Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

 

 

STEVE JOBS, 1955-2011

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

 

Apple co-founder and visionary Steve Jobs died yesterday at the age of 56. Jobs was a man with extraordinary vision, drive, and success; and the technology he helped create has touched and enriched the lives of billions. He focused on creating things of simplicity and beauty matched by an underlying power and utility. When composing this entry, I was surprised to find myself so moved. Coming across the photo of a young Steve introducing the Apple II computer, I remembered learning to program on it. From Basic to Assembly Language, it was on Apple machines that I first developed the key skills I use in my work to this very day. All those years ago, as a high-school kid, my life was enriched by Jobs' efforts, and it continues to be today. Gathered here are images of Steve Jobs, along with a few remembrances from around the world. The first photo is especially striking, because you see in it not only Steve as a proud CEO walking the stage at the top of his game, but as a human being, a simple silhouette of the man who inspired so many.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivers the keynote address at the 2004 Worldwide Developers Conference June 28, 2004 in San Francisco, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs stands beneath a photograph of him and Apple-co founder Steve Wozniak from the early days of Apple during the launch of Apple's new iPad tablet computing device in San Francisco, California, January 27, 2010. (Reuters/Kimberly White) #

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This 1977 file photo shows Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as he introduces the new Apple II in Cupertino, California. (AP Photo/Apple Computers Inc., File) #

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Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, talks in a conference room at his new company NeXt, Inc., in Redwood City, California, in April of 1993. (AP Photo) #

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Apple Computer Interim CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs speaks at a press conference in Cupertino, California. (John G. Mablango/AFP/Getty Images) #

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Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs stands in the new Apple store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, on July 17, 2002. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) #

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Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveils a new mobile phone that can also be used as a digital music player and a camera, a long-anticipated device dubbed an "iPhone." at the Macworld Conference on January 9, 2007 in San Francisco. (Tony Avelar/AFP/Getty Images) #

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up the new MacBook Air after giving the keynote address at the Apple MacWorld Conference in San Francisco, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) #

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs smiles during his appearance at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California June 7, 2010. (Reuters/Robert Galbraith) #

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A crowd gathers at a makeshift memorial for Steve Jobs at the Apple headquarters on October 5, 2011 in Cupertino, California. Jobs, 56, passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) #

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People light candles at a makeshift memorial for Steve Jobs at the Apple headquarters on October 5, 2011 in Cupertino, California. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) #

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A South Korean man holds a mobile phone paying tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in Seoul on October 6, 2011. World leaders, tech giants, and countless ordinary people have paid tribute to Steve Jobs after his death, marveling at how the Apple visionary made modern life more user-friendly. (Park Ji-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images) #

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A Malaysian takes a photograph with an iPhone on a signboard to pay tribute to Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and former CEO, at an Apple computer outlet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on October 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian) #

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A card reading "Many thanks, Steve", placed on the window of an Apple store in Munich, Germany, on October 6, 2011. (Reuters/Michaela Rehle) #

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Chinese exchange students from nearby De Anza College use candles to create the Apple logo and Steve Jobs' last name in Chinese characters at a makeshift memorial for Steve Jobs at the Apple headquarters on October 5, 2011 in Cupertino, California. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) #

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People mourn Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at an Apple store at Sanlitun Village on October 06, 2011 in Beijing, China. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images) #

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A woman prays near flower bouquets paying tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs outside an Apple store in Tokyo on October 6, 2011. (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images) #

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Brandy Faulkner lays flowers outside the the home of Apple Inc co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs in Palo Alto, California, October 5, 2011. (Reuters/Beck Diefenbach) #

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Customers walk past an Apple logo after its lighting was turned off to mourn Apple founder and former CEO Steve Jobs at an Apple Store in Hong Kong, on October 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) #

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The main Apple Inc website featuring Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is seen on an iPhone in this photo illustration taken in Central Sydney October 6, 2011. Apple Inc co-founder and former CEO Jobs, counted among the greatest American CEOs of his generation, died on October 5, 2011 at the age of 56, after a years-long and highly public battle with cancer and other health issues. (Reuters/Daniel Munoz) #

Apple registers iPhone5.com as sources reveal next phone will be the last model designed by Steve Jobs

 

Final work: Apple founder Steve jobs is rumoured to have overseen the design of the iPhone5 prior to his death

Final work: Apple founder Steve Jobs is rumoured to have overseen the design of the iPhone5 prior to his death

Apple has registered iPhone5.com domain name, amid rumours that the next model of the mould-breaking smartphone will be the final model designed by late founder Steve Jobs.

The tech giant filed a case with the World Intellectual Property Organisation to wrest control of the internet address, which had been used by a Apple fan forum site.

The move comes ahead of rumours that Apple is gearing up to release the next incarnation of the iPhone this autumn, with a major overhaul of its design over seen by Mr Jobs prior to his death.

Bloomberg cited a source 'with knowledge of the plans' surrounding the new iPhone who claimed that Mr Jobs played a key role in the development of the device, even while on medical leave from his company.

The company has since placed orders for bigger screens that the 3.5in size the phone currently boasts as it tries to catch up with rivals like Samsung.

In the first quarter of this year Samsung overtook Apple as the world's biggest smartphone manufacturer, with a range of products using screens of various sizes.

