Steve Jobs’ Greatest Achievements

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With Steve Jobs' passing, we have lost one of the greatest technological innovators of our time.

Jobs wasn't just a savvy businessman, he was a visionary who made it his mission to humanize personal computing, rewriting the rules of user experience design, hardware design and software design. His actions reverberated across industry lines: He shook up the music business, dragged the wireless carriers into the boxing ring, changed the way software and hardware are sold and forever altered the language of computer interfaces. Along the way, he built Apple up into one of the most valuable corporations in the world.
Quite a run. He will be missed.

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors On The Death Of Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was 56. He died today after publicly fighting advanced pancreatic cancer since 2004. He, along with co-founder Steve Wozniak, built one of the most "commercially successful" personal computers and founded Pixar animation studios.
The Apple Board of Directors wrote:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.
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.

You can share remembrances with Apple at rememberingsteve@apple.com. Here is a post from the eve of his stepping down as CEO.

Do not therefore consider this life as an object of any moment. Look back on the immense gulf of time already past; and forwards, to that infinite duration yet to come, and you will find how trifling the difference is between a life of three days and of three ages.
Let us then employ properly this moment of time allotted us by fate, and leave the world contentedly; like a ripe olive dropping from its stalk, speaking well of the soil that produced it, and of the tree that bore it.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Steve Jobs, tech visionary: 1955-2011

Steve Jobs, founder, chairman, and twice CEO of Apple Inc., and a man variously regarded over his 30 years in the technology industry as a creative genius, a failure, and one of the most successful business executives in half a century has died, according to Apple. He was 56.

Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004. He recovered, but the cancer reemerged and he received a liver transplant in 2009. His deteriorating health forced him to take a medical leave of absence from Apple in January 2011, which became permanent in August, when he officially stepped down as CEO and named longtime COO Tim Cook as his successor. Jobs chose to remain on the board as chairman.

The legacy Jobs leaves behind is immense. His storied history with Apple, its ups and downs, are by now well-known lore in the tech world: He founded the company in 1976 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne and introduced people to the modern concept of personal computing. He was kicked out of his own company in 1984, went on to build NeXT, which he then sold to Apple. Soon after retook the role of Apple CEO in 1997, where he found the company on the verge of bankruptcy.

Jobs kept everyone on their toes: his own employees, the press and competitors. He was a famously demanding boss, with as sharp an eye for design as his ability to predict what mainstream consumers wanted from their tech products. The result was selling millions of devices and turning the company he founded into a design, technologic and business powerhouse. He leaves the company as the world's second most-valuable publicly traded company.

After his return to Apple in 1997, he introduced the iconic iMac desktop computer, which was the beginning of the company's dramatic rise. He then turned his attention to consumer electronics, turning upside down three different industries: music, mobile phones and portable computing. The iPod, first introduced in 2001, reimagined how people bought and listened to music, while the iPhone arrived in 2007, upending the expectations of what a mobile phone could be.

The iPad was Jobs final contribution to the tech world, which fittingly is an intersection of Apple's strengths: using a clean, simply designed form factor that gives users access to music, videos, games, productivity tools, and the web with a simple swipe of a finger.

Here's a great reflection on Jobs is from something Om wrote in 2005 after Jobs shocked the tech world with the decision to move Macs from Power PC to Intel chips:

Some men dream the future. He built it.

Steve Jobs, the maverick who has architected one of the greatest comebacks in the history of Silicon Valley, continues to prove that he was a modern day Howard Hughes. Unpredictable, charming, loving, petulant, and deviously mysterious. But more than anything, brilliant.

Steve Jobs in his own words

I'll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I'll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I'm not there, but I'll always come back

-- Steve Jobs, 1985

That's a quote from a Playboy interview Steve Jobs gave back in 1985. February of 1985, to be specific, right before Steve would be ousted from the company that he co-founded with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. Apple of course famously grew out of a garage, the brains of Woz, the drive of Jobs building the company over the next nine years into a powerhouse in the burgeoning home computer market.

Share your thoughts and memories about Steve

Steve Jobs has passed away, and it's impossible to fully express what he's meant to all of us personally here at TheAppleBlog and GigaOM, and to the world as a whole. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We'd like to ask you, our readers, to share with us and the community here what Steve Jobs and the company that he built has meant to you.
It could be a memory of a time when you actually got to work with or witness the man himself, a story about how Macs have helped change or improve your life, or just a simple "Thank you" for all he accomplished. Whatever you feel like sharing to help remember Jobs and the legacy he leaves behind.

蘋果共同創辦人Steve Jobs 逝世

 

今天稍早，蘋果官網宣佈了這件令人不捨且沉慟的消息，
蘋果共同創辦人Steve Jobs（史帝夫，賈伯斯）逝世，享年56歲。
蘋果迷永遠的精神領袖，一生故事被世人傳頌，締造蘋果經典無數，
願他安息，精神與我們長存。
在此致上最高的敬意，最深的哀悼。
 Stay hungry, Stay foolish.

Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. And that’s a good thing

You might have heard – Apple had an event yesterday. They were going to launch a brand new iPhone and give a company update. So I went along with my colleague Erica Ogg to Apple's campus in Cupertino, Calif. I was curious to know what direction the mobile handset business going to take and perhaps write at a later stage one of my infrequent OmSays newsletters. Between her and rest of our team, it was clear I didn't have to live blog or rush to write. So why did I go? I was curious to see the iPhone 4S – first and foremost. More importantly, I wanted to see the public debut of the man who has to fill the shoes of a man that no one can.
"This is my first public launch since becoming CEO, I am sure you didn't know that," is how Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple greeted the attendees – a mix of media, partners and employees. "I love Apple and what a privilege it is to have worked here for 14 years."
And with those few words, he ushered in a brand new era at arguably one of the most valuable, loved, admired, loathed and despised company anywhere in the world. It might make inanimate objects, but it inspires emotions. Emotions like love, joy, anger and chagrin. And it inspires countless hours of debate over the merits of Apple, Windows and Android!
Unlike Steve Jobs who was the ultimate thespian, Cook was cool, calming and charming. There were no dramatic pauses! No edge-of-the-seat changes in tempo Jobs so often brought to the stage, Cook was matter of fact, efficient and focused. Instead of lingering on features and new devices, he shared the stage with his team, and did so a tad more generously than his predecessor.
Scott
Steve
Forstall, Eddy Cue, Phil Schiller got more airtime than Cook and rightfully so. His comments were about the retail stores and what a massive engine they have become for the company. It is a good sign – after all a company is more than one person. For the longest time when thinking about Apple, we always thought of Jobs and his incandescent personality.
Cook's regime, from THIS brief glimpse, is going to be a more egalitarian but ruthlessly efficient. His words were measured, to the point and focused. He didn't spend much time on competitors.
One thing that wouldn't be different – Apple would continue to be secretive, controlling in its relationships with everyone — its customers, partners, media and carriers. The Sprint-Apple deal  that skews almost entirely in favor of the Cupertino Kingdom, is a sign of how Cook-era Apple is going to be – matter of fact and all about keeping Apple, well … Apple.