Jobs death prompts grief at Apple stores in U.S., elsewhere

CUPERTINO, Calif./NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple fans from New York to Australia gathered to mourn the death of Steve Jobs, leaving Apple products, bouquets and heartfelt messages in tribute to the man who transformed the computing, music and phone industries.

Flags outside Apple's headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California flew at half mast as a group of mourners flocked to a nearby lawn. Distraught Apple fans left flowers in tribute and a man played the bagpipes.

"In my mind there is no difference between him and a Pasteur," said Chitra Abdolzadeh, a healthcare worker in Cupertino, in reference to the legendary French chemist Louis Pasteur.

Ben Chess, a 29-year-old engineer at the Internet company Yelp and a former Apple intern, drove to the Apple HQ from San Francisco immediately after work. He laid a bunch of flowers. "It's the right thing to do," he said.

At the downtown San Francisco Apple store, people held up pictures of Jobs on their iPads and taped greeting cards and post-it notes to the store window saying "thank you Steve" and "I hate cancer." There were also candles and red apples left outside.

One Apple store employee in San Francisco, Cory Moll described Jobs as a personal inspiration. "We're lucky to have had him for as long as we did," said Moll, holding an iPad displaying a quote in memorial to Jobs.

"What he's done for us as a culture, it resonates uniquely in every person," Moll said. "Even if they never use an Apple product, the impact they have had is so far-reaching."

Across the country in New York City, a makeshift memorial made out of fliers featuring pictures of Jobs was established outside a 24-hour Apple store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, with mourners snapping photos of it on their iPhones.

"We will miss you Steve, RIP. Thank you for your vision," read one flier.

Business professor and influential business thinker Gary Hamel said he left for the store as soon as he found out about Jobs' death.

"As soon as I heard the news, I came out to this Apple store to pay my respects," he said, clutching the power cord he just bought inside. "I saw tears in some people's eyes."

Outside another Apple store in New York's SoHo neighborhood, two men laid candles, bouquets of flowers, an apple and, for a while, placed an iPod Touch on the ground.

At the Apple Store on Boylston Street in Boston, Angelos Nicolaou, a student at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, said that Jobs "inspired us to be rebels and challenge the status quo. I hope there will be more leaders like him. It seems like the world is running out of them."

In Sydney, Australia, lawyer George Raptis, who was five years old when he first used a Macintosh computer, said of Jobs: "He's changed the face of computing. There will only ever be one Steve Jobs."

Some of the people who flocked to their local Apple stores when they heard of Jobs' passing were already thinking of Apple's future without its co-founder. The company named Tim Cook as its new CEO at the end of August when Jobs stepped down.
"They had a lot of time to prepare for the transition ... Tim Cook will continue his legacy," said Guilherme Ferraz, 44, a Brazilian businessman who was standing in front of a Manhattan Apple Store.
Keenen Thompson, a 21-year-old was in front of the Apple store in New York and said he would not leave until Apple's new iPhone 4S, unveiled earlier this week, comes out.

The former Apple store employee said he wants to be the first one to get the new iPhone on October 14.

"I wish the company well and I feel confident with Tim Cook," he said, glancing at the MacBook Air laptop he had set up next to him.

Source: Reuers

OBITUARY - Steve Jobs "may never be equalled"

Passionate, prickly, and deemed irreplaceable by many Apple fans and investors, Steve Jobs made a life defying conventions and expectations.

And despite years of poor health, his death on Wednesday at the age of 56 prompted a global gasp as many people remembered how much he had done to transform the worlds of computing, music and mobile phones, changing the way people communicate and access information and entertainment.

"The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come," said Microsoft co-founder and long-time rival Bill Gates.

"For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor."

The founder of Apple Inc died on Wednesday in Palo Alto, surrounded by his family. The circumstances of his passing were unclear, but Jobs has had a long battle with cancer and other health issues.

Jobs' family thanked many for their prayers during the last year of Steve's illness.

