This news has me really choked up. I know Steve Jobs as the billionaire founder of Apple, but once I started reading the tributes to him, I started to understand how he was so much more to so many of us. Jobs passed away yesterday at the age 56 after seven year battle with pancreatic cancer. He had just resigned as CEO of Apple a month ago. He leaves behind a wife and four children, along with a incredible legacy of forever changing the way we are entertained and connected to each other.
Of all the articles I read about Jobs’ passing, I liked this one the most. I never realized how instrumental he was in starting Pixar, which has transformed the movie industry and produced some of the best children’s films of all time.
Apple founder, former Pixar chief and Disney Board of Directors member Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday, with Disney CEO Bob Iger releasing a statement soon after his passing:
“Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor. His legacy will extend far beyond the products he created or the businesses he built. It will be the millions of people he inspired, the lives he changed, and the culture he defined. Steve was such an ‘original,’ with a thoroughly creative, imaginative mind that defined an era. Despite all he accomplished, it feels like he was just getting started. With his passing the world has lost a rare original, Disney has lost a member of our family, and I have lost a great friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Laurene and his children during this difficult time.”
Jobs’ affiliation with Disney comes from his remarkable stewardship of Pixar. In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group, the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm that was spun off on its own. He soon changed the company’s course from hardware producer to animation studio, setting the newly renamed Pixar on course to remake animation history. He was the CEO from the beginning of his run there, and the Chairman of the Board starting in 1991, as well.
After running through a number of short films throughout the 80s and early 90s, the studio released its first game changing animated feature, “Toy Story.” Gorgeously computer animated, it was a runaway hit, spawning not only a franchise — it’s up to three features and multiple short spinoffs — but an animation empire that has won Oscar after Oscar. Now, nearly every successful animated film utilizes computer graphics, with blockbusters such as the “Shrek” series following in Pixar’s foot steps.
In fact, 14 out of the top 15 animated films, in terms of domestic box office earnings, are CGI-based.
Disney bought Pixar outright in 2006, making Jobs a member of the Board of Directors and the company’s largest single shareholder.
“As we approached the end of our relationship with Disney and we looked at our future, we were at a fork in the road,” he said when Disney bought the innovative studio. “Disney is the only company with animation in their DNA.”
Director Steven Spielberg added a statement about the passing, saying, “Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips.”
His contributions, of course, are even more impressive in the field of how we consume media. The news of Jobs’ passing spread instantly thanks in large part to smart phones, the most popular of which being the iPhone. A sweet irony for the innovative legend, whose vision pushed technology and communications forward in leaps and bounds over the past thirty years.
When those phones finish texting, tweeting and calling with the news, they’ll go back to their other, groundbreaking uses: playing music, streaming podcasts and watching TV shows and movies. In short, Jobs helped reshape the way we take in entertainment, creating a mobile audience that forced entertainment executives to entirely rethink their production and distribution strategies.
[From Huffington Post]
That last paragraph summed it all up for me. I love my iPad and my iPod and although I still use a PC for computing I’m so close to switching to a Mac. The iPad is something that I can’t imagine living without, and I’ve had mine for less than a year. This man changed our lives.
Apple has put up a tribute to Jobs on their website. Like everything else this company does, it’s deceptively simple, to-the-point, and so powerful. Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for all you’ve given us.
Paxar’s Edwin Catmull (Then Executive VP, CTO, current President), Steve Jobs (Then Chairman and CEO) and John Lasseter (Then VP, Creative, now C0O) in a 2005 promotional photo. Credit: WENN.com
One of the greatest entrepreneur.
Rest In Peace !
Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs.
So sad 🙁
He’s a visionary and so ahead of his time.
Thank you, Mr. Jobs.
RIP, Mr. Jobs, you have changed our lives. Thank you.
Waving my iPhone 4 in air… Thank your Mr.Jobs
He truely was the Thomas Edison of our time. Just ask the people that worked with him.
Love to his family and friends.
Very, very sad. I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer a few years ago, only 5% of people with it will live for more than 5 years. It’s very upsetting that even though Mr Jobs could afford to try all the experimental treatments and have a liver transplant, it still wasn’t enough to stop the cancer spreading and beat this horrible disease. So so sad.
This is so sad. I’m actually, personally sad about this. Not only did he change my life for the better with Apple and Pixar, but he was really a true inventor. He had so much left to give and just not enough time to give it. Rest in Peace, and my sincere condolences to his family, friends, and loved ones.
I’ve never been able to afford a Mac, but I’ve always had a great respect and admiration for his mind,and all of his creations. I hope there will be someone else able to think different. RIP.
