World loses tech's biggest star
Source: Agencies |
October 7, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Steve Jobs saw the future and led the world to it. He moved technology from garages to pockets, took entertainment from discs to bytes and turned gadgets into extensions of the people who use them.
Jobs, who co-founded and ran Apple, told us what we needed before we knew it.
Apple announced his death without giving a specific cause. He died peacefully on Wednesday, according to a statement from family members who were present. He was 56.
"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives," Apple's board said in a statement. "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."
"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world and talented enough to do it," US President Barack Obama said.
Jobs had battled cancer since 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January and resigned in August. Jobs became Apple's chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.
Outside Apple's Cupertino headquarters, an American flag, a California state flag and an Apple flag flew at half-staff yesterday.
"Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor," Cook wrote in an email to Apple's employees.
Jobs started Apple with high school friend Steve Wozniak in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976, was forced out a decade later and returned in 1997 to rescue the company. During his second stint, it grew into the most valuable technology company in the world with a market value of US$351 billion. Almost all that wealth has been created since Jobs' return.
Cultivating Apple's countercultural sensibility and a minimalist design ethic, Jobs rolled out one sensational product after another, even in the face of the late-2000s recession and his own failing health. He helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist's obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home, and in the process he upended not just personal technology but the cell phone and music industries.
For transformation of American industry, he has few rivals. He has long been linked to his personal computer-age contemporary Bill Gates and has drawn comparisons to other creative geniuses such as Walt Disney. Jobs died as Walt Disney Co's largest shareholder, a byproduct of his decision to sell computer animation studio Pixar in 2006.
Perhaps most influentially, Jobs in 2001 launched the iPod, which offered "1,000 songs in your pocket." Over the next 10 years, its white earphones and thumb-dial control seemed to become more ubiquitous than the wristwatch.
In 2007 came the touch-screen iPhone, joined a year later by Apple's App Store, where developers could sell iPhone "apps" which made the phone a device not just for making calls but also for managing money, editing photos, playing games and social networking.
And in 2010, Jobs introduced the iPad, a tablet-sized, all-touch computer that took off even though market analysts said no one really needed one.
By 2011, Apple has become the second-largest company of any kind in the United States by market value.
Under Jobs, the company cloaked itself in secrecy to build frenzied anticipation for each of its new products. Jobs himself had a wizardly sense of what his customers wanted, and where demand didn't exist, he leveraged a cult-like following to create it.
When he spoke at Apple presentations, almost always in faded blue jeans, sneakers and a black mock turtleneck, legions of Apple acolytes listened to every word.
Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, a working-class couple who nurtured his early interest in electronics. He saw his first computer terminal at NASA's Ames Research Center when he was around 11 and landed a summer job at Hewlett-Packard before he finished high school. Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland in 1972 but dropped out after six months.
Jobs, who co-founded and ran Apple, told us what we needed before we knew it.
Apple announced his death without giving a specific cause. He died peacefully on Wednesday, according to a statement from family members who were present. He was 56.
"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives," Apple's board said in a statement. "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."
"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world and talented enough to do it," US President Barack Obama said.
Jobs had battled cancer since 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January and resigned in August. Jobs became Apple's chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.
Outside Apple's Cupertino headquarters, an American flag, a California state flag and an Apple flag flew at half-staff yesterday.
"Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor," Cook wrote in an email to Apple's employees.
Jobs started Apple with high school friend Steve Wozniak in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976, was forced out a decade later and returned in 1997 to rescue the company. During his second stint, it grew into the most valuable technology company in the world with a market value of US$351 billion. Almost all that wealth has been created since Jobs' return.
Cultivating Apple's countercultural sensibility and a minimalist design ethic, Jobs rolled out one sensational product after another, even in the face of the late-2000s recession and his own failing health. He helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist's obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home, and in the process he upended not just personal technology but the cell phone and music industries.
For transformation of American industry, he has few rivals. He has long been linked to his personal computer-age contemporary Bill Gates and has drawn comparisons to other creative geniuses such as Walt Disney. Jobs died as Walt Disney Co's largest shareholder, a byproduct of his decision to sell computer animation studio Pixar in 2006.
Perhaps most influentially, Jobs in 2001 launched the iPod, which offered "1,000 songs in your pocket." Over the next 10 years, its white earphones and thumb-dial control seemed to become more ubiquitous than the wristwatch.
In 2007 came the touch-screen iPhone, joined a year later by Apple's App Store, where developers could sell iPhone "apps" which made the phone a device not just for making calls but also for managing money, editing photos, playing games and social networking.
And in 2010, Jobs introduced the iPad, a tablet-sized, all-touch computer that took off even though market analysts said no one really needed one.
By 2011, Apple has become the second-largest company of any kind in the United States by market value.
Under Jobs, the company cloaked itself in secrecy to build frenzied anticipation for each of its new products. Jobs himself had a wizardly sense of what his customers wanted, and where demand didn't exist, he leveraged a cult-like following to create it.
When he spoke at Apple presentations, almost always in faded blue jeans, sneakers and a black mock turtleneck, legions of Apple acolytes listened to every word.
Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, a working-class couple who nurtured his early interest in electronics. He saw his first computer terminal at NASA's Ames Research Center when he was around 11 and landed a summer job at Hewlett-Packard before he finished high school. Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland in 1972 but dropped out after six months.
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