RIP Steve Jobs Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dies at age 56

by EW staff

Image Credit: Shaun Curry/Getty ImagesSteve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. and Pixar Studios, and the man behind the launch of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, died today in California at the age of 56, according to a statement from Apple. Jobs first revealed he was battling pancreatic cancer in 2004, having surgery later that year. This past January he announced he was taking a medical leave of absence from his position at Apple until the end of June; he resigned his post as CEO of the company on Aug. 24.
Jobs was a visionary, a technical genius, a ruthless dealmaker, a control freak, a cool-packaging fetishist, and a celeb who loved delivering his company’s products to other celebs as a way to expand his own circle. But most of all, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was a salesman. He was intimately involved with every marketing, design, packaging, and advertising decision that Apple made.
Raised an only child by adoptive parents in northern California, Jobs started building crude computers in his folks’ garage as a teenager, along with circuit-board wonk Steve Wozniak. He cofounded Apple with “Woz” in 1976, at age 22. In 1984, he helped Apple launch the world’s first mass-market graphical user interface in the Macintosh personal computer. (It used a “mouse” and clickable icons instead of requiring clunky, arcane keyboard commands). The iPod portable digital media player launched in 2001 and went on to become the 21st-century answer to the Walkman, with sales in the hundreds of millions.
Jobs also co-founded Pixar, the CGI animation studio behind Finding Nemo, Monster’s Inc., and the Toy Story and Cars franchises, when he acquired Lucasfilm’s computer division in 1986.
More on Steve Jobs:
Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO
Steve Jobs takes another health-related leave from Apple
Report: Steve Jobs has liver transplant 
Book Review: David A. Price’s The Pixar Touch (2008)
PopWatch reviews the inaugural iPhone (2007)
News: Apple launches the iTunes Music Store (2003)
TV Review: 1999′s Pirates of Silicon Valley, starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs
Remembering ”1984,” the famous Super Bowl ad that introduced the Macintosh

 

Remembering Steve Jobs, the man who saved Apple

A look at Jobs’s accomplishments at the helm in Cupertino

by Macworld Staff, Macworld.com   Oct 5, 2011 8:49 pm

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died Wednesday after a long illness. He was 56. Jobs, who reigned as Apple CEO for 14 years, resigned his post in August 2011 and was replaced by Tim Cook, who previously was the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Jobs, in turn, was elected as chairman of Apple’s board of directors.

Both as the founder of the first successful personal-computer company and as the man who transformed a nearly-bankrupt Apple into one of the most successful companies on the planet, Jobs established himself as an American icon of business and technology.

Apple: The Early Years

If Steve Jobs had never returned to Apple after 1985, he’d still be remembered for the Macintosh.
Jobs didn’t create the Mac project—it was started by Jef Raskin in 1979—but he took it over in 1981 and brought it to fruition. Jobs didn’t write the code or design the circuit boards, but he was the one who provided the vision that made it all happen. As original Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld wrote, “Steve already gets a lot of credit for being the driving force behind the Macintosh, but in my opinion, it’s very well deserved … the Macintosh never would have happened without him.”
Apple’s introduction of the Macintosh in 1984 introduced the graphical user interface to mainstream desktop computing. The Mac ran on a 32-bit processor (compared to 16-bit processors for other PCs at the time) and had 128K of memory. It was an immediate success: more than 400,000 Macintosh computers were sold in the first year.
The Mac’s impact wasn’t just felt on people who bought it in the ’80s, though: in hindsight, it quite literally redefined what a computer was. Microsoft introduced its Windows program as a reaction to it; by 1995 Windows had duplicated Apple’s graphical interface. Essentially every personal computer in existence now follows most of the paradigms introduced by the original Mac more than a quarter-century ago.
The Mac capped off a series of accomplishments for Jobs in the early days of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The company famously started in Jobs’s garage, where the company assembled its first computer, the Apple I. Its first mass-produced product was the Apple II, which was released in 1977. Designed by Wozniak, the Apple II featured a rugged plastic case, an integrated keyboard and power supply, support for color displays, and a 5.25-inch floppy drive. The Apple II was a wild success, ushering in the personal computer era, and carried Apple through the mid-1980s.
In the early ’80s Apple tried to build on its success with an Apple III targeted at business users, but it was a resounding failure. The story goes that Steve Jobs wanted the computer to run silently—a good example of Jobs’s attention to product detail—so he ordered that it be built without an internal fan. Unfortunately, customers found that the Apple III overheated frequently.
At the end of 1980, Apple went public; its IPO created hundreds of millionaires at the company. In exchange for $1 million of pre-IPO stock, Xerox gave Apple access to its PARC facilities, where Jobs and others saw the progress Xerox was making with the graphical user interface (GUI). That visit led to the Apple Lisa—a Mac-like computer that sold for nearly $10,000, and was never a success—and then the Mac.
Jobs was also a driving force behind the famous “1984” television commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, that debuted during the Super Bowl in January 1984. Jobs and his personally-recruited CEO John Sculley thought the iconic ad was excellent, and purchased 90 seconds of Super Bowl commercial time for the spot. Apple’s board of directors was less convinced of the advertisement’s greatness, and Apple’s advertising agency Chiat/Day resold 30 of those seconds to another advertiser. The ad ran, and the Macintosh went on sale two days later.
Eventually, the Macintosh’s increasingly sluggish sales performance strained the relationship between Jobs and Sculley. Sculley favored introducing more IBM compatibility; Jobs was opposed. Jobs and Sculley each went before Apple’s board and lobbied for the other’s removal. Eventually, on May 31, 1985, Apple announced that—following its first-ever quarterly loss and a round of layoffs—Steve Jobs was leaving the company he’d co-founded. He left with a net worth of $150 million and started his next venture, Next.