The new iPhone screens will measure 4 inches from corner to corner, one source said. That would represent a roughly 30 per cent increase in viewing area, assuming Apple kept other dimensions proportional.

Apple has used a 3.5-inch screen since introducing the iPhone in 2007.

Early production of the new screens has begun at three suppliers: Korea's LG Display Co Ltd, Sharp Corp and Japan Display Inc, a Japanese government-brokered merger combining the screen production of three companies.

It is likely all three of the screen suppliers will get production orders from Apple, which could begin as soon as June.

That would allow the new iPhone to go into production as soon as August, if the company follows its own precedent in moving from orders for prototypes for key components to launch.

Apple's decision to equip the next iPhone with a larger screen represents part of a competitive response to Samsung, which unveiled its top-of-the line Galaxy smartphone with a 4.8-inch touch-screen and a faster processor earlier this month.

With consumers becoming more and more comfortable using smartphones for tasks they once performed on laptops, like watching video, other smartphone manufacturers have also moved toward bigger displays.

A likely shakeup in the design of a larger-screen iPhone could go a long way in boosting its 'wow' factor, convincing fans to trade in their old iPhones for new ones, said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee.

'Not only do users pay for features, but they also pay for aesthetics and design. That's as important, or more important, than features,' Mr Wu said.

'People love the current design — but it's 18 months old.'

Competition: The iPhone 4S

Blue and white: The Samsung S3 launches at the end of May, available in 'pebble blue' and 'marble white'

Stiff competition: Apple's iPhone 4S, left, is likely to soon be eclipsed by Samsung's newest smartphone, the Galaxy S3, right

The latest iPhone 4S was introduced in October of last year and essentially has the same form factor as the iPhone 4, launched in 2010.

Samsung, which this year became the world's largest mobile phone maker, sold 45million smartphones in the first quarter, and sales of the Galaxy phones outstripped the iPhone.

In addition to being Apple's rival, Samsung is also a major components supplier to the U.S. computer, tablet and phone manufacturer.

The share of the production of new screens that go to each of the three manufacturers working with Apple has not been determined, one source said.

Sales of the touchscreen iPhone now account for about one-half of Apple's total sales, and the phone has been a key source of growth for the company in Asia.

A report in March by a South Korea business newspaper said Apple would use a 'retina' display on the next iPhone, the same technology in its latest iPad that enhance image quality.

With the hotly expected iPhone release winding the internet rumour mill up to full speed, one of the more unusual pieces of Apple related gossip claims that Mr Jobs was very interested in designing a car towards the end of his life.

Mickey Drexler, the CEO of J.Crew and a member of Apple’s board, told Business Insider this week that Mr Jobs's 'dream' shortly prior to his death was to design an 'iCar'.

Mr Drexler goes on to claim that if Mr Jobs had got around to designing such an automobile, it would have been likely to take 50 per cent of the market.

Steve Jobs' custom-built yacht that he'll never use: Giant 260-foot Venus finally finished... and it looks just like an Apple store

Steve Jobs' final masterpiece was a 260-foot yacht that he worked to design as a state-of-the-art wonder of the high seas.

But the Apple CEO never had a chance to use the eye-catching vessel. It was finally completed by a Dutch shipbuilder this month -- one year after his death.

The sleek ship is made of light-weight aluminum and Jobs employed the chief engineer of his Apple stores to help design special glass that allowed the ship to be installed with ten-foot-high windows across the hull.

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Super Yacht: Steve Jobs' custom-built luxury ship is 260 feet long and features state-of-the-art aluminum hull

Super Yacht: Steve Jobs' custom-built luxury ship is 260 feet long and features state-of-the-art aluminum hull

Sleek: The yacht's design is simple and elegant -- reminiscent of Jobs' Apple stores

Sleek: The yacht's design is simple and elegant -- reminiscent of Jobs' Apple stores

High tech: There are seven 27-inch iMacs set up on the bridge of the yacht

High tech: There are seven 27-inch iMacs set up on the bridge of the yacht

It is christened Venus, after the Roman goddess of love.

The cost of the superyacht is unknown, though Jobs was obsessed with completing it near the end of his life.

 

'I know that it’s possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat,' he told biographer Walter Isaacson. 'But I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.'

Sadly, Jobs, who died in October 2011 of complications from pancreatic cancer, never saw his creation finished.

Last masterpiece: Jobs worked feverishly on finishing the yacht near the end of his life -- even though he knew it might not be completed before he died

Last masterpiece: Jobs worked feverishly on finishing the yacht near the end of his life -- even though he knew it might not be completed before he died

Set sail: It's unknown when the maiden voyage of the yacht will be or how often Jobs' family will use the massive ship

Set sail: It's unknown when the maiden voyage of the yacht will be or how often Jobs' family will use the massive ship

One year: Steve Jobs died in October 2011 Many thanks: Jobs' family sent each worker a note and a custom iPod Shuffle

Many thanks: Jobs died in October 2011. His family gave each worker at the shipyard a custom iPod Shuffle and a not thanking them for their 'hard work and craftsmanship'

The Dutch technology blog One More Thing reports that the Jobs family will be on hand for the formal unveiling of the yacht at the Feadship custom yacht building company in Aalsmeer, Netherlands.

