saying when it would end. Everybody started talking about his upcoming departure. However, he deemed iPad and iOS so important that he still made two major public presentations at Apple event. The first one was the introduction of iPad 2 in March 2011, and the second one was WWDC, in June 2011, where he introduced iCloud.
In many ways, the iCloud announcement was of similar importance as the Digital Hub Strategy introduction ten years before. It was not only a product, but a master plan to get consumers to adopt iOS devices and lock them into the Apple ecosystem. The iCloud introduced in 2011, which allowed users to sync email, documents, and media across their Macs, iPhones, iPod touches, iPads and Apple TVs, was only the first step in that direction. It was crucial to Steve Jobs who clearly put iOS as the most important part of Apple and the key to its future.

Building his legacy

The resurgence of Steve's cancer was a painful reminder that it was time to 'put his affairs in order' before his passing — and he did.
He made sure that Apple was ready to operate without him: in late 2008, he hired the dean of the Yale School of Management to create 'Apple University', a sort of internal business track to groom future Apple executives by exposing them to the Apple ways of doing business, through actual case studies in the history of the company. He also consolidated his executive team and agreed with the board that his natural successor would be his second in command, COO Tim Cook. Finally, at his last public appearance in June 2011, he unveiled his plans for the future Apple campus in Cupertino, a huge spaceship-sized building in the shape of a perfect circle. All of this was in place when, because of his increasingly deteriorating health, he resigned as Apple CEO on August 24, 2011.
Jobs also prepared his personal legacy. In 2009, he finally started giving interviews to journalist Walter Isaacson to prepare for his first and only authorized biography, giving him his perspective on his life and career. He also spent his last days designing a boat for his family on which he hoped to travel the world. Unfortunately, death took him too soon, and he died peacefully at home on October 5, 2011, surrounded by his family — the day following the introduction of the iPhone 4S, an Apple event that he watched from his deathbed.

The future Apple spaceship campus

Sofbol

Sofbol atau dikenal dengan softball adalah olahraga bola beregu yang terdiri dari dua tim. Permainan sofbol lahir di Amerika Serikat, diciptakan oleh George Hancock di kota Chicago pada tahun 1887. Sofbol merupakan perkembangan dari olahraga sejenis yaitu bisbol atau hardball. Bola sofbol saat ini berdiameter 28-30,5 sentimeter; bola tersebut dilempar oleh seorang pelempar bola (pitcher) dan menjadi sasaran pemain lawan, yaitu pemukul bola dengan menggunakan tongkat pemukul (bat). Terdapat sebuah regu yang berjaga (defensif) dan tim yang memukul (ofensif). Tiap tim berlomba mengumpulkan angka (run) dengan cara memutari tiga seri marka (base) pelari hingga menyentuh marka akhir yaitu home plate.
Terdapat tiga tipe permainan sofbol:

• Fast pitch softball merupakan permainan ditentukan oleh pelempar bola. Pelempar melempar bola dengan kecepatan maksimum, serupa dengan bisbol. Perbedaan terdapat pada gaya lempar pelempar bola dan cara pelepasan bola. Pelepasan bola terletak di bawah atau sama dari posisi glove.
• Modified pitch softball atau sering dikenal dengan nama modball. Tujuan utamanya adalah untuk melunakkan aturan-aturan yang dipakai di kategori fast-pitch sehingga pemain-pemain yang belum terbiasa tidak akan terkejut dengan peraturan-peraturan yang "ketat" di sofbol seperti strike zone, jarak antara marka, lamanya permainan dan lain-lain. Kecepatan lemparan pelempar bola dalam modball berada di antara fast dan slow pitch. Kecepatan bola dibatasi dengan putaran lengan melebihi bahu.
• Slow pitch softball memberikan kemudahan bagi pemukul untuk memukul bola. Pemukul bola diberi bola terus-menerus oleh pelempar bola sampai bisa memukul bolanya. Lemparan pelempar bola pelan melambung. Permainan ini sering dimainkan dalam komunitas sosial sebagaimana sebuah kompetisi, tanpa dibatasi umur dan gender.

Lapangan

Diagram lapangan sofbol.