Jobs Returns

In a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Jobs said that his firing from Apple in the mid-1980s “was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.” That may have been true for Jobs, who used his time away from Cupertino to not only found Next but also buy a fledgling animation studio that would become Pixar, but Apple racked up more than its share of stumbles. Under several post-Jobs CEOs, Apple tried repeatedly—and failed repeatedly—to release an updated successor to the aging Macintosh operating system. Taligent was the future. Then Copland—”Mac OS 8”—was hyped as the new direction for the OS, only to be abandoned and replaced with an incremental update to the original Mac OS.
In 1996, Apple decided to buy one of two companies that owned modern operating systems that could be the basis for a next-generation Mac operating system. Both were run by former Apple executives. One was Be, run by Jean-Louis Gasseé, which had an intriguing Unix-based OS that could already run on existing Mac hardware. The other was Next, still run by Steve Jobs.
In late 1996, Apple CEO Gil Amelio announced that the company would acquire Next for $400 million. That deal brought Steve Jobs back to Apple, initially as an advisor to Amelio. At the time, Apple declared “the advanced technical underpinnings and rapid development environment of [what became Mac OS X] will allow developers to create new applications that leapfrog those of other ‘modern’ operating systems, such as Windows NT.”
Apple was right—Next’s operating system became the basis for Mac OS X—but it’s unlikely that Amelio predicted precisely how the acquisition would play out. In July of 1997, Apple’s board of directors voted to remove Amelio from his post, naming Jobs the company’s interim CEO.
That move kicked off an era of increasing—and, to date, unceasing—success for Apple and Jobs. In Jobs’s August 1997 Macworld Expo keynote, Apple announced that it was ending the licensing program that allowed other companies to sell Mac-compatible computers and that Microsoft had invested $150 million in the company. Both controversial moves paid off.
A year later, Steve Jobs unveiled the product that perhaps singularly kicked off Apple’s rebound: the original iMac. Jobs had asked designer Jonathan Ive—whom he’d eventually promote to the role of senior vice president of industrial design—to create a colorful, easy-to-set-up, all-in-one computer. The result was a new Mac with a unique look that startled the industry. Its bold color, lack of a floppy drive, and embrace of the new USB connectivity standard were all considered shockers at the time; consumers, however, were delighted. Apple sold 800,000 iMacs in fewer than five months. The floppy faded into history and USB became a roaring success. The iMac, and the Jobs/Ive partnership, cemented Apple’s stance that its insanely great products needed to look the part.
In March 2001, Apple released the first iteration of Mac OS X after a public beta that began in late 2000. The operating system was based on NextStep, the Unix-based OS devised by Jobs’s team at Next. Though it was named as a simple sequel to OS 9, OS X had an entirely new codebase and marked a dramatic new beginning. Jobs had overseen a massive effort at Apple to create native, Unix-based ports of the original Macintosh APIs—programming hooks upon which Mac developers relied, in a system called Carbon. That meant that developers could, with some exceptions, make their software compatible with OS X merely by recompiling it, without needing to rewrite the software from scratch. And applications that weren’t updated for OS X could take advantage of the integrated Classic environment to run OS 9 apps within OS X—making the transition from OS 9 to OS X significantly less painful than many people expected it to be. OS X was a towering achievement for Jobs and Apple, and a welcome respite from the years of promised but unrealized OS upgrades from Cupertino.
Jobs oversaw other massive software undertakings around this time, too. In 1998, the company’s QuickTime authoring standard was being threatened in the digital video editing space by Microsoft’s Advanced Authoring Format; Avid and Adobe had both moved away from the format, and only Macromedia’s KeyGrip software—which had recently been rebranded “Final Cut”—still incorporated it. But Final Cut had been ignored and delayed by the Macromedia higher-ups in favor of development on its Flash software, and its future was thus largely uncertain.