Jobs' family gave out custom iPod Shuffle mp3 players to each of the crew members who helped build the yacht. Each one came with a note thanking them for their 'hard work and craftsmanship.'

Among the high-tech features inside the ship are seven 27-inch iMac computers.

Jobs employed renowned designer Philippe Starck to lay out in the interior.

It is unknown when the breathtaking ship will make its maiden voyage.

 

 

 

 

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Ex-girlfriend: Chrisann Brennan dated Steve Jobs when he was a teenager and in his early 20s. She has written a tell-all memoir

Ex-girlfriend: Chrisann Brennan dated Steve Jobs when he was a teenager and in his early 20s. She has written a tell-all memoir

Steve Jobs believed he was a heroic World War II fighter pilot in a past life, and often felt the desire the pull up on his steering wheel - like airplane controls - while he was driving.

That's just one revelation into the mind of the late Apple founder from the person who knew him best during his meteoric rise making Macintosh computers.

In her new book, The Bite In The Apple: A Memoir Of My Life With Steve Jobs, Chrisann Brennan - the mother of Jobs' first child - describes how Jobs became a 'demon' as he found success at Apple in the late 1970s and early 80s.

The New York Post has published an exclusive excerpt from Ms Brennan's tell-all book.

Brennan, who was Jobs' on-again-off-again girlfriend from his teens until his early 20s, says Jobs did not balance the onset of his success well - controlling her life and becoming relentlessly critical of the people around him, even waiters.

Ms Brennan's relationship with Jobs ended after she became pregnant with the couple's daughter Lisa when they were both 23. Jobs publicly denied fathering the child for years, forcing Brennan to wait tables and collect welfare to make ends meet.

He later accepted Lisa Brennan-Jobs and paid for her to attend Harvard.

Success at Apple turned Steve Jobs into a 'demon' at times, his ex-girlfriend writes

Success at Apple turned Steve Jobs into a 'demon' at times, his ex-girlfriend writes

Jobs married Laurene Powell in 1991 after his relationship with Brennan ended. They stayed together until his death in 2011

Jobs married Laurene Powell in 1991 after his relationship with Brennan ended. Jobs and Powell stayed together until his death in 2011. Jobs married Laurene Powell in 1991. The couple had three children together before his death from cancer in 2011.

Chrisann Brennan says that when Jobs was starting up Apple, their relationship began running hot-and-cold.

 

Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Steve Jobs' daughter from his relationship with Chrisann Brennan is a Harvard-educated writer

Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Steve Jobs' daughter from his relationship with Chrisann Brennan is a Harvard-educated writer. Brennan writes that they lived in separate rooms, but frequently met for 'nights of lovemaking so profound that, astonishingly, some 15 years later, he called me out of the blue to thank me for them. 'He was married at the time of his call and all I could think of was, "Whoa ... men ... are ... really ... different".' Jobs, who was public about having taken LSD, believed that he flew fighter planes against the Nazis in a former life. Brennan says that Jobs was enamoured by the glamour of the 1940s. She writes: 'He loved the big band sound of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. At the first Apple party he even danced like he was from the Forties. So I could see the fit: Steve as a young man with all that American ingenuity from a less encumbered time, with that simple sense of right and wrong. But that’s not how I pictured him in 1977. 'Apple was taking off and Steve wasn’t in an airplane, he was in a rocket ship blasting out beyond the atmosphere of what anyone imagined possible.'

The Bite In The Apple: A Memoir Of My Life With Steve Jobs is due out October 29.

 

Steven Paul Jobs (/ˈɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)[4][5] was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution[6][7] and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.

In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. During this period he also led efforts that would begin the desktop publishing revolution, notably through the introduction of the LaserWriter and the associated PageMaker software.[8]

After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar.[9] He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006,[10] making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at seven percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.[11][12]

After difficulties developing a new Mac OS, Apple purchased NeXT in 1996 in order to use NeXTSTEP as the basis for what became Mac OS X.[13] As part of the deal Jobs was named Apple advisor. As Apple floundered, Jobs took control of the company and was named "interim CEO" in 1997, or as he jokingly referred to it, "iCEO". Under his leadership, Apple was saved from near bankruptcy, and became profitable by 1998. [14] [15] Over the next decade, Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad and on the services side, the company's Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store.[16] The enormous success of these products and services, providing years of stable financial returns, propelled Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.[17] The reinvigoration of the company is regarded as one of the greatest business turnaround stories in history.[18][19][20]

In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Though it was initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance, underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined.[21] On medical leave for most of 2011, Jobs resigned as Apple CEO in August that year and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died of respiratory arrest related to his metastatic tumor on October 5, 2011. He continues to receive honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries.