Lapangan sofbol berbentuk bujur sangkar. Dibagi menjadi daerah fair (fair territory) dan daerah foul (foul territory). Lebih jauh dalam daerah fair terbagi menjadi dua bagian, bagian dalam (Infield), dan bagian luar (outfield).
Di dalam daerah dalam terdapat 4 marka (base). Setiap marka diberi nomor berlawanan dengan arah jarum jam, dimulai dari marka awal yang disebut home plate, diteruskan dengan marka pertama, marka kedua dan marka ketiga. Marka berbentuk bujur sangkar dengan sisi 38 cm (15 inci) yang dibuat sedikit lebih tinggi dari permukaan tanah. Sudut dari keempat marka membentuk bentuk empat persegi yang disebut berlian (diamond).
Di belakang home plate terdapat batasan yang disebut backstop sejauh 7,62 dan 9,14 meter di belakang home plate.

Jarak lintasan antar marka yang ditentukan

Lintasan Fast Pitch	Lintasan Slow Pitch
60 kaki (18,29 m)	60 kaki atau 65 kaki (19,81 m)

Jarak melempar (pitching) fast pitch yang ditentukan

Dewasa		Di bawah 18 tahun		Di bawah 15 tahun
Puteri	Putera	Puteri	Putera	Puteri	Putera
43 kaki (13,11 m)	46 kaki (14,02 m)	40 kaki (12,19 m) atau 35 kaki	46 kaki (14,02 m)	40 kaki (12,19 m) atau 35 kaki	46 kaki (14,02 m)

Jarak melempar (pitching) slow pitch yang ditentukan

Dewasa			Di bawah 18 tahun		Di bawah 15 tahun
Puteri	Putera	Puteri (univ)	Puteri	Putera	Puteri	Putera
50 kaki (14,02 m)	50 kaki (15,24 m)	50 kaki (15,24 m)	50 kaki (14,02 m)	46 kaki (14,02 m)	50 kaki (14,02 m)	46 kaki (14,02 m)

Peralatan

Bola sofbol.

Minimal peralatan yang dibutuhkan dalam sebuah pertandingan sofbol termasuk sebuah bola. Sofbol menggunakan bola berwarna kuning dengan benang grip berwarna merah, yang sebelumnya berwarna putih dengan grip putih. Sarung tangan (glove) dikenakan oleh seluruh pemain bertahan untuk menangkap bola, sementara first baseman dan penangkap bola mengenakan mitt (glove mempunyai jari, sedangkan mitt tidak). Tongkat pemukul (bat) yang digunakan dalam pertandingan resmi adalah bat khusus yang diperuntukkan untuk sofbol. Ketentuan pemakaian dan kharakteristik bat yang boleh digunakan tertuang dalam peraturan Federasi Sofbol Internasional. Helm pemukul bola dipakai untuk melindungi kepala seorang pemukul bola dari terjangan bola dan cedera, sementara pakaian pelindung (protective gear) untuk seorang penangkap bola, dan sepatu pool (cleats). Yang terakhir adalah uniform atau seragam. Tiap pemain menggunakan baju, celana, dan topi yang seragam atau berwarna dasar sama. Semakin tinggi tingkat pertandingannya, semakin ketat dalam peraturan seragamnya. Semua peralatan dan perlengkapan itu adalah wajib bagi setiap tim dalam melaksanakan pertandingan resmi.

Wasit pertandingan

Dalam pertandingan sofbol terdapat minimal satu orang hingga tujuh orang hakim atau wasit (umpire). Terdapat satu orang plate umpire dan tiga wasit marka yang menjaga pertandingan. Selebihnya wasit memantau daerah luar. Dalam pertandingan fast pitch dihakimi oleh empat wasit (satu plate umpire, tiga wasit marka).
Istilah untuk seorang wasit adalah “blue”, disebabkan seragam mereka selalu berwarna biru. Posisi seorang wasit adalah berdiri di belakang penangkap bola dan pemukul bola . Berfungsi untuk melihat arah datangnya bola yang dilempar pelempar bola ke penangkap bola apakah itu strike atau ball. Wasit juga mengawasi jalannya permainan dengan cermat untuk menentukan peristiwa yang sebenarnya terjadi dan menjaga agar pemain mematuhi peraturan. Sebagai pemimpin pertandingan adalah Umpire plate. Karena sifatnya sebagai pemimpin pertandingan, kekuasaan umpire plate dalam sebuah pertandingan sofbol adalah mutlak, Walaupun dapat diprotes (appealed) keputusannya tidak dapat diganggu gugat apabila protes yang dilakukan pemain atau pelatih atau manager team menyangkut ajustment, tapi protes dapat dilakukan dan dapat diterima apabila protes dilaukan terhadap salah penerapan rules. Jadi ada permainan yang dapat dilanjutkan dengan protes (game under protes, selengkapnya dapat dibaca pada Rules Permainan Softball yang dikeluarkan oleh ISF). seorang wasit dapat mengeluarkan siapa saja baik pemain atau bahkan seorang pelatih keluar lapangan, jika menurut wasit mengganggu jalannya pertandingan.