Something had to be done to combat these issues. That solution, as overseen by Jobs, was to buy Final Cut. The company used it to accelerate development on the QuickTime standard, releasing the first Apple-branded version, Final Cut Pro, at 1999’s National Association of Broacasters show. Final Cut Pro 1.0 was designed to provide editors interested in the non-linear space a simpler, low-cost way to get into the business—and to ensure that QuickTime would not go the way of some of Apple’s lost software technologies.
Jobs was refining Apple’s message: The company made the computer you used to create, to explore, to “think different.” And as a direct result of the company’s investment into high-end non-linear editing software, Apple could explore a new area—consumer-level editing.
Similarly, one of the most significant consumer-level Apple products to emerge at this time wasn’t hardware, but software: iLife. The company was ahead of the rest of the industry in realizing that digital media—music, videos, and photos—would soon become central to people’s lives. In 1999, Apple released iMovie (and shipped it with a new iMac DV, for Digital Video), a program designed to let even the most-novice of computer users download video from their video camera and easily turn it into high-quality movies, complete with transitions, titles, and effects.
That was followed, in 2001, by iTunes (which debuted early in the year but became much more significant with the fall debut of the iPod) and iDVD, the latter of which let home-video takers create standard DVDs of their movies, including menus, themes, chapters, and slideshows. And 2002 brought the debut of iPhoto, which similarly made it easy to download and organize photos from digital cameras. By 2003, Apple had improved these programs’ integration with each other and rolled them into a single package, iLife, that shipped with every Mac.
The impact of iLife is often overlooked: It meant that at a time when digital media was ascendant, and Apple was trying to differentiate its hardware from the competition, every Mac included a suite of great, easy-to-use software that let people create and manage that media—something that wasn’t true of any other computer on the market at the time.
“We don’t think the PC is dying at all,” Jobs said during his 2001 Macworld Expo keynote where he discussed Apple’s digital hub strategy. “It’s evolving.”
Apple’s retail strategy evolved as well. In 2001, the company opened up its first retail stores, at a time when other PC makers—most notably Gateway—were stumbling with brick-and-mortar outlets. A decade later, Apple now operates more than 300 stores around the globe. The stores first turned a profit in 2004; last year, they recorded $9 billion in retail sales with $2.4 billion in retail profit. More significant, as Apple likes to point out in its quarterly earnings report, 50 percent of the people buying computers at the Apple Store are first-time Mac customers.
“People just don’t want to buy personal computers any more,” Jobs said in a 2001 video introducing the stores and their philosophy. “They want to know what they can do with them. And we’re going to show to them exactly that.”
Four years after the introduction of OS X, Jobs and Apple instituted another transition—this one away from the PowerPC architecture to chips built by Intel. It was a big gamble for a company that had relied on PowerPC processors since 1994, but Jobs argued that it was a move Apple had to make to keep its computers ahead of the competition. “As we look ahead… we may have great products right now, and we’ve got some great PowerPC product[s] still yet to come,” Jobs told the audience at the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference. “[But] we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you and we don’t know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map.”
The transition went much faster—and much smoother—than anyone, including Apple, had anticipated, thanks in large part to Rosetta. The dynamic translator let applications designed for PowerPC systems run on Intel-based Macs, giving developers time to revamp their products for Apple’s Intel-based future. In fact, PowerPC apps only became obsolete this summer when Apple retired Rosetta with the introduction of Mac OS X Lion.