What has fazed me most about this news is the number of people who’ve commented on it by saying, “Well I don’t have an iPod, so NYER!” as though not buying Apple products somehow makes you better than other people. The guy died, no-one cares if you prefer PCs.
Oh no :((((
Knew it was a matter of time when we saw the pictures of him when he stepped down from Apple, but is still sad. He was a real character.
Sad when a brilliant mind leaves us at a young age. Just imagine all the gadgets he would have created in the next ten years if he were still with us. Gone too soon.
I’d mostly credit him with helping launch the home computing era, putting a graphical user interface on computers and enabling Pixar to become what it is.
iPod, iTunes, etc. were just inventions whose time was ripe and could have come from other corners – he just harnessed them first for his company which, sadly, has developed many ugly traits of a monopoly at this point.
This made me so sad. He was a great man. May he rest in peace.
This is one of the most profound commencement speeches ever
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
and especially this part –
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Steve Jobs, at Stanford, 2005
iGrieve.
iPad fist-bump 🙁
Seriously, I don’t know an Ipad from a sanitary pad, or an Ipod from a pea pod. I know zilch about all these new gadgets, technology, etc. Never owned a single Apple product in my life or seen one other than on t.v. or the net.
But I look all around me and hear all the tributes, and I know without a doubt that this man has touched so many lives, and forever changed the way we communicate. Pancreatic cancer is a brutal taskmaster, and for him to have survived it for eight years is also a measurement of his inner strength.
Thank you Steve for changing our lives, and may he rest in peace.
so, so sad. a true innovator. he will be remembered with the likes of edison…thanks for everything, mr. jobs.
We are grieving. Our lives will never be the same. A brilliant mind, lost too soon, to cancer. iSad.
Rest in peace, dear man.
:*(
R.I.P Steve Jobs. You will be missed. You did some amazing things.
That’s really sad.
He certainly made a huge impact with the little time he was given though.
RIP, and thanks for all you’ve left behind.
The good thing is (if there is a good thing) that he accomplished more than most companies accomplish and his ideas (that are already patented) will continue.
The bad thing: he died so young.
@Jo
oh it is so very sad when he talks about death, thinking he was cured from cancer, and even mentions how he didnt want to face it again for decades. I have all respect for him for being such an amazing and original man. RIP.
Bin crying all morning… I love super computer geeks :-(! And I dont even have an i-anything. I just thought he was brilliant. RIP.
Younger people think of iPhones and the App Store, which have indeed changed the world, but the most amazing part is that Jobs was already changing the world 3 decades ago. If you have used a WYSIWYG editor with proportional fonts, like Microsoft Word, Steve Jobs has touched your life.
He had a towering intellect (and the ego to go with it!), and expressed his vision with unbelievable clarity. I’m sad he’s gone, but also glad he seized his destiny so young. He’s left an immense legacy.
So sad, but not surprising. It’s hard to quantify the true impact Steve Jobs had on the world in his short life. What an incredible mind and vision he had, really he was a shining star and a rare person in this universe.
May he rest in peace. That man has carried Apple and gave it a brand with the technology he created.
He will be missed.
I’ve been using apple products for years and Steve Jobs truly was a revolutionary. My sister moped into my room this morning clutching her iPad. People are talking about it in the office and even my dad who is the furthest from tech savvy was sad about the news. This is the impact he had. He was taken far too soon.
p.s. buy the mac! Make the investment, I got my first mac book in 2006…guess what it still works fine and never had a virus. My first PC didn’t even last half that amount of time.
Yes, buy the Mac! I have been using them since the 80’s. (Wish I bought stock back then!) Every device and computer we have and have had is an apple. From the first iphone, and ipod, the Apple 128K-that was the first one I ever used. Never used a PC other than for work.
Hubby in the music industry-all Mac. Tear for Fears ran the last several tours for years on just two Macs. As do most acts. Amazing computers and gadgets.
But a more amazing man and visionary mind in Steve Jobs. He will be missed sorely and I hope Apple continues innovating, but it’s a big loss. He left the company once before and they didn’t have their breakthrough with the iMac until his return. I hope he’s got good peeps lined up.
RIP Steve Jobs!
Not going to lie, I bawled my eyes out when I heard yesterday. He changed the world and shaped the future. We are a Mac household. My husband and I both have iPhones, we have 4 iPods, an iPad, 2 Apple TVs, a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, an iMac and a few dead MacBooks and PowerBooks that my husband can’t throw out. We’ve converted both our mothers and his grandparents He is a programmer and would be lost without his Mac. I’m a stay at home wife and even I’d be lost without my Mac.
The world lost a great mind, inventor, visionary and an amazing person. My heart goes out to his family and all those who knew him. Steve, rest in peace. You will be so dearly missed.