Permainan

Sofbol dimainkan oleh dua tim di lapangan sofbol. Setiap tim minimal memiliki 9 pemain dan selebihnya merupakan cadangan. Permainan terdiri dari 9 babak yang disebut inning. Di dalam satu inning, tim yang bertanding masing-masing mempunyai kesempatan memukul (batting) untuk mencetak angka (run). Ketika tim yang menyerang mendapat giliran memukul, seorang pelempar bola tim bertahan melemparkan bola ke arah penangkap bola sekencang-kencangnya agar bola tidak dapat dipukul.Tim yang mendapat giliran memukul bergantian seorang demi seorang untuk memukul bola. Tim yang berjaga berusaha mematikan anggota tim yang mendapat giliran memukul. Tim yang mendapat giliran memukul mendapat kesempatan 3 kali mati (out) sebelum giliran memukul digantikan tim yang bertahan.
Skor atau run dihasilkan dari seorang runner berlari menginjak semua marka secara berurutan dan kembali menginjak home plate. Setiap pelari yang berhasil mengelilingi dan menginjak home plate mendapat satu angka. Waktu permainan ditentukan oleh inning. Setiap tim mendapat giliran memukul sampai 3 kali out dan mematikan tim lawan 3 kali out, disebut 1 inning. Dalam tiap pertandingan sofbol durasi permainan setidaknya 7 inning tergantung situasi, atau lama waktu 2 jam. Setelah menghabiskan inning, tim yang mencetak angka (run) terbanyak menjadi pemenang.
Jika dalam inning yang ditentukan waktu sudah habis dan kedua belah tim dalam keadaan seri, inning tambahan dimainkan sampai salah satu tim keluar sebagai pemenang. Kondisi itu disebut tie break atau seri. Pada permulaan permainan, tim yang menjadi tuan rumah (home team) mendapat giliran melempar sedangkan tim tamu (visitor) mendapat giliran memukul.

Pelempar bola

Permainan dimulai pada saat wasit memulai pertandingan dan meneriakkan kata “Play Ball”. Setelah pemain bertahan memasuki daerah jaganya masing-masing, pertarungan antara pelempar bola di tim bertahan dan pemukul bola di tim yang mendapat giliran memukul dapat dimulai. Seorang pelempar bola berdiri di atas plate dan menghadap ke arah penangkap bola. Pelempar bola akan berusaha melempar bola sekuat tenaga ke mitt penangkap bola. Posisi bola lempar mempunyai wilayah khusus yang disebut zona strike (strike zone), dimana hasil akhir lemparan terdapat di atas home plate dan tingginya tidak lebih dari dada dan tidak kurang dari lutut pemukul bola. Jika bola dalam zona strike tidak terpukul oleh pemukul bola, maka wasit akan berteriak “strike”. Dan apabila bola keluar dari zona strike, namun pemukul bola tidak mencoba memukul bola maka wasit akan berteriak “ball”. Zona strike adalah zona dimana bola dalam wilayah pukul pemukul bola. Pada saat melempar, pelempar bola akan berusaha membuat bola strike dengan sekuat tenaga agar pemukul bola kesusahan memukul bola walaupun bola berada di zona pukulnya. Sehingga tantangan seorang pelempar bola adalah melempar dengan kecepatan tinggi dan dengan sasaran yang tepat.

Penangkap bola

Dalam satu regu setidaknya memiliki satu orang penangkap bola. Penangkap bola dilengkapi dengan perlengkapan pengaman dan bertugas menangkap lemparan pelempar bola. Catcher menggunakan helm (topeng penangkap bola) untuk melindungi kepala dan muka, pelindung tubuh untuk melindungi daerah badan dan pelindung kaki untuk melindungi daerah lutut ke bawah. Posisi penangkap bola adalah jongkok di belakang pemukul bola. Seorang pelempar bola dan penangkap bola diharuskan memiliki komunikasi yang baik dengan isyarat-isyarat untuk bekerjasama mematikan seorang pemukul bola. Seorang penangkap bola kadang adalah pengatur strategi yang baik, karena dalam pertandingan penangkap bola dapat melihat seluruh situasi yang terjadi di depannya.