Beyond the Mac

Of course, the assorted transitions during Jobs’s reign as CEO weren’t confined to the Mac. Perhaps the greatest transition Jobs initiated was moving Apple away from being just a software and computer maker and into the lucrative world of consumer electronics. The shift became official in 2007 when Apple dropped the word “Computer” from its name, simply calling itself Apple Inc.
The shift began with the iPod. When Apple unveiled its music player in the fall of 2001, the market for MP3 players was in its early stages. Devices at the time relied on small amounts of flash memory that could hold only a handful of songs. In short, it was a field that was ripe for innovation—and innovate Apple did with the iPod. The device’s 5GB capacity gave it the storage space to, in Apple’s words, “put 1000 songs in your pocket.” And while not the first hard-drive-based digital music player on the market—Creative’s Nomad series beat it to the punch—the iPod had something going for it that no other company could match: software integration. Though iTunes debuted earlier in 2001, it was with the iPod’s fall introduction that the pieces clicked into place and Apple’s ecosystem started to take shape.
Still, at the time, the iPod met with heavy skepticism. Why was Apple, a computer company, making a portable music player? “We love music,” Jobs said during the iPod’s introduction. “And it’s always good to do something you love.”
It proved to be lucrative for Apple, too. The company has sold hundreds of millions of iPods in the last decade, and though sales growth slowed and then declined in recent years, Apple continues to enjoy a 70 percent share of the MP3 player market. Part of the reason for the device’s success? Apple’s repeated willingness to reinvent the iPod line. Take 2005’s decision to kill off the popular iPod mini and replace it with the smaller, flash0based iPod nano. That kind of thinking, utterly foreign to most companies, was second nature to Steve Jobs: Why not kill a product at the height of its popularity if you’re going to replace it with something even better?
Steve Jobs seemed to anticipate the demand for the iPod from the get-go: “Music’s a part of everyone’s life,” Jobs said at the 2001 launch event. “Music’s been around forever. This is not a speculative market. And because it’s a part of everyone’s life, it’s a very large target market all around the world.”
As it did with the iPod, Apple didn’t create a new product category with 2007’s iPhone introduction. Smartphones existed before Apple came out with its effort, with existing devices aimed largely at business customers who wanted to check their email when they were out and about. Apple instead set its sights on the broader consumer market. It would appeal to the end user by informing its device with the same sensibilities it had used in the Mac: good design, ease of use, and a harmonious marriage between software and hardware.
“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Jobs said at the 2007 Macworld Expo keynote when he pulled the first iPhone out of his pants pocket. “One is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate. It’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.”
That may sound like the kind of “reality distortion field”-style hype that Jobs became famous for—and to some extent, it is. But it also happens to be true. Look no further than how other smartphone makers responded—with devices that mirrored the iPhone’s touch-screen controls, powerful Web browser, and array of third-party mobile apps. Where once every smartphone had to have a physical keyboard, many now rely upon just a touchscreen; that’s a direct result of the iPhone’s influence.
Jobs closes out his tenure as Apple’s CEO by leading the company into what’s being billed as the “post-PC” era—a period in which mobile devices no longer need sync up with computers. It was with that vision in mind that Apple rolled out the iPad, which brings PC-style computing into a handheld device. Launched less than two years ago, the iPad has already carved out a new market for tablet computing, with other companies once again trying to keep pace with Apple. It also joins the original Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone among the revolutionary products Jobs helped develop during his Apple career.

Jobs’s Legacy

It would be a mistake to characterize Jobs’s time at Apple simply by the products the company released. Those products came about because of principles held by Jobs that he made sure were shared by others at Apple, especially as he refashioned the company following his 1997 return to Cupertino.
The products mentioned throughout this story might not have come to pass were it not for Apple’s constant need to innovate. That’s an attitude driven by Jobs, during flush times as well as well as when the tech business was less than booming. It’s worth noting that some of Apple’s biggest product releases during Jobs’s tenure—the iPod and the iPad, most notably—were developed during recessions when consumers theoretically were less inclined to spend money on pricey electronics.
“The way we’re going to survive is to innovate our way out of this,” Jobs told Time Magazine in early 2002, a strategy the company returned to when the economy went south again in 2008. In both instances, Apple under Jobs upped its research-and-development spending, helping the company produce a strong product lineup that could weather tough times.
It goes without saying that under Jobs, Apple became synonymous with great design. From the early days of the Macintosh, when Jobs agitated for rectangles with rounded corners, no aspect of the design process escaped the company’s attention.
But Jobs was about more than design just for the sake of looking good—the design decisions Apple makes also take usability into account. That 2002 Time Magazine article recounts the creation of the first flat-panel iMac and how Jobs scrapped an early version of the desktop because its design failed to impress. Time’s Josh Quittner recounted the subsequent meeting between Jobs and Apple executive Jonathan Ive:
That’s an approach to creating products that sticks with other Apple employees, even after they leave the company. “You almost imagine that Steve is in your office,” Flipboard founder and ex-Apple engineer Evan Doll told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You say to yourself, what would he say about this? When you’re kicking around an idea for a product, or for a feature, you’ll even say it in discussion—’Steve Jobs would love this!’ or, more often, ‘Steve Jobs would say this isn’t good enough.’ He’s like the conscience sitting on your shoulder.”