A college dropout, Jobs floated through India in search of spiritual guidance prior to founding Apple - a name he suggested to his friend and co-founder Steve Wozniak after a visit to a commune in Oregon he referred to as an "apple orchard."

With his passion for minimalist design and marketing genius, Jobs changed the course of personal computing during two stints at Apple and then brought a revolution to the mobile market.

The iconic iPod, the iPhone - dubbed the "Jesus phone" for its quasi-religious following - and the iPad are the creation of a man who was known for his near-obsessive control of the product development process.

"Most mere mortals cannot understand a person like Steve Jobs," said bestselling author and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple employee, in a recent interview. He considers Jobs "the greatest CEO in the history of man", adding that he just had "a different operating system."

Charismatic, visionary, ruthless, perfectionist, dictator - these are some of the words that people have used to describe Jobs, who may have been the biggest dreamer the technology world has ever known, but also was a hard-edged businessman and negotiator through and through.

"Steve was the best of the best. Like Mozart and Picasso, he may never be equalled," said Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and co-founder of Netscape Communications.

Microsoft's Gates had called Jobs the most inspiring person in the tech industry and President Barack Obama held him up as the embodiment of the American Dream.

It's hard to imagine a bigger success story than Steve Jobs, but rejection, failure and bad fate were part and parcel of who he was. Jobs was given away at birth, driven out of Apple in the mid-80s and struck with cancer when he finally had regained the top of the mountain.

He resigned as CEO of Apple Inc on August 24 - saying he could no longer fulfill the duties - and briefly served as chairman before his death.

Jobs grew up with an adopted family in Silicon Valley, which was turning from orchards to homes for workers at Lockheed and other defense and technology companies.

Electronics friend Bill Fernandez introduced him to boy engineer Wozniak, and the two Steves began a friendship that eventually bred Apple Computer.

"Woz is a brilliant engineer, but he is not really an entrepreneur, and that's where Jobs came in," recently remembered Fernandez, who was the first employee at Apple.

Wozniak earlier this year said that his goal was only to design hardware and he had no interest in running Apple.

"Steve Jobs' role was defined -- you've got to learn to be an executive in every division of the company so you can be the world's most important person some day. That was his goal," joked Wozniak, who is still listed as an employee, even though he has not worked at Apple for years.

AWFUL-TASTING MEDICINE

Jobs created Apple twice - once when he founded it and the second time after a return credited with saving the company, which now vies with Exxon Mobil as the most valuable publicly traded corporation in the United States.

Every day to him was "a new adventure in the company," Jay Elliot, a former senior vice president at Apple who worked very closely with Jobs in the eighties, said earlier this year, adding that he was "almost like a child" when it came to his inquisitiveness.

He was highly intolerant of company politics and bureaucracy, Elliot noted.

But the inspiring Jobs came with a lot of hard edges, oftentimes alienating colleagues and early investors with his my-way-or-the-highway dictums and plans that were generally ahead of their time.

Elliot was a witness to the acrimony between Jobs and former Apple Chief Executive John Sculley who often clashed on ideas, products and the direction of the company.

The dispute came to a head at Apple's first major sales meeting in Hawaii in 1985 where the two "just blew up against each other," Elliot said.

Jobs left soon after, saying he was fired.

"It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith," Jobs told a Stanford graduating class in 2005.

He returned to Apple about a decade after he left, working as a consultant. Soon he was running it, in what has been called Jobs' second act.

Jobs reinvented the technology world four or five times, first with the Apple II, a beautiful personal computer in the 1970s; then in the 1980s with the Macintosh, driven by a mouse and presenting a clean screen that made computing inviting; the ubiquitous iPod debuted in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and in 2010 the iPad, which a year after it was introduced outsold the Mac.

Source: Reuters

Tributes pour in for Steve Jobs, dead at 56

U.S. President Barack Obama was among the many people who paid tribute to Steve Jobs, calling the Apple co-founder a visionary and great American innovator.

"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it," Obama said of Jobs, who died on Wednesday.

"The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented."