Penjaga

Selain pelempar bola dan penangkap bola , tim bertahan memiliki 7 orang penjaga (fielder) yang terbagi dalam 4 penjaga daerah dalam (infielder) dan 3 orang penjaga daerah luar (outfielder). Bagian dalam yaitu penjaga marka satu (pertama), penjaga marka dua (kedua), Penjaga antara marka dua dan tiga (shortstop), dan penjaga marka tiga (ketiga). Sedangkan penjaga luar terdapat di sebelah kiri (penjaga kiri), tengah (penjaga tengah), dan kanan (penajga kanan). Semua penjaga (termasuk pelempar bola dan penangkap bola) berusaha mematikan 3 orang tim lawan agar mendapat giliran memukul. Karena run hanya bisa didapatkan dalam posisi menyerang.

Pemukul bola

Tiap pemukul bola mempunyai kesempatan 3 kali strike dan 4 kali ball. 3 kali strike akan membuat pemukul bola mati “Strike Out”. Dan apabila 4 kali ball maka pemukul bola diperbolehkan jalan bebas ke arah marka satu (free walk). Apabila pemukul berhasil memukul bola, pemukul bola akan berlari sekuat tenaga mencapai marka satu sebelum bola pukulannya dikembalikan atau di tangkap oleh penjaga marka satu. Jika pemukul bola berhasil sampai di marka satu sebelum penjaga marka satu menangkap bola maka pemukul bola “safe”'. Namun bila penjaga marka satu lebih cepat menangkap bola, maka pemukul bola “out”.
Terdapat berbagai macam jenis memukul. Hit, Bunt, hit and run, Steal dan lain-lain. Tergantung situasi yang terjadi saat itu. Berbagai macam jenis hit digunakan sesuai strategi yang akan ditempuh tim penyerang.

Sejarah

Permainan sofbol lahir di Amerika Serikat, yang diciptakan di Gedung Olah Raga Farragut Boat Club Chicago, Illinois pada 16 September 1887 secara tidak sengaja oleh George Hancock.
Awalnya terdapat beberapa alumni Universitas Yale dan Harvard sedang mendengarkan hasil akhir pertandingan sepak bola Amerika antar Yale dan Harvard di klub Farragut Boat. Setelah skor akhir diumumkan yaitu kemenangan Yale, seorang alumnus Yale dengan antusias melempar sebuah sarung tinju ke pendukung Harvard. Seorang dengan reflek mengambil sebuah tongkat dan memukul ke arah sarung tinju itu. Melihat hal itu memberikan sebuah ide seorang reporter Chicago Board of Trade, George Hancock. Dia menyarankan untuk membuat sebuah permainan di dalam ruangan dengan bola yang dibuat dari sarung tinju yang dilempar tadi. Dia mengambil sarung tinju itu dan mengikatnya dengan erat memakai sebuah tali, supaya menyerupai bola. Kemudian dengan beberapa buah kapur, Hancock menandai lantai Farragut Boat menyerupai lapangan bisbol.
Sebagai pemukul digunakanlah sebuah sapu. Tim dibagi menjadi dua dan Hancock meneriakkan kata-kata “Play ball”, maka dimulailah permainan itu dengan skor akhir 44-40. Semenjak itu permainan bisbol versi dalam ruangan dikenal. Dinamakan indoor baseball. ‎ Karena bentuk bola yang berubah-ubah. Nama sofbol sebelumnya menyesuaikan material yang digunakan untuk membuat bolanya, jadilah nama-nama yang digunakan waktu itu yaitu kitten ball, army ball, mush ball, dan juga indoor-outdoor, recreation ball, dan playground ball.
Di awal abad ke-20 sofbol mulai dimainkan di luar ruangan sebagaimana dilakukan di dalam ruangan. Tahun 1908 organisasi amatir untuk permainan baru ini (National Amateur Playground Ball Association of the United States) mengatur olah raga ini untuk dimainkan di luar ruangan menggunakan bola yang lebih besar. Tahun 1923 Kongres Rekreasi Nasional (the National Recreation Congress) meminta komisi untuk menstandardisasi olah raga ini, dan tahun 1926 nama "softball" digunakan walaupun belum diresmikan.
Pada tahun 1933, kejuaraan dunia pertama dilaksanakan dalam lindungan Asosiasi Sofbol Amatir Amerika (Amateur Softball Association of America) dimana telah digunakan sebagai peraturan pokok di Amerika. Juara untuk sofbol kelas pria pada saat itu adalah J. L. Gills dari Chicago, dan juara kelas wanita yaitu Great Northerns dari kota yang sama. Walaupun kejuaraan yang dipertandingkan adalah amatir, mereka biasa di sponsori oleh organisasi industri di wilayahnya.
Sejak tahun 1933 “softball” telah menjadi sebuah nama resmi. Dan pada tahun 1934, pembentukan peraturan bersama untuk lebih jauh memberikan standardisasi peraturan sofbol. Sudah banyak perubahan peraturan sejak saat itu, khususnya pada tahun 1946, dimana terdapat perubahan jumlah pemain dalam satu tim dari 10 ke 9 orang. Pemain ke sepuluh dinamakan “shortfielder” pada saat itu bertugas sebagai penjaga daerah dangkal bagian luar yang menjelalajah di belakang dalam. Tahun 1950 jarak antara pitcher’s plate dan home plate ditambah untuk putera dari 43 kaki ke 46 kaki (13.114 meter).
Dilihat dari segi partisipan, sofbol telah berkembang menjadi olahraga tim yang besar dan digemari. Lapangan yang lebih kecil tersedia. Baik wanita maupun pria , dapat memainkannya. Lebih jauh pria di luar usia atlet dapat memainkan sebagai kegiatan di luar permainan resmi seperti piknik atau dalam komunitas sosial tanpa melalui pemanasan dan latihan rutin yang diperlukan, sejenis dalam bisbol.
Pada tahun 1960an, sebagian dari 125,000 tim telah terdaftar di Asosiasi Sofbol Amatir Amerika. Dan mengadakan enam kejuaraan nasional tiap tahun. Ini tidak termasuk anggota pria maupun wanita yang bertanding dalam kompetisi tidak resmi. Di Negara lain sofbol juga menjadi olahraga yang digemari baik pria wanita tua maupun muda.
Pada tahun 1949, tim Kanada, Toronto's Tip Top Tailors, memenangi kejuaraan internasional yang dilakukan secara berkala oleh Asosiasi Sofbol Amatir dan merupakan kompetisi pertama yang benar-benar merupakan kejuaraan tingkat dunia untuk putera. Diadakan tahun 1966 dibawah sponsor dari Federasi Sofbol Internasional (International Softball Federation). Australia memenangkan kejuaraan pertama untuk wanita tahun 1965.