Apple chief Steve Jobs in fresh cancer fears after revealing he's taking two years off

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 4:34 PM on 20th January 2011

• The 55-year-old had a liver transplant in 2008 as part of a series of treatments for pancreatic cancer
• Apple shares plummet following announcement

Fears are growing for the health of Apple founder Steve Jobs after he revealed he is taking two years off.
The 55-year-old’s gaunt appearance has fuelled speculation in recent months that his pancreatic cancer may have returned six years after he claimed he had beaten the disease.
But yesterday’s announcement was the first official confirmation that something was wrong.
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Medical leave: Steve Jobs speaks to his employees during an Apple event at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California, in October

He will continue as Apple's chief executive and be involved in major decisions but has asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all day-to-day operations.
Mr Jobs signed off by saying he loves Apple and hopes to be back as soon as he can.
He added that he and his family would appreciate respect for their privacy.

STEVE JOBS' EMAIL TO APPLE EMPLOYEES

Team,
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health.
I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations.
I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.
I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.
Steve

In late 2008 to mid-2009 Mr Jobs was absent from Apple for six months to have a liver transplant. It was part of the series of treatments he has undergone for pancreatic cancer.
He was first diagnosed as suffering from the cancer in 2004 and underwent surgery later that year to remove a tumour from his pancreas.
The announcement was made on a public holiday in the U.S. when there is no trading in company stocks and shares. It comes ahead of Apple's end of year results.
But the news caused Apple shares traded in Frankfurt to plummet by 7.5 per cent, echoing the drop that rook place when Mr Jobs took time off to have his liver transplant.
It will be Mr Cook's third stint as leading Apple.
He stepped in for Mr Jobs when he went on medical leave between January and June 2009, and for two months in 2004.
Many analysts consider Mr Cook as his logical successor.
Under Mr Cook's direction in 2009, the company kept cranking out well-received products including updated laptops with lower entry-level prices and a faster iPhone with many longed-for features. Apple sold more than a million of the new iPhone 3GS during its first three days on the market.

In healthier times: Mr Jobs introduces the Power Mac G4 in 1999. He was first diagnosed as suffering from pancreatic cancer in 2004

Wall Street has grappled with the implications of Mr Jobs' illness since August 2004.

STEVE JOBS - A TIMELINE

• February 24, 1955 - Born in San Francisco, California
• 1976 - After dropping out of college, founds Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne
• 1985 - Forced out of Apple and starts the NeXT Corporation
• 1996 - Returns to his old company when Apple buys NeXT and soon becomes its CEO
• 2004 - Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
• Late 2008 - Has liver transplant as part of treatment for pancreatic cancer
• Early 2009 - Takes six months off to recuperate
• January 2011 - Announces he is taking a third leave of absence for medical reasons

Apple's stock has weathered the recession better than those of most of its competitors, but the subject of Mr Jobs' health has made shareholders jittery in the past.
When he first appeared looking startlingly thin shares fell amid rumours of a heart attack, only to rise when he announced the cause was a hormonal imbalance.
When Apple said the CEO would be taking six months off in 2009 because of medical problems shares sank 7 per cent.
Investors learned Mr Jobs had kept his cancer diagnosis secret until after he underwent surgery.
Industry commentators feared a half-year absence would leave one of the oldest computer makers adrift, because Mr Jobs had become the essence of the company he started in 1976.
But during his time off Apple continued to release must-have gadgets and software improvements, and last year's launch of the much heralded iPad has seen the company's fortunes rise further.
Apple's cult-like followers remain avid, many camping overnight at Apple stores to be one of the first to snatch up the latest product.
But no matter how many accolades Tim Cook and the Apple product teams win, industry commentators believe it will be near-impossible to find someone like Steve Jobs to replace him.