I’m a complete Apple fangirl, currently using an iMac, numerous iPod’s iPhone even my daughter has a Macbook Pro. We were both so sad this morning when we heard the news.
From a non fangirl standpoint – 317 patents in one lifetime ain’t too bad……
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html
On of the greatest minds.. Ever. R.I.P Steve..
A true example of follow your heart, dare to dream, and don’t be afraid of doors closing because you can achieve if you want it.. Just DO IT:). Yes, IPad Fist bump ..
What everybody else has said. Big sad face this morning…
I haven’t been this sad about someone I don’t know dying since Kurt Cobain.
yes, steve jobs was a great visionary, and he changed our media and our entertaiment forever, but even more so: in the times of bill gates, of “grab the money and run, no matter whose idea it is” philosophy, in times when it seems buisness and industry do not tolerate human behaviour, he showed that yes, you can be human, you can fall and get up, and insist on your dreams no matter what all the others say, have a family and a life, and be mega-succesfull.
among many other things, he gave this poor student soul a vision in which you don’t have to be bastard and robot to make it. thank you, steve jobs, for being human, among many, many other great things. rest in peace.
Greatest American inventor since Edison. Perhaps the last great technological visionary, since it seems like there is little left to invent.
I honestly believe I couldn’t have finished my doctoral dissertation without my Mac LC (yes, I’m old). Now I have a MacBookPro, my daughter has a MacBookPro, iPhones, iPods – never had a problem with any of them, ever ever ever, and can’t STAND it when I have to use a PC (at work). Steve Jobs was a massive genius who revolutionized how we interact. RIP. iSad.
Of all the great high tech entrepreneurs of the last 30 years, Steve Jobs did it his way and we are all better off for it. In the world of capitalism and business, there has been no equal. RIP Steve and God bless your family.
Did you know for the longest time Apple only took up 8% of the computer market? They are now the biggest company in the US.
We’ve probably had 5 iphones, 8 ipods, 4 laptops, both pros and books and maybe 9 home computers. Only one had a problem. The rest were just upgrades. And they have amazing service. I can’t say enough about Apple from a 20 year user.
And re-sellable! My last iphone I sold on ebay for what I had bought it for 18 months before to an overseas buyer. I get my new iphone4s in 2 weeks:))))
I know my cancer and it’s amazing he did as much and for as long as he did. He’s created an undying legacy, and was a nice guy to boot.
Definitely isad.
DaVinci
RIP steve
@Dizzybenny,
The thing about visionaries and great minds is that they often too have lots of faults. He by no means contributed perfectly to society. Like you I am not into any of the Apple gadgets at all.
But perhaps now is not the time. After the mourning has passed.
I don’t believe his gadgets made people more selfish, I believe people were becoming more selfish and introverted for various reasons before them (crime, terrorism etc.) and his gadgets tapped into an emotional need in many ways. And even so, at the same time they were very empowering – people can actually do things with his gadgets (start businesses, etc.) whereas before they were just passive consumers.
No human being no matter how great they are should be above critique, and I am sure when the history books are written and all has been said and done they will judge Steve Jobs fairly and accurately.
I feel much more affected by his death than by that of any singer/actor. He’s a man who really made a difference in society and I think we are better for it. Thank you, Mr. Jobs. Rest in peace.
For some reason I’m incredibly sad about this news. I am not a fan of Apple at all (quite frankly I’m QUITE the opposite), but I cannot deny all that he brought to the world of technology. He was a brilliant innovator, and he will be missed terribly.
he invented the first personal computer, so even if you use another brand other than mac, he has affected your life.
i love my mac, i love my ipad, i love my iphone…can’t imagine life without them.
it’s so sad that he’s gone.
everyone should listen to stanford commencement speech. love it. if you’ve never heard it before, click on the link, i’m sure you’ll love it as well….
http://2nd-star-2-the-right.tumblr.com/post/11094037025/i-am-honored-to-be-with-you-today-at-your
Celebitchy, a very nice write up. He was a very innovative and visionary man that’s for sure.
CB, take the plunge. Get an iMac or a Macbook pro. You won’t regret it. I’m quickly amassing an arsenal of Mac equipment and I love it all.
CB, you said it best. This man changed the world. He changed our lives. It is truly a sad day for us all.
It’s really sad when a person so talented, with such vision, is taken so early. His Stanford speech is really wonderful too. F*cking cancer!!
It’s incredible how much one person did in 56 years. RIP Steve. I remember using apple computers in elementary to play Oregon Trail before apple computers were considered hip. He’s come a long way since then.
