Steve Jobs obituary

SteveJobs has died at the age of 56. Jobs was the charismatic mastermindbehind Apple. With his leadership, the company went from a startup inhis parents' garage to the highest-valued company in the world,introducing the idea that technology can be an object of desire.

@techradar - RIP Steve Jobs - You made the world a more interesting place. A leading light in technology has been extinguished

Jobs'career began when he dropped out of Reed College on Oregon after ayear, choosing instead to drop in on other classes at the campus. Onewas calligraphy. "It was beautiful, historical, artisticallysubtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found itfascinating,"

Adecade later that course influenced his work on the Macintosh, whichintroduced beautiful typography to a computer for the first time."And since Windows just copied the Mac," he laterexplained, "it's likely that [without this] no personal computerwould have them."

@simonwalton - You don't have to be an Apple fan to appreciate just how much Jobs shaped our world. What a genius he was.

Jobs'intuition for balancing technology and art would become thecornerstone of Apple's game plan, but his business savvy and salesability would also pave his way to a rare fortune.

Oneexample was in 1975. A 20-year-old Jobs was working for Atari,building a reputation for getting things done.

@stephenfry - Woke to the news of Steve Jobs's death. He changed the world. I knew him a little and admired him entirely. Love to Apple and his family.

Bossesoffered Steve a huge bonus if he could improve their flagship arcadegame, Breakout.Jobs turned to his geeky friend Steve 'Woz' Wozniak, offering halfthe $700 fee if he could complete it in four days.

Applebegan one year later, when Jobs found Woz building his own computer.He saw potential in the relatively small prototype, and suggestedthey go into business -- Woz as product designer, Jobs as salesman.

Everythingwas perfect; they were young, talented and living in Silicon Valleyat just the right time. Computers were set to become the mostprofitable industry in the world. After one year they brought theirflagship computer to market: the Apple II. It made them rich.

@xeonwales - Mac changed computers. iPod changed music. iPhone changed mobile phones. Pixar changed movies . Jobs changed the world. #RIPSteveJobs

"Fromalmost the beginning at Apple we were, for some incredibly luckyreason, fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time,"he told the Smithsonian. "The contributions we tried to makeembodied values not only of technical excellence and innovation --which I think we did our share of -- but innovation of a morehumanistic kind."

Jobsbecame a superstar in the 80s, but with the growing pressure ofrunning a global business, he needed help. He turned to Pepsi bossJohn Sculley in 1983, famously asking, "Do you want to sellsugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with meand change the world?"

@VINNYGUADAGNINO - Everybody put an iPhone up in the air one time #ripstevejobs

Sculleyaccepted, but the relationship soured. Jobs was fired.

Beingkicked out of the company he founded and lived for most of his adultlife left him devastated.

ButJobs later admitted it was the best thing that ever happened to him.The weight of Apple's vast success had begun to starve hiscreativity, and being fired let him appreciate being a beginneragain.

Duringthis time he founded Pixar, which made the first ever computeranimated film, ToyStory -- a genuine classic. When Disney bought thecompany for $7.4bn in 2006, Jobs became Disney's largest singleshareholder.

Atthe same time, Jobs also ventured back into computing with a newcompany, NeXT. It built an operating system and Jobs later sold it tohis old friends at Apple, who renamed it OS X.

@TNADixie - Saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Jobs. A true visionary and leader. It's amazing how one person's ideas truly changed our lives.

ButApple had begun to flounder without its original visionary, and Jobsreturned to lead it in 1997.

Fromthat point on, every leading Apple product was given at least onekiller feature to separate it from the copycat industry that wouldsurround it.

Thefirst iMac was a stylish jab at the beige computers of the day, witha striking range of colours. Jony Ive's refreshing design became athing of mainstream technology lust -- you didn't need to be a geekto love computers any more.

Thenthe iPod and iTunes brought about a revolution in the music industry.In fact, it was so much more than just music -- it opened the door todigital products being a normal thing to buy.

TheiPhone would be Apple's greatest coup. It brought touchscreen phonesto the mainstream and Apple became a leading player in the mobilephone industry, out of nowhere. Suddenly, Apple could do anything.

TheiPad could be the culmination of Jobs' genius. The product had beenplanned for decades: thisconcept video isfrom 1987. It shows how Apple wanted to produce a tablet with whatwould become FaceTime and Siri two decades ago, predicting it wouldbe available in September 2011. 

"Mymodel for business is The Beatles," Jobssaid in 2003."There were four guys who kept each others', kind of, negativetendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total wasgreater than the sum of the parts. And that's how I see business. Youknow, great things in business are never done by one person. They'redone by a team of people."

Awayfrom his work, Jobs was a family man, married in 1991 to LaurenePowell. After stepping down from Apple after his third medical leavein August this year, with TimCook takinghis seat as CEO, a neighbour described his son's high schoolgraduation.

"ThereSteve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide andproud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his ownbright future, leaving behind a good man and a good father who can besure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy ofall."

Jobs'greatest words could be from that Stanford University speech he madein 2005.

"Sometimeslife hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith... Your workis going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to betruly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the onlyway to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found ityet, keep looking. Don't settle.

"Aswith all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And,like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as theyears roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

"Stayhungry. Stay foolish."

SteveJobs, 1955-2011

Original posted at Cnet UK