Technology forerunners: Mr Jobs (left) with Apple's then President John Sculley (centre) and the company's co-founder Steve Wozniak (right) in 1984

Visionary Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dies at 56

Successor Tim Cook: 'The world has lost an amazing human being'

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CUPERTINO, California — Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and former CEO who invented and masterfully marketed ever-sleeker gadgets that transformed everyday technology, from the personal computer to the iPod and iPhone, has died. He was 56.

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Apple announced his death without giving a specific cause. He had been battling pancreatic cancer.
"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," the company said in a brief statement. "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."
Jobs had battled cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January — his third since his health problems began — before resigning as CEO six weeks ago. Jobs became Apple's chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.
By the time he turned the reins of the company over to Cook, Jobs had become one of the business world’s greatest comeback kids.
The company he founded, was fired from and then returned to had gone from also-ran to technology industry leader. Under Jobs’ intensely detail-oriented leadership, Apple created several iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad, which have changed the face of consumer technology forever.
Story: The Jobs legacy: Ease, elegance in technology Apple also is now one of the most valuable companies in America by market capitalization. Jobs was one of the richest men in the world.

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Just Wednesday the company released a new iPhone, the first such major product announcement in years that didn't involve Jobs.
Jobs' family issued a statement: "Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family ... We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief."
Share your thoughts on Jobs' legacy Cook sent a statement to employees that in part 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."
Microsoft cofounder and sometimes Jobs rival Bill Gates tweeted "Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to Steve Jobs’ family & friends. The world rarely sees someone who made such a profound impact."
(Msnbc.com is a joint-venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Medical experts expressed sadness, but not surprise at Jobs’ death, which followed treatment for a neuroendocrine pancreatic tumor, first diagnosed in 2004, a liver transplant in 2009, and then, likely, the recurrence of disease earlier this year.
“He not only had the cancer, he was battling the immune suppression after the liver transplant,” noted Dr. Timothy Donahue of the UCLA Center for Pancreatic Disease in Los Angeles.
In most patients who have liver transplants after such tumors, the median survival rate is typically about two years.
“It’s even more remarkable he was able to what he did,” Donahue said.
It was likely a combination of Jobs’ personal constitution, his dedication to his work and the care of doctors who could help him receive specialized therapies, said Dr. Jeffrey I. Mechanick, an endocrinologist with Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.
In the end, however, even the most dedicated patients have to bend to the disease, he added.
“Sometimes, they just have to say, ‘I’m going to spend time with my family,’” Mechanick said.

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Jobs is survived by his biological mother, sister Mona Simpson; Lisa Brennan-Jobs, his daughter with Brennan; wife Laurene, and their three children, Erin, Reed and Eve.
Steven Paul Jobs was born Feb. 24, 1955, in San Francisco to Joanne Simpson, then an unmarried graduate student, and Abdulfattah Jandali, a student from Syria. Simpson gave Jobs up for adoption, though she married Jandali and a few years later had a second child with him, Mona Simpson, who became a novelist.
Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs of Los Altos, California, a working-class couple who nurtured his early interest in electronics. He saw his first computer terminal at NASA's Ames Research Center when he was around 11 and landed a summer job at Hewlett-Packard before he had finished high school.
Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Ore., in 1972 but dropped out after six months.
"All of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it," he said at a Stanford University commencement address in 2005. "I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out."
When he returned to California in 1974, Jobs worked for video game maker Atari and attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club — a group of computer hobbyists

Steve Jobs: timeline

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc, has died aged 56. Here are some key dates from his life and work:

Steve Jobs in 2008 with a MacBook Air laptop Photo: AP

3:31AM BST 06 Oct 2011

1955: Stephen Paul Jobs is born on Feb. 24.

1972: Jobs enrolls at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but drops out after a semester.

1974: Jobs works for video game maker Atari and attends meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, a high school friend who was a few years older.

1975: Jobs and Wozniak attend Homebrew Computer Club meetings.

1976: Apple Computer is formed on April Fool's Day, shortly after Wozniak and Jobs create a new computer circuit board in a Silicon Valley garage. A third co-founder, Ron Wayne, leaves the company after less than two weeks. The Apple I computer goes on sale by the summer for $666.66.