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Early life and education

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on 24 February 1955, to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian born Abdulfattah "John" Jandali (Arabic: عبدالفتاح جندلي‎), who were both unmarried at the time.[22] Jandali who was teaching in Wisconsin when Steve was born in 1955, said he had no choice but to put the baby up for adoption because his girlfriend's family objected to their relationship.[23] He was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986). Clara's maiden name was Hagopian.[24] When asked about his "adoptive parents," Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs "were my parents."[25] He later stated in his authorized biography that they "were my parents 1,000%."[26] His biological parents subsequently married (December 1955), had a second child Mona Simpson in 1957, and divorced in 1962.[26]

The Jobs family moved from San Francisco to Mountain View, California when Steve was five years old.[1][2] Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul Jobs, a machinist for a company that made lasers, taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.[1] Clara was an accountant[25] who taught him to read before he went to school.[1] Clara Jobs had been a payroll clerk for Varian Associates, one of the first high-tech firms in what became known as Silicon Valley.[27]

Jobs attended Monta Loma Elementary, Mountain View, Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California.[2] He frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.[28] Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,[29] he continued auditing classes at Reed, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.[30] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."[30]

Early career

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Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter, September 1976

In 1974, Jobs took a job as a technician at Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.[31] He traveled to India in mid-1974[32] to visit Neem Karoli Baba[33] at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, an early Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted as Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973.[31] Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Hariakhan Baba. In India, they spent a lot of time on bus rides from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh and back, then up to Himachal Pradesh and back.[31]

Jobs left India after staying for seven months[34] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke,[31] with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.[35][36] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".[37] He also became a serious practitioner of Zen Buddhism, engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US,[38] considered taking up monastic residence, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.[39] He later said that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.[37]

Jobs returned to Atari and was assigned to create a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest in or knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. According to Wozniak, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[40] Wozniak did not learn about the bonus until ten years later, but said that had Jobs told him about it and said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.[41]

Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in 1975.[2] He greatly admired Edwin H. Land, the inventor of instant photography and founder of Polaroid Corporation, and explicitly modeled his own career after that of Land's.[42][43]

Career

Apple Computer

See also: History of Apple

Home of Paul and Clara Jobs, on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California. Steve Jobs formed Apple Computer in its garage with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. Wayne stayed only a short time leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the primary co-founders of the company.

Home of Paul and Clara Jobs, on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California. Steve Jobs formed Apple Computer in its garage with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. Wayne stayed only a short time, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the primary co-founders of the company.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. In 1976, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple computer in the garage of Jobs's parents in order to sell it.[44] They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer Mike Markkula.[45]

In 1978, Apple recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO for what turned out to be several turbulent years. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"[46]

In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa. One year later, Apple employee Jef Raskin invented the Macintosh.[47][48]

The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984". At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium".[49]

Apple logo in 1977, created by Rob Janoff with the rainbow color theme used until 1998.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. Disappointing sales caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley and it eventually became a power struggle between Jobs and Sculley.[50] Jobs kept meetings running past midnight, sent out lengthy faxes, then called new meetings at 7:00 am.[51]

Sculley learned that Jobs—believing Sculley to be "bad for Apple" and the wrong person to lead the company—had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup, and on May 24, 1985, called a board meeting to resolve the matter.[50] Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties as head of the Macintosh division.[52][53] Jobs resigned from Apple five months later[50] and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.[51][54]

In a speech Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, he said being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him; "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." And he added, "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it."[30][55][56]

NeXT Computer

See also: NeXT

A NeXTstation with the original keyboard, mouse and the NeXT MegaPixel monitor

After leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985, with $7 million. A year later, Jobs was running out of money, and with no product on the horizon, he appealed for venture capital. Eventually, he attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot who invested heavily in the company.[57] NeXT workstations were first released in 1990, priced at $9,999. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive by the educational sector for which it was designed.[58] The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on a NeXT computer at CERN.[59]

The revised, second-generation NeXTcube was released in 1990, also. Jobs touted it as the first "interpersonal" computer that would replace the personal computer. With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. "Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionize human communications and groupwork", Jobs told reporters.[60] Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube's magnesium case.[61] This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.[62] The company reported its first profit of $1.03 million in 1994.[57] In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for Web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store,[62] MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

Pixar and Disney

In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.[63]

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, with Jobs credited as executive producer,[64] brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); The Incredibles (2004); Cars (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up (2009); and Toy Story 3 (2010). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.[65]

Steve Jobs on computer graphics

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Steve Jobs on computer graphics. Interview excerpt from 1995.[66]


In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership,[67] and in early 2004, Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract with Disney expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company's stock.[11] Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7 percent, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about one percent of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner — especially that he soured Disney's relationship with Pixar — accelerated Eisner's ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger and also helped oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses from a seat on a special six-person steering committee.[68] Upon Jobs's death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.[69]

Return to Apple

See also: "1998–2005: Return to profitability" in Apple, Inc.

Logo for the Think Different campaign designed by TBWA\Chiat\Day and initiated by Jobs after his return to Apple Computer in 1997.

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $427 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996,[70] bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive in September.[71] In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated a number of projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."[72] Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.[73] Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title "iCEO".[74]

Full-length portrait of man about fifty wearing jeans and a black turtleneck shirt, standing in front of a dark curtain with a white Apple logo

Jobs on stage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that "real artists ship".[75]

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences. In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker.[30] The banner read "Steve, don't be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste".