Federasi Sofbol Internasional (International Softball Federation)

Anggota-anggota Federasi Sofbol Internasional

Badan inilah yang akhirnya membuat peraturan-peraturan yang menyangkut permainan olahraga sofbol yang berlaku di seluruh dunia, termasuk Indonesia pada saat ini. Naskah aslinya tertulis dalam bahasa Inggris, dan diterjemahkan oleh negara-negara anggotanya.
Terbentuknya Federasi Sofbol Internasional itu, maka memungkinkan diadakannya pertandingan antar negara yang bersifat internasional. Kemudian diselenggarakan kejuaraan-kejuaraan tingkat nasional, regional dan dunia.
Kejuaraan Internasional Sofbol paling bergengsi saat ini adalah Kejuaraan Sofbol Dunia (World Cup of Softball) yang diselenggarakan oleh Amateur Softball Association dibawah naungan International Softball Federation. Negara-negara anggota ISF yang memasuki babak kualifikasi tiap tahun mengirimkan kontingennya untuk bertanding. Setalah lolos kualifikasi, sejumalah 6 negara akan bertanding satu sama lain (5 pertandingan). Dan 2 tim terbaik akan bertanding untuk memperebutkan posisi juara one-game-winner-take-all championship.
Juara terdahulu:

• 2005- Jepang 3 Amerika Serikat 1
• 2006- Amerika Serikat 5 Jepang 2
• 2007- Amerika Serikat 3 Jepang 0

Pada tahun 2007, Indonesia berhasil menorehkan sejarah lolos ke World Cup of Softball pertama kalinya. Indonesia bertanding dengan negara-negara lainnya di Oklahoma City dalam World Cup of Softball setelah berhasil memasuki peringkat 3 dalam kualifikasi antar negara Asia.