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1977: Apple is incorporated by its founders and a group of venture capitalists. It unveils Apple II, the first personal computer to generate color graphics. Revenue reaches $1 million.
1978: Jobs' daughter Lisa is born to girlfriend Chrisann Brennan.
1979: Jobs visits Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, and is inspired by a computer with a graphical user interface.
1980: Apple goes public, raising $110 million in one of the biggest initial public offerings to date.
1982: Annual revenue climbs to $1 billion.
1983: The Lisa computer goes on sale with much fanfare, only to be pulled two years later. Jobs lures John Sculley away from Pepsico Inc. to serve as Apple's CEO.
1984: Iconic "1984" Macintosh commercial directed by Ridley Scott airs during the Super Bowl. The Macintosh computer goes on sale.
1985: Jobs and Sculley clash, leading to Jobs' resignation. Wozniak also resigns from Apple this year.
1986: Jobs starts Next Inc., a new computer company making high-end machines for universities. He also buys Pixar from "Star Wars" creator George Lucas for $10 million.
1989: First NeXT computer goes on sale with a $6,500 price tag.
1991: Apple and IBM Corp. announce an alliance to develop new PC microprocessors and software. Apple unveils portable Macs called PowerBook.
1993: Apple introduces the Newton, a hand-held, pen-based computer. The company reports quarterly loss of $188 million in July. Sculley is replaced as CEO by Apple president Michael Spindler. Apple restructures, and Sculley resigns as chairman. At Next, Jobs decides to focus on software instead of whole computers.
1994: Apple introduces Power Macintosh computers based on the PowerPC chip it developed with IBM and Motorola. Apple decides to license its operating software and allow other companies to "clone" the Mac, adopting the model championed by Microsoft Corp.
1995: The first Mac clones go on sale. Microsoft releases Windows 95, which is easier to use than previous versions and is more like the Mac system. Apple struggles with competition, parts shortages and mistakes predicting customer demand. Pixar's "Toy Story," the first commercial computer-animated feature, hits theaters. Pixar goes to Wall Street with an IPO that raises $140 million.
1996: Apple announces plans to buy Next for $430 million for the operating system Jobs' team developed. Jobs is appointed an adviser to Apple. Gil Amelio replaces Spindler as CEO.
1997: Jobs becomes "interim" CEO after Amelio is pushed out. He foreshadows the marketing hook for a new product line by calling himself "iCEO." Jobs puts an end to Mac clones.
1998: Apple returns to profitability. It shakes up personal computer industry in 1998 with the candy-colored, all-in-one iMac desktop, the original models shaped like a futuristic TV. Apple discontinues the Newton.
2000: Apple removes "interim" label from Jobs' CEO title.
2001: The first iPod goes on sale, as do computers with OS X, the modern Mac operating system based on Next software. Apple also releases iTunes software.
2003: Apple launches the iTunes Music Store with 200,000 songs at 99 cents each, giving people a convenient way to buy music legally online. It sells 1 million songs in the first week.
2004: Jobs undergoes surgery for a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer. Apple discloses his illness after the fact.
2005: Apple expands the iPod line with the tiny Nano and an iPod that can play video. The company also announces that future Macs will use Intel chips.
2006: Disney buys Pixar for $7.4 billion. Jobs becomes Disney's largest individual shareholder, and much of his wealth is derived from this sale.
2007: Apple releases its first smartphone, the iPhone. Crowds camp overnight at stores to be one of the first to own the new device.
2008: Speculation mounts that Jobs is ill, given weight loss. In September he kicks off an Apple event and says, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," making a play off a famous Mark Twain quote after Bloomberg News accidentally publishes, then retracts, an obituary that it had prepared in advance.
2009: Jobs explains severe weight loss by saying he has a treatable hormone imbalance and that he will continue to run Apple. Days later he backtracks and announces he will be on medical leave. He returns to work in June. Later it is learned that he received a liver transplant.
2010: Apple sells 15 million of its newest gadget, the iPad, in nine months, giving rise to a new category of modern touch-screen tablet computers.
Jan. 17, 2011: In a memo to Apple employees, Jobs announces a second medical leave with no set duration. Cook again steps in to run day-to-day operations. Jobs retains CEO title and remains involved in major decisions.
Aug. 24, 2011: Apple announces that Jobs is resigning as CEO. Cook takes the CEO title, and Apple names Jobs chairman.
Oct. 5, 2011: Jobs dies at 56. Apple announces his death without giving a specific cause.

updated 09:45 pm EDT, Wed October 5, 2011

Originally published when Jobs resigned

Steve Jobs leaves more than a legacy of inspiration and management at Apple; he was also a hands-on inventor, often working with others but inextricably a part of many products that came out of the company -- including smaller contributions like packaging design or accessories, not just his well-known role in shaping the computers and mobile devices for which the company is best known today.