As someone who is absolutely NOT a fan of any of the popular Apple products, I have to say that I did respect the man and regardless of his career, a man died too young of a stupid senseless disease that has proven time and again that it can (and will) take anyone. My sincere condolences go out to his family and friends.
@lin234: I agree… Oregon Trail rocked!
It’s funny how sad you can feel at a loss such as this when you have never met the person. As I write this on my Mac, I can’t say enough about the vision and the pure creativeness of Steve Jobs…. Blessings upon your family and those who knew you personally Steve, we’re all gonna miss you.
RIP from someone who’s first computer was a Mac.
“in the times of bill gates, of “grab the money and run, no matter whose idea it is” philosophy”
@geekychic: bill gates has donated enormous sums of money to colleges, arts, public television, and all sorts of charities. surely you’ve heard of the gates foundation? i’m by no means a tech person, couldn’t really give a fig about iphones, apple, microsoft, etc. but give credit where it is due.
As neither an apple or a microsoft supporter, as one of the most incredible businessmen of the 21st century he gave virtually nothing to charity? Discuss?…
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/the-mystery-of-steve-jobss-public-giving/
He was truly a genius. A word that I think gets thrown around so much but describes so few.
Sorry he died, but it got me thinking a little. 10 years ago, when I didn’t have a laptop or an iphone or an ipad, I actually read books, and rode my bike, and I was happy and in great shape, and I cooked. Now all I do is stare at screens.
Didnt a bunch of people commit suicide working at Apple in China? I refuse to pay tribute to a person who used slave labor to achieve wealth. I dont care how visionary he was. We need to stop enslaving other people in other nations for material possessions. Big deal what he did. Most w.h.i.t.e.s get cancer anyway,one less. We all want everything free or at a discount from $20 jeans to 1 lbs of strawberries for 99cents, but someone is really paying for it.
He was a Buddhist and a kind person who tried to help others. Bless you Steve Jobs on your journey…
godspeed, steve.
you did so much in such a short amount of time.
thank you.
In time, I believe he’ll be remembered as having been a great man, but I don’t think he’ll be remembered as having been a very good one. He’s done a lot for/to many people and I don’t see a problem with being aware of the whole man. I feel for his family though, pancreatic cancer is a death sentence and a horrible ordeal, but with respect I still don’t think he’s a plausible candidate for an updated Lives Of The Saints.
RIP Steve Jobs .. and when you get to heaven can you make an app for that?
“Big deal what he did”. Congratulations Jacqueline. You’re an asshole and an idiot. I usually make a point to avoid ad hominem insults on this site, but you’ve really earned it. RIP Mr. Jobs. His contributions to culture are inestimable.
It is troubling when the Jennifer Aniston thread gets more comments then the world losing a brilliant man who brought us incredible toys and gadgets.
You will be insanely missed, Mr. Jobs.
@56, Original Kate: the way bill gates made the money in the first place, the number of companies he ruined with unethical bussiness and monopol ( for which Microsoft had a loooong legal battle in europe, at least)… That’s what i have problem with. No one said a word against his charitable work. However, it doesn’t erase other things.
Just wanted to make that clear.
So So sad svoju steve jobs. Liste ed to još stanford speech-very inspiring!
what is wrong with everyone here? does anyone actually know steve jobs biography?
does anyone know that people die while they produce apple products? does anyone know that people kill themselves on the industrial building where they practically live and work because of the circumstances (the highes suicide rate)? producing your ipads and iphones makes them sick so that they are unable to work, unable to pay their living. only because apple wants practically pay nothing for people and earn more money for apple.
you can google these things about foxconn and how steve jobs thinks its totally okay that it happens.
everyone here is like so sad and i get the impression that nobody knows anything about steve jobs. the real work at apple was done by steve wozniak and the people who build the technical devices. not a guy who does just the talking.
whats with the people who find ways to fight deseases, who get into troubled countries to tell us whats up there in the news? that are true heroes.
All steve Jobs and Apple did was take other peoples ideas and products and remarket them, even Steve Jobs admitted that in an interview. I have limited respect for his work or products, also, as a few here have mentioned, the conditions of his workers in China is atrocious. None of these tributes are that accurate, there are many accounts of Steve Jobs being very difficult to work for.
Frankly, the Galaxy tab and a few of the other brands have way better tablets and smart phones out than anything Apple offers.
I do feel for his family though.
@lin234 and @irishserra – I too played Oregon Trail when I was a kid.
I grew up with Mac (that’s all my parents would use at home, my dad had a second PC he had to use for work). When I went to college, I used a blue iMac (from about 12 years ago), and now I’m typing this on a MacBook Air. I will admit, there was about a year that I had a Windows laptop, but I couldn’t afford a Mac. Now, I have an iPod, iPhone, and my MacBook Air.