Sofbol di Indonesia

Sebelum perang kemerdekaan sofbol sudah ada yang memainkan di Indonesia, namun sifatnya masih sangat terbatas. Yaitu hanya dimainkan di sekolah-sekolah tertentu saja. Pada mulanya ada anggapan bahwa permainan olahraga sofbol hanya pantas dimainkan oleh golongan wanita saja. Hal ini terus berlangsung sampai tahun 1966. Oleh karenanya sampai tahun itu, sofbol hanya dimainkan oleh puteri. Ketika Asian Games Bangkok, terbukalah mata kita bahwa sebenarnya olahraga sofbol itu dapat dimainkan baik oleh puteri maupun putera. Pada waktu itu putera-putera kita, masih menyenangi olahraga bisbol.
Melihat perkembangan sofbol sedemikan cepatnya dan adanya kompetisi antara negara setiap tahunnya. Timbul perhatian kita terhadap cabang olahraga ini secara serius. Mulanya sofbol hanya berkembang di Jakarta, Bandung, Palembang, Semarang dan Surabaya. Tetapi kini telah menjadi salah satu cabang olahraga yang yang sangat digemari masyarakat, terutama para pelajar dan mahasiswa. Untuk menyalurkan kegiatan-kegiatan sofbol di Indonesia, diperlukan suatu badan yang mengaturnya, maka dibentuklah Organisasi Induk dengan nama PERBASASI (Perserikatan Baseball & Sofbol Amatir Seluruh Indonesia). Dengan adanya wadah PB. PERBASASI ini mulailah diadakan kompetisi sofbol tingkat nasional. Kejuaraan Nasional I diselenggarakan tahun 1967 di Jakarta. Di samping itu sejak PON VII di Surabaya, sofbol menjadi salah satu cabang olahraga yang dipertandingkan.

Liga Sofbol Indonesia (LSI)

Dalam upaya lebih memperkenalkan olahraga sofbol di kalangan masyarakat, PB Perbasasi membentuk Liga Sofbol Indonesia.
LSI diselenggarakan pertama kali pada tahun 2004. Putaran pertama diadakan di Jakarta pada bulan Mei 2004, sedangkan putaran kedua berlangsung di Bandung, Juli 2004. Putaran ketiga liga yang diikuti enam klub berlangsung di Surabaya, tanggal 26-27 November 2004. Seluruh klub peserta liga saat ini masih terbatas beberapa klub. Mereka adalah Citra Muda, Prambors, Garuda, Rebels (Jakarta), Gorgeous, NISP, Bumi Asri (Bandung), Sriti (Surabaya), Smanda (Lampung), dan Pirates (Kaltim)
Bagi kalangan sofbol, Liga Sofbol Indonesia atau LSI merupakan pertandingan bergengsi menuju semipro. Selain pemain Indonesia, klub-klub peserta LSI dapat menggunakan pemain asing dalam timnya. Saat ini peraturan mengenai pemain asing membolehkan Jumlah maksimal pemain asing yang dapat memperkuat sebuah klub ialah lima atlet. Namun hanya tiga pemain yang dapat menjadi pemain inti, sedangkan dua pemain lain yang menjadi cadangan hanya bisa menggantikan pemain asing.

Penemu Sepak Boola

Berita bola - Sebuah suratkabar Vatikan, L´Osservatore Romano, menemukan bukti bahwa salah satu suku di Paraguay, Guarani, memainkan sepak bola jauh sebelum Inggris mengklaim bahwa mereka menciptakan sepak bola.

Dalam pengetahuan yang awam tentang sepak bola bahwa olahraga ternama di dunia ini ditemukan di Inggris dan kemudian dimainkan ke sejumlah negara lainnya. Pada 1863, Federasi Sepak Bola Inggris (FA) kemudian membuat peraturan baku sepak bola yang akhirnya menjadi cikal-bakal sepak bola modern saat ini.

Namun, pengetahuan itu dipatahkan oleh sebuah artikel di suratkabar Vatikan, L´Osservatore Romano, edisi Senin 28 Juni 2010. Dalam artikel tersebut dikatakan bahwa sepak bola justru kali pertama ditemukan oleh suku Guarani di Paraguay pada 1793, 70 tahun sebelum klaim Inggris.

Artikel tersebut menggunakan sumber seorang pendeta bernama Juan Manuel Peramas, yang menulis di buku harian ketika ditugaskan di Paraguay pada 1793. Peramas menulis, "(Para Guarani) biasanya bermain dengan bola itu, meski dibuat dari karet keras, tapi cukup ringan dan cepat jika ditendang, bola memantul dengan cepat sebelum dihentikan."

"Mereka tidak melempar bola dengan tangan, seperti yang kita lakukan, tapi menggunakan kaki dalamnya, mengumpan dan mengontrol dengan ketangkasan dan ketepatan."

Penulis artikel, Gianpaolo Romanato, menjadikan tulisan Peramas sebagai bukti bahwa Inggris bukanlah penemu sepak bola.

