he iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and the tiny, but ubiquitous, apple – it was him. Steve Jobs, the man who gave the world some of the most popular technology gadgets of the start of the 21st century, passed away on Wednesday aged 56. The co-founder and long-time leader of Apple Inc. had stepped down as the company’s CEO in August after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
“We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” Apple’s board of directors said in a statement. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives.”
In an email to all employees, Tim Cook, who took over from Jobs at the head of Apple, said the company had “lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. […] Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”
How will Apple fare without the Steve Jobs 'magic'?
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By FRANCE 24
Jobs’s family expressed their sadness in a separate statement: “Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family. In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family.” The family also said a website would be provided for tributes and memories.
Apple’s inspirational leader counted legions of followers, as well as numerous detractors who criticised his obsession with secrecy and control. But all agreed that he had become the most emblematic figure of technological innovation of the past three decades.
The trouble maker
Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco and co-founded Apple with lifelong friend Steven Wozniak in 1976. At the helm of the company Jobs found immense wealth and recognition. In a 2009 issue, US magazine Fortune named him “CEO of the decade”.
But the tributes that poured out from across the globe on the announcement of his passing would have been difficult to imagine in the 1960s. Adopted shortly after birth by the Jobs family, the boy was not a model pupil.
"We set off explosives in teacher's desks. We got kicked out of school a lot," recalled Jobs in an interview with the Smithsonian Institution in 1995.
Never a fan of school, Jobs quickly turned to computers. Not far from his home in Palo Alto, California, he took up his first summer internship at the headquarters of computer giant Hewlett Packard, where he befriended Wozniak.
While completely immersed in the world of computers, Jobs managed to enroll at Reed College, a small, liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon. He began attending classes in 1972, but dropped out after one semester. He remained around Reed for a few months and sat in some poetry and calligraphy classes, but his mind and heart were elsewhere: the area in California that would become known to the world as Silicon Valley.
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