Often working in tandem with other designers such as Apple Senior VP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive or engineers to achieve his vision but occasionally listed as sole or principle inventor, Jobs generally worked like a sculptor -- endlessly reviewing each piece of a process and accepting or rejecting them until the final product emerged from a thousand possible decisions. In some cases he would come up with the original idea and work with teams to see it through; other times he would devise a method to improve an existing product, such as the design for the chargers for many of the current Apple products.

When Jobs resigned as CEO last August, The New York Times ran a profile of the patents on which Jobs' name appears as a way of looking into his mind -- and found a CEO who saw no detail as too small, contributing ideas wherever he thought they would improve the experience for the user. Jobs was also known for mentioning that Apple threw away at least as many products and ideas as they carried through to market, a sign of his dedication to discovery via trial-and-error. Many of the patents listed in the interactive feature never made it beyond the prototype stage, and others (such as the Apple TV) evolved considerably before finding mainstream acceptance.

He was also credited with a number of eloquent writings, including the copy for the famous "Here's to the Crazy Ones" commercial that kicked off the "Think Different" campaign, and his open letter "Thoughts on Flash," which changed the debate on Apple's decision to keep Flash off its mobile devices, letting more open alternatives gain a foothold and restoring competition that the rest of industry eventually embraced -- just as Apple did with its own operating system a decade earlier.

Ironically, Jobs -- and Apple -- may be as well known for the way they made some products obsolete as they are for the innovations they contributed. A long list of popular technologies, products, services and icons of modern life -- from video-rental and CD outlets to commercial radio and TV networks and photography (and now, with Siri, potentially search engines) have seen their impact lessened and their business model thrown into disarray by the disruptive nature of Apple's periodic industry-changing revelations and the ripples of those inventions.

Of the 317 patents so far awarded that mention Jobs, he is listed as sole or principle inventor on 33 of them -- including the signature glass staircases, themselves an innovative design, that embody his vision of elegance married to functionality and are a fixture at Apple's flagship retail stores. In recent months, Jobs has been offering further ideas involving glass, helping re-design the iconic glass "cube" of the 5th Avenue Apple Store as well as expounding on an innovative use of massive pieces of curved glass for the company's forthcoming new headquarters.

Over 200 of the patents also involve his main collaborator, Apple VP of Design Jonathan Ive. Since Ive's first marquee contribution to the company -- the futuristic (and influential) but commercially unsuccessful 20th Anniversary Macintosh​, Ive has been one of Apple's lead designers, working with Jobs to achieve visionary concepts, such as the iMac's (all versions) goal of "hiding" the CPU behind the screen, making the experience more immersive for users without simply shuffling the mechanic under the desk or otherwise taking up work space.

"Design is a funny word," Jobs once said. "Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works."

The Times' profile of Jobs can be seen here, and the interactive list of patents can be found here.

Steve Jobs Died 'Peacefully,' Family Says

• By Mark Hachman
• October 5, 2011 11:36pm EST

The family of former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said that he died "peacefully" on Wednesday, surrounded by his family. A memorial Web site will be posted.
Jobs passed away at the age of 56. Jobs is survived by his wife Laurene and two children, as well as a daughter from a previous relationship.
On August 24, Jobs stepped down, stating that he could no longer meet his duties and expectations as Apple's chief executive. Jobs was diagnosed with and treated for a rare type of pancreatic cancer in 2004, but he said the 2009 absence was not a resurgence of that cancer. He took a medical leave of absence in January.
In a statement, Jobs' family said he died peacefully. "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. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve's illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories.

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"We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief."
Numerous members of the tech world chimed in with their own tributes, and Twitter was filled with condolences attached to the #RIPSteveJobs hashtag. Online, mourners began leaving notes on Facebook tribute pages as well as the Steve Jobs Day Facebook page.
Apple's board also released its own statement.

RIP Steve Jobs: Complete Coverage

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," the board said.
"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.
John Lasseter, chief creative officer and Ed Catmull, president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, released their own joint statement. Jobs was chief executive at Pixar, the digital anaimation house that gave the world Cars, The Incredibles and Toy Story, before it was acquired by Disney in 2006.
"Steve Jobs was an extraordinary visionary, our very dear friend and the guiding light of the Pixar family," Lasseter and Catmull said. "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 simply '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 a part of Pixar's DNA. Our hearts go out to his wife Laurene and their children during this incredibly difficult time."

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