The Apple co-founder who inspired the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He stepped down as Apple chief executive in August.
Flags outside Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, flew at half mast as mourners gathered on a nearby lawn, where fans left flowers and a man played the bagpipes.
In New York City, an impromptu memorial made from fliers featuring pictures of Jobs was erected outside a 24-hour Apple store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, with fans snapping photos of it on their iPhones.
"As soon as I heard the news, I came out to this Apple store to pay my respects," said business professor Gary Hamel. "I saw tears in some people's eyes."
Grieving fans all over the world left flowers, notes and apples with a bite taken out, just like the Apple logo -- instantly recognisable despite being one of the few top brand logos that does not feature the company's name.
History:
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)[5][6][7] was an American computer entrepreneur and inventor. He was co-founder,[8] chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.[9][10] Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer.[11]
In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula[8] and others designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. 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 Macintosh.[12][13] After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985,[14][15] Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platformdevelopment company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011.
In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off asPixar Animation Studios.[16] He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006.[17] Consequently Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7 percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.[18][19] On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple's CEO.