"Suku Guarani jelas-jelas tiga abad yang lalu sudah memainkannya. Pada akhirnya adalah mereka (Guarani) adalah benar-benar penemu sepak bola," papar Romanato

Sepak Bola

Sejarah Sepak Bola Indonesia menjadi keinginan banyak pihak untuk dibakukan sehingga publik mendapatkan informasi yang jelas, utuh, dan ilmiah. Kalau sejarah kerajaan besar di Nusantara saja dapat teridentifikasi, tapi mengapa sepak bola Indoonesia tidak juga ada kejelasan? Sayang sampai sekarang hal ini masih menjadi misteri yang tak terungkapkan.

Untuk memaparkan dan mengungkapkan sejarah Sepak Bola Indonesia di shalimow.com dilakukan dengan pencarian dengan mesin pencarianpun tak kunjung mendapat sajian informasi yang memadai. Demikian juga dengan menelusurinya melalui pustaka, mulai dari took buku sampai toko buku bekas di kawasan Senin, Jakarta tak kunjung jua mendapatkan informasi penting juga.

Sempat terfikir oleh aku bahwa jangan-jangan memang belum ada satupun dokumen yang validitasnya kuat yang mengungkap Sejarah Sepak Bola Indonesia. Atau paling tidak hasil penelitian sejarah mengenai Sejarah Sepak Bola Indonesia oleh para sejarahwan, dst. Dan ketika menuliskan artikel ini saya semakin yakin akan dugaan bahwa Sejarah lahirnya Sepak Bola Indonesia memang belum ada.

Kesulitan yang pasti terjadi adalah tidak ditemukanya dokumen sejarah seperti lazimnya peninggalan purbakala yang berupa candi, tulisan di daun lontar, alat-alat, dll. Mungkin juga karena olahraga sepakbola dianggap sebagai aktifitas sosial yang kurang penting sehingga tidak terdokumentasikan dengan baik oleh nenek moyang kita. Agak berbeda dengan beberapa peninggalan sejarah Romawi dan Eropa ynag menemukan akan aktifitas sepak bola.

Hal yang sama juga terjadi pada pencarian mengenai sejarah munculnya olahraga sepak bola dimuka bumi ini yang masih juga mengundang perdebatan. Beberapa dokumen sejarah dunia menjelaskan bahwa sepak bola lahir sejak masa Romawi, sebagian lagi menjelaskan sepak bola berasal dari negeri Tiongkok, dst.

Disisi lain Bill Muray, seorang sejarahwan sepak bola, dalam bukunya The World Game: A History of Soccer, menjelaskan bahwa permainan sepak bola sudah dikenal sejak awal Masehi, masyarakat Mesir Kuno sudah mengenal teknik membawa dan menendang bola yang terbuat dari buntalan kain linen.
Menurut pendapat saya benang kusut tentang sejarah sepakbola Indonesia bisa mulai diurai dengan meneliti dokumen sejarah Indonesia yang ada di negeri Belanda. Menurut analisa saya sejarah olahraga sepakbola ini diawali oleh pendatang dari luar negeri, bukan dari Indonesia asli. Jadi beberapa kemungkinannya adalah:

1. Para pedagang dari negeri Tiongkok sekitar abad 7 M yang mulai masuk wilayah nusantara khususnya diwilayah kerajaan Sriwijaya. Seperti diketahui permainan masyarakat Cina abad ke-2 sampai dengan ke-3 SM sudah mengenal olah raga sejenis sepak bola yang dikenal dengan sebutan “tsu chu “.
2. Dibawa masuk ke Indonesia oleh para pedagang dari negeri Belanda, kalau mereka awal masuknya ke Indonesia sekitar tahun 1602 M maka sepakbola lahir dari perkembangan aktifitas dagang mereka di Indonesia.

Kedua kemungkinan lahirnya sejarah sepakbola diatas dapat menjadi kebenaran atau pula menjadi kesalahan, namun tidak ada yang boleh menjustifikasi kedua hal tersebut kecuali atas dasar fakta sejarah yang kuat. Disinilah letaknya urgensi dilakukanya penelusuran sejarah sepak bola nasional Indonesia.

Kita semua berharap pemerintah melalui kementrian pemuda dan olahraga dapat juga memperhatikan akan hal ini sehingga sejarah olahraga nasional tidak kehilangan obor. Beberapa seminar sejarah atau penelitian tentang hal ini mungkin sangat urgen untuk dilakukan sehingga memberikan beberapa titik awal kejelasan sejarah lahirnya sepakbola nasional.