In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.[76]

Resignation

In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, but remained with the company as chairman of the company's board.[77][78] Hours after the announcement, Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares dropped five percent in after-hours trading.[79] This relatively small drop, when considering the importance of Jobs to Apple, was associated with the fact that his health had been in the news for several years, and he had been on medical leave since January 2011.[80] It was believed, according to Forbes, that the impact would be felt in a negative way beyond Apple, including at The Walt Disney Company where Jobs served as director.[81] In after-hours trading on the day of the announcement, Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares dropped 1.5 percent.[82]

Business life

Wealth

Jobs earned only $1 a year as CEO of Apple,[83] but held 5.426 million Apple shares, as well as 138 million shares in Disney (which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar).[84] Jobs quipped that the $1 per annum he was paid by Apple was based on attending one meeting for 50 cents while the other 50 cents was based on his performance.[85] Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010, making him the 42nd wealthiest American.[86]

Stock options backdating issue

Two men in their fifties shown full length sitting in red leather chairs smiling at each other

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in 2007

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,[87] though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.[88]

On July 1, 2008, a $7-billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.[89][90]

Management style

Jobs was a demanding perfectionist[91][92] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style.

He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky:

There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.[93]

Much was made of Jobs's aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he was "considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs".[94] Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Michael Moritz's The Little Kingdom, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon. In 1993, Jobs made Fortune's list of America's Toughest Bosses in regard to his leadership of NeXT.

NeXT Cofounder Dan'l Lewin was quoted in Fortune as saying of that period, "The highs were unbelievable ... But the lows were unimaginable", to which Jobs's office replied that his personality had changed since then.[95]

In 2005, Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.[96] In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."[97] Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France", alluding to Jobs's compelling and larger-than-life persona.[98] Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.[99]

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987 when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes".[100] On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he ran then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."[101] In 2006, Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.[102]

Jobs was also a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.[103]

Inventions and designs

His design sense was greatly influenced by the Buddhism which he experienced in India while on a seven-month spiritual journey.[104] His sense of intuition was also influenced by the spiritual people with whom he studied.[104]

As of October 9, 2011 (2011 -10-09)[update], Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 342 United States patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages. Most of these are design patents (specific product designs) as opposed to utility patents (inventions).[105][106] He has 43 issued US patents on inventions.[107] The patent on the Mac OS X Dock user interface with "magnification" feature was issued the day before he died.[108]

Philanthropy

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek magazine stated that "Jobs isn't widely known for his association with philanthropic causes", compared to Bill Gates's efforts.[109] Jobs said (in 1985) that he does charitable acts privately.[110] After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs initially.[111] Later, under Jobs, Apple signed to participate in Product Red program, producing red versions of devices to give profits from sales to charity. Apple has gone on to become the single largest contributor to the charity since its initial involvement with it. The chief of the Product Red project, singer Bono cited Jobs saying there was "nothing better than the chance to save lives," when he initially approached Apple with the invitation to participate in the program.[112]

Personal life

Jobs's birth parents met at the University of Wisconsin. Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a Syrian Muslim,[113] taught there. Joanne Carole Schieble was his student; they were the same age because Jandali had "gotten his PhD really young." [114][115][116] Schieble had a career as a speech language pathologist. Jandali taught political science at the University of Nevada in the 1960s, and then made his career in the food and beverage industry, and since 2006, has been a vice president at a casino in Reno, Nevada.[117][118] In December 1955, ten months after giving up their baby boy, Schieble and Jandali married. In 1957, they had a daughter Mona together. They divorced in 1962, and Jandali lost touch with his daughter.[119] Her mother remarried and had Mona take the surname of her stepfather, so she became known as Mona Simpson.[115]

In the 1980s, Jobs found his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, who told him he had a biological sister, Mona Simpson. They met for the first time in 1985[119] and became close friends. The siblings kept their relationship secret until 1986, when Mona introduced him at a party for her first book.[25]

After deciding to search for their father, Simpson found Jandali managing a coffee shop. Without knowing who his son had become, Jandali told Mona that he had previously managed a popular restaurant in the Silicon Valley where "Even Steve Jobs used to eat there. Yeah, he was a great tipper." In a taped interview with his biographer Walter Isaacson, aired on 60 Minutes,[120] Jobs said: "When I was looking for my biological mother, obviously, you know, I was looking for my biological father at the same time, and I learned a little bit about him and I didn't like what I learned. I asked her to not tell him that we ever met...not tell him anything about me."[121] Jobs was in occasional touch with his mother Joanne Simpson,[111][122] who lives in a nursing home in Los Angeles.[115] When speaking about his biological parents, Jobs stated: "They were my sperm and egg bank. That's not harsh, it's just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more."[26] Jandali stated in an interview with the The Sun in August 2011, that his efforts to contact Jobs were unsuccessful. Jandali mailed in his medical history after Jobs's pancreatic disorder was made public that year.[123][124][125]

In her eulogy to Jobs at his memorial service, Mona Simpson stated:

I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I'd met my father, I tried to believe he'd changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people. Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.[119]

Jobs's first child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, was born in 1978, the daughter of his longtime partner Chris Ann Brennan, a Bay Area painter.[111] For two years, she raised their daughter on welfare while Jobs denied paternity by claiming he was sterile; he later acknowledged Lisa as his daughter.[111] Jobs later married Laurene Powell on March 18, 1991, in a ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Presiding over the wedding was Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen Buddhist monk. Their son, Reed, was born September 1991, followed by daughters Erin in August 1995, and Eve in 1998.[126] The family lives in Palo Alto, California.[127]

Shoulder-high portrait of two middle aged men, the one on left wearing a blue dress shirt and suitcoat, the one on right wearing a black turtleneck shirt and with his glasses pushed back onto his head and holding a phone facing them with an Apple logo visible on its back

Jobs demonstrating the iPhone 4 to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on June 23, 2010

In the unauthorized biography, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez. Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she "believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan" (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). In another unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time (41) meant it was unlikely the couple could have children.

Jobs was also a fan of The Beatles. He referred to them on multiple occasions at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. When asked about his business model on 60 Minutes, he replied:

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people.[128]

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 singer Bono. Jobs never moved in.[129][130]

In 1984, Jobs purchased the Jackling House, a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2), 14-bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California. Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for almost ten years. According to reports, he kept a 1966 BMW R60/2 motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. From the early 1990s, Jobs lived in a house in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood of Palo Alto. President Clinton dined with Jobs and 14 Silicon Valley CEOs there on August 7, 1996, at a meal catered by Greens Restaurant.[131][132] Clinton returned the favor and Jobs, who was a Democratic donor, slept in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House.[133]

Jobs allowed Jackling House to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007, Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.[134] The court decision was overturned on appeal in March 2010, and the mansion was demolished beginning in February 2011.[135]

Jobs usually wore a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by Issey Miyake (that was sometimes reported to be made by St. Croix), Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers.[136][137] Jobs told Walter Isaacson "...he came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style." [138] He was a pescetarian.[139]

Jobs's car was a silver Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG, which did not display its license plates, as he took advantage of a California law which gives a maximum of six months for new vehicles to receive plates; Jobs leased a new SL every six months.[140]

In a 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed at one point he met with U.S. President Barack Obama, complained of the nation's shortage of software engineers, and told Mr. Obama that he was "headed for a one-term presidency." Jobs proposed that any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a U.S. university should automatically be offered a green card. After the meeting, Jobs commented, "The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can't get done.... It infuriates me." [141]

Jobs contributed to a number of political candidates and causes during his life, giving $209,000 to Democrats, $19,000 to associated special interests and $1,000 to a Republican.[142]

Health issues

Jobs addressing concerns about his health in 2008.

In October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer,[143] and in mid-2004, he announced to his employees that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.[144] The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor;[145] Jobs stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.[144] Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for mainstream medical intervention for nine months,[111] instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet in an attempt to thwart the disease. According to Harvard researcher Dr. Ramzi Amir, his choice of alternative treatment "led to an unnecessarily early death".[143] According to Jobs's biographer, Walter Isaacson, "for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined."[146] "Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004."[147] He eventually underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004, that appeared to successfully remove the tumor.[148][149][150] Jobs apparently did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.[144][151] During Jobs's absence, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.[144]

In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His "thin, almost gaunt" appearance and unusually "listless" delivery,[152][153] together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and Internet speculation about his health.[154] In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) attendees who saw Jobs in person said he "looked fine".[155] Following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."[156]

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs's 2008 WWDC keynote address.[157] Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a "common bug" and was taking antibiotics,[158] while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure.[151] During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Jobs's health by insisting that it was a "private matter". Others, however, voiced the opinion that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs's hands-on approach to running his company.[159][160] The New York Times published an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that "While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug', they weren't life-threatening and he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer."[161]

On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure's death.) Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it,[162] intensifying rumors concerning Jobs's health.[163] Jobs responded at Apple's September 2008 Let's Rock keynote by quoting Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."[164] At a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading "110/70", referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.[165]

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company's final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs's health.[166][167] In a statement given on January 5, 2009, on Apple.com,[168] Jobs said that he had been suffering from a "hormone imbalance" for several months.[169]

On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought", and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009, to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who previously acted as CEO in Jobs's 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple,[170] with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions."[170]

In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.[171][172] Jobs's prognosis was described as "excellent".[171]

On January 17, 2011, a year and a half after Jobs returned from his liver transplant, Apple announced that he had been granted a medical leave of absence. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees, stating his decision was made "so he could focus on his health". As during his 2009 medical leave, Apple announced that Tim Cook would run day-to-day operations and that Jobs would continue to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company.[173][174] Despite the leave, he made appearances at the iPad 2 launch event (March 2), the WWDC keynote introducing iCloud (June 6), and before the Cupertino city council (June 7).[175]

Jobs announced his resignation as Apple's CEO on August 24, 2011. "Unfortunately, that day has come," wrote Jobs, for he could "no longer meet [his] duties and expectations as Apple's CEO". Jobs became chairman of the board and named Tim Cook his successor.[176][177] Jobs had worked for Apple until the day before his death.[178]

Death

Flags flying at half-staff outside Apple HQ in Cupertino, on the evening of Steve Jobs's death.