Kependudukan

Suku bangsa

Provinsi Aceh memiliki 13 suku asli, yaitu: Aceh, Gayo, Aneuk Jamee, Singkil, Alas, Tamiang, Kluet, Devayan, Sigulai,Pakpak, Haloban, Lekon dan Nias.

Hasil sensus penduduk tahun 2000 menunjukkan hasil sebagai berikut: Aceh (50,32%), Jawa (15,87%), Gayo (11,46%), Alas (3,89%), Singkil (2,55%), Simeulue (2,47%), Batak (2,26%), Minangkabau (1,09%), Lain-lain (10,09%)

Bahasa

Kamus Bahasa Aceh - Indonesia

Provinsi Aceh memiliki 13 buah bahasa asli yaitu bahasa Aceh, Gayo, Aneuk Jamee, Singkil, Alas, Tamiang, Kluet, Devayan, Sigulai,Pakpak, Haloban, Lekon dan Nias.

Agama

Sebagian besar penduduk di Aceh menganut agama Islam. Dari ke 13 suku asli yang ada di Aceh hanya suku Nias yang tidak semuanya memeluk agama Islam.
Agama lain yang dianut oleh penduduk di Aceh adalah agama Kristen yang dianut oleh pendatang suku Batak dan sebagian warga Tionghoa yang kebanyakan bersuku Hakka. Sedangkan sebagian lainnya tetap menganut agama Konghucu.
Selain itu provinsi Aceh memiliki keistimewaan dibandingkan dengan provinsi yang lain, karena di provinsi ini Syariat Islam diberlakukan kepada sebagian besar warganya yang menganut agama Islam, berdasar UU No.18/2001. Meski dari kalangan intelektual Aceh sendiri, masih terdapat perdebatan soal apakah yang diberlakukan di Aceh sudah benar-benar syariat, atau itu cuma karena alasan politis saja? Alasan yang juga kemudian disebutkan adalah kondisi konkret ketika itu berkenaan dengan politik, polemik di kalangan jumhur ulama soal bisa tidaknya hukum Islam diproduksi pasca kenabian,selain persoalan dualisme aliran dalam Islam, dua aliran besar dalam tradisi tafsir hukum Islam.

Bangkitnya nasionalisme

Replika pesawat Dakota RI-001 

 

Seulawah sumbangan rakyat Aceh di Lapangan Blang Padang, Banda Aceh

Sementara pada masa kekuasaan Belanda, bangsa Aceh mulai mengadakan kerjasama dengan wilayah-wilayah lain di Indonesia dan terlibat dalam berbagai gerakan nasionalis dan politik. Aceh kian hari kian terlibat dalam gerakan nasionalis Indonesia. Saat Volksraad (parlemen) dibentuk, Teuku Nyak Arif terpilih sebagai wakil pertama dari Aceh. (Nyak Arif lalu dilantik sebagai gubernur Aceh oleh gubernur Sumatra pertama, Mr. Teuku Muhammad Hasan).

Saat Jepang mulai mengobarkan perang untuk mengusir kolonialis Eropa dari Asia, tokoh-tokoh pejuang Aceh mengirim utusan ke pemimpin perang Jepang untuk membantu usaha mengusir Belanda dari Aceh. Negosiasi dimulai pada tahun 1940. Setelah beberapa rencana pendaratan dibatalkan, akhirnya pada 9 Februari 1942 kekuatan militer Jepang mendarat di wilayah Ujong Batee, Aceh Besar. Kedatangan mereka disambut oleh tokoh-tokoh pejuang Aceh dan masyarakat umum. Masuknya Jepang ke Aceh membuat Belanda terusir secara permanen dari tanah Aceh.

Awalnya Jepang bersikap baik dan hormat kepada masyarakat dan tokoh-tokoh Aceh, dan menghormati kepercayaan dan adat istiadat Aceh yang bernafaskan Islam. Rakyat pun tidak segan untuk membantu dan ikut serta dalam program-program pembangunan Jepang. Namun ketika keadaan sudah membaik, pelecehan terhadap masyarakat Aceh khususnya kaum perempuan mulai dilakukan oleh personel tentara Jepang. Rakyat Aceh yang beragama Islam pun mulai diperintahkan untuk membungkuk ke arah matahari terbit di waktu pagi, sebuah perilaku yang sangat bertentangan dengan akidah Islam. Karena itu pecahlah perlawanan rakyat Aceh terhadap Jepang di seluruh daerah Aceh. contoh yang paling terkenal adalah perlawanan yang dipimpin oleh Teungku Abdul Jalil, seorang ulama dari daerah Bayu, dekat Lhokseumawe.