Memorial candles and iPads to Steve Jobs outside the Apple Store in Palo Alto California shortly after his death

Jobs died at his California home around 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer,[2][179][180] resulting in respiratory arrest.[181] He had lost consciousness the day before, and died with his wife, children and sister at his side.[182]

His death was announced by Apple in a statement which read:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.[183]

Jobs is survived by Laurene, his wife of 20 years, their three children, and Lisa Brennan-Jobs, his daughter from a previous relationship.[184] His family released a statement saying that he "died peacefully".[185][186]

According to Simpson, Jobs "looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life's partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them". His last words, spoken hours before his death, were:

"Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."[119]

For two weeks following his death, Apple's corporate Web site displayed a simple page, showing Jobs's name and lifespan next to his grayscale portrait.[187] Clicking on the image led to an obituary, which read:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.[187]

Also dedicating its homepage to Jobs was Pixar, with a photo of Jobs, John Lasseter and Edwin Catmull, and the eulogy they wrote:[188]

Steve was an extraordinary visionary, our very dear friend, and our guiding light of the Pixar family. He saw the potential of what Pixar could be before the rest of us, and beyond what anyone ever imagined. Steve took a chance on us and believed in our crazy dream of making computer animated films; the one thing he always said was to 'make it great.' He is why Pixar turned out the way we did and his strength, integrity, and love of life has made us all better people. He will forever be part of Pixar's DNA. Our hearts go out to his wife Laurene and their children during this incredibly difficult time.[188]

An email address was also posted for the public to share their memories, condolences, and thoughts.[189][190] Over a million tributes were sent, which are now displayed on the Steve Jobs memorial page.

Shortly after his death was announced, ABC, CBS, and NBC interrupted scheduled programming to broadcast this news.[191] Numerous newspapers around the world carried news of his death on their front pages the next day. Several notable people, including US President Barack Obama,[192] British Prime Minister David Cameron,[193] Microsoft founder Bill Gates,[194] and The Walt Disney Company's Bob Iger commented on the death of Jobs. Wired News collected reactions and posted them in tribute on their homepage.[195] Other statements of condolence were made by many of Jobs's friends and colleagues, such as Steve Wozniak and George Lucas.[196][197]

A small private funeral was held on October 7, 2011, of which details were not revealed out of respect to Jobs's family.[198] Apple announced on the same day that they had no plans for a public service, but were encouraging "well-wishers" to send their remembrance messages to an email address created to receive such messages.[199] Sunday, October 16, 2011, was declared "Steve Jobs Day" by Governor Jerry Brown of California.[200] On that day, an invitation-only memorial was held at Stanford University. Those in attendance include Apple and other tech company executives, members of the media, celebrities, close friends of Jobs, and politicians, along with Jobs's family. Bono, Yo Yo Ma, and Joan Baez performed at the service, which lasted longer than an hour. The service was highly secured, with guards at all of the university's gates, and a helicopter flying overhead from an area news station.[201][202]

Both Apple and Microsoft flew their flags at half-staff throughout their respective headquarters and campuses.[203][204] Bob Iger ordered all Disney properties, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland, to fly their flags at half-staff, from October 6 to 12, 2011.[205]

A private memorial service for Apple employees was held on October 19, 2011, on the Apple Campus in Cupertino. Present were Cook, Bill Campbell, Norah Jones, Al Gore, and Coldplay, and Jobs's widow, Laurene, was in attendance. Some of Apple's retail stores closed briefly so employees could attend the memorial. A video of the service is available on Apple's website.[206]

Jobs is buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only non-denominational cemetery in Palo Alto.[207][208]

Major media published commemorative works. Time published a commemorative issue for Jobs on October 8, 2011. The issues cover featured a portrait of Jobs, taken by Norman Seeff, in which he is sitting in the lotus position holding the original Macintosh computer, first published in Rolling Stone in January 1984. The issue marked the eighth time Jobs has been featured on the cover of Time.[209] The issue included a photographic essay by Diana Walker, a retrospective on Apple by Harry McCracken and Lev Grossman, and a six-page essay by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson's essay served as a preview of his biography, Steve Jobs.[210]

Bloomberg Businessweek also published a commemorative issue. The cover of the magazine features Apple-style simplicity, with a black-and-white, up-close photo of Jobs and his years of birth and death. The issue was published without advertisements. It featured extensive essays by Steve Jurvetson, John Sculley, Sean Wisely, William Gibson, and Walter Isaacson.

Free software pioneer Richard Stallman dissented from the prevailing hagiographic views of Jobs to draw attention to the tight corporate control Apple exercised over consumer computers and handheld devices, how Apple restricted news reporters, and persistently violated privacy: "Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died".[211][212] Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker asserted that "Jobs's sensibility was editorial, not inventive. His gift lay in taking what was in front of him ... and ruthlessly refining it."[213]

Although reporters wrote glowing elegies after Jobs died, Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey reported that they "came courtesy of reporters who—after deadline and off the record—would tell stories about a company obsessed with secrecy to the point of paranoia. They remind us how Apple shut down a youthful fanboy blogger, punished a publisher that dared to print an unauthorized Jobs biography and repeatedly ran afoul of the most basic tenets of a free press."[214]

Apple "has taken stances that, in my opinion, are outright hostile to the practice of journalism," said longtime Silicon Valley reporter Dan Gillmor.[214] Under Jobs, Apple sued three "small fry" bloggers who reported tips about the company and its unreleased products and tried to use the courts to force them to reveal their sources. Under Jobs, Apple even sued a teenager, Nicholas Ciarelli, who wrote enthusiastic speculation about Apple products beginning at age 13. His popular blog, ThinkSecret, was a play on Apple's slogan "Think Different." [214] Rainey wrote that Apple wanted to kill ThinkSecret as "It thought any leaks, even favorable ones, diluted the punch of its highly choreographed product launches with Jobs, in his iconic jeans and mock turtleneck outfit, as the star." [214]

Honors and public recognition

Jobs presenting iPhone OS (now iOS) 2 at WWDC 2008.

After Apple's founding, Jobs became a symbol of his company and industry. When Time named the computer as the 1982 "Machine of the Year", the magazine published a long profile of Jobs as "the most famous maestro of the micro".[215][216]

Jobs was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, with Steve Wozniak (among the first people to ever receive the honor),[217] and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (also known as the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987.[218] On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune magazine.[219] On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.[220]

In August 2009, Jobs was selected as the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers in a survey by Junior Achievement,[221] having previously been named Entrepreneur of the Decade 20 years earlier in 1989, by Inc. magazine.[222] On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune magazine.[223]

In November 2010, Jobs was ranked No.17 on Forbes: The World's Most Powerful People.[224] In December 2010, the Financial Times named Jobs its person of the year for 2010, ending its essay [225] by stating, "In his autobiography, John Sculley, the former PepsiCo executive who once ran Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man he had pushed out: 'Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.'".[226] The Financial Times closed by rhetorically asking of this quote, "How wrong can you be."[225]

At the time of his resignation, and again after his death, Jobs was widely described as a visionary, pioneer and genius[227][228][229][230]—perhaps one of the foremost—in the field of business,[223][231] innovation,[232] and product design,[233] and a man who had profoundly changed the face of the modern world,[227][229][232] revolutionized at least six different industries,[228] and who was an "exemplar for all chief executives".[228] His death was widely mourned[234] and considered a loss to the world by commentators across the globe.[230]

After his resignation as Apple's CEO, Jobs was characterized as the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of his time.[235][236] In his The Daily Show eulogy, Jon Stewart said that unlike others of Jobs's ilk, such as Thomas Edison or Henry Ford, Jobs died young. He felt that we had, in a sense, "wrung everything out of" these other men, but his feeling on Jobs was that "we're not done with you yet."[237]

Statue of Jobs at Graphisoft Park, Budapest[238]

On December 21, 2011, Graphisoft company in Budapest presented the world's first bronze statue of Steve Jobs, calling him one of the greatest personalities of the modern age.[238]

On February 12, 2012, Jobs was posthumously awarded the Grammy Trustees Award, an award for those who have influenced the music industry in areas unrelated to performance.[239]

Reality distortion field

Main article: Reality distortion field

Apple's Bud Tribble coined the term "reality distortion field" in 1981, to describe Jobs' charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Macintosh project.[240] Tribble claimed that the term came from Star Trek.[240] Since then the term has also been used to refer to perceptions of Jobs' keynote speeches.[241]

The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld to be Steve Jobs' ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything, using a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement, and persistence. Although the subject of criticism, Jobs' so-called reality distortion field was also recognized as creating a sense that the impossible was possible. Once the term became widely known, it was often used in the technology press to describe Jobs' sway over the public, particuarly regarding new product announcements.

Why We Mourn Steve Jobs

It is a strange thing to mourn the death of the chairman of one the most profitable companies in the world. But we do.
Steve Jobs believed in more for everyone: more money for him and his shareholders, more power through personal technology for the people. He was the white wizard in the black turtleneck holding the forces of decline at bay. Apple enjoyed one of the greatest runs in the history of industry right into and through the teeth of the worst economic times since the Great Depression. Steve Jobs was hope backed by manufacturing and an empowering outlook on life, a child of the grooviness and bigthink of the 1970s married to the drive of the 1980s.
So, as Occupy Wall Streeters and Tea Partiers cry in outrage that the American system is crumbling under corporate influence, many sympathetic to their causes pause and note the passing of a businessman.
Jobs created objects of prestige that induced envy because they could change your everyday life. But then, like Henry Ford before him, Jobs quickly pushed those objects down the socioeconomic pyramid. What was once only for the rich would be for everyone. Just wait. The great forces of technology and industry were working to make it so! It is appropriate that a version of his defining invention, the iPhone, will be free (with a contract) soon.
At the same time, Jobs the man embodied a new way to think about work, countercultured in the petri dish of the Bay Area in the 1970s. The point of work was not to create glory for the country. The point of work was not to advance slowly up the corporate ranks until you got a watch and a retirement party. No, the point of work was self-fulfillment. Your job should provide nothing less than the completion of yourself. You should do what you love, Jobs urged in his famous 2005 Stanford commencement speech. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life," he urged the students. And yet to produce Apple products requires that thousands of workers flawlessly execute Jobs' business plans, which is to say his life.
We mourn his death as if he were a beloved state leader precisely because he embodied some glorious piece of what it is to be American with all our contradictions. He was an exception to nearly every rule, went off nearly every chart, overrode any sense of purpose but his own. We could not have a society filled with Steve Jobses, yet we could all want to be Steve Jobs (even and especially people who are not American). But for most of us, the occasional glimpse of our better selves in the reflection of an iPad is enough.
Nothing was never enough for Steve Jobs.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this wonderful page about Steve Jobs, the great entrepreneur who changed the world.

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