The U.S. president was joined by political, technology, entertainment and business leaders around the world in paying tribute to Jobs. A selection:

BILL GATES, MICROSOFT CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN

"Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives. The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor."

RUPERT MURDOCH, CEO OF NEWS CORP

"Today, we lost one of the most influential thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs of all time. Steve Jobs was simply the greatest CEO of his generation. While I am deeply saddened by his passing, I'm reminded of the stunning impact he had in revolutionizing the way people consume media and entertainment."

MARK ZUCKERBERG, FACEBOOK FOUNDER AND CEO, ON FACEBOOK

"Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you."

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CHIEF EXECUTIVE, G.S. CHOI

"Chairman Steve Jobs introduced numerous revolutionary changes to the information technology industry and was a great entrepreneur. His innovative spirit and remarkable accomplishments will forever be remembered by people around the world."
SONY CEO HOWARD STRINGER
"The digital age has lost its leading light, but Steve's innovation and creativity will inspire dreamers and thinkers for generations."
AT&T CHAIRMAN AND CEO RANDALL STEPHENSON

"Steve was an iconic inventor, visionary, and entrepreneur, and we had the privilege to know him as partner and friend."

BOB IGER, CEO OF WALT DISNEY CO

"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."

MITT ROMNEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL, ON TWITTER
"Steve Jobs is an inspiration to American entrepreneurs. He will be missed."
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR, ON TWITTER

"Steve lived the California Dream every day of his life and he changed the world and inspired all of us."

MASAYOSHI SON, FOUNDER OF SOFTBANK, JAPAN'S NO.3 MOBILE PHONE SERVICE OPERATOR
"Steve was truly a genius of our time, a man with a rare ability to fuse art and technology. In centuries from now, he will be remembered alongside Leonardo da Vinci."
MARK CUBAN, ENTREPRENEUR, ON TWITTER
"The PC era is officially over. #RIP #STEVEJOBS
INVESTOR MARC ANDREESSEN

"Steve was the best of the best. Like Mozart and Picasso, he may never be equalled."

PAUL ALLEN, CO-FOUNDER OF MICROSOFT

"We've lost a unique tech pioneer and auteur who knew how to make amazingly great products. Steve fought a long battle against tough odds in a very brave way. He kept doing amazing things in the face of all that adversity.

MICHAEL DELL, CEO OF DELL INC
"Today the world lost a visionary leader, the technology industry lost an iconic legend and I lost a friend and fellow founder. The legacy of Steve Jobs will be remembered for generations to come."
LARRY PAGE, CEO OF GOOGLE, ON GOOGLE+
"He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance. He always seemed to be able to say in very few words what you actually should have been thinking before you thought it. His focus on the user experience above all else has always been an inspiration to me."
STEVE CASE, FOUNDER OF AOL, ON TWITTER
"I feel honored to have known Steve Jobs. He was the most innovative entrepreneur of our generation. His legacy will live on for the ages."
JEFF BEWKES, CEO OF TIME WARNER
"The world is a better place because of Steve, and the stories our company tells have been made richer by the products he created. He was a dynamic and fearless competitor, collaborator, and friend. In a society that has seen incredible technological innovation during our lifetimes, Steve may be the one true icon whose legacy will be remembered for a thousand years."

DICK COSTOLO, CEO OF TWITTER, ON TWITTER

"Once in a rare while, somebody comes along who doesn't just raise the bar, they create an entirely new standard of measurement. #RIPSteveJobs"
ARTHUR SULZBERGER, CHAIRMAN OF THE NEW YORK TIMES CO
"Steve Jobs was a visionary and a wonderful friend of The New York Times. He pushed the boundaries of how all providers of news and information interact with our users. I am among the many who deeply regret his passing."
JOHN RICCITIELLO, CEO OF ELECTRONIC ARTS
"Steve was one of a kind. For many of us working in technology and entertainment, Steve was a new kind of hero that lead with big, bold moves and would not settle for less than perfection. He is the best role model for a leader that aspires to be great."

JOHN LASSETER AND ED CATMULL, CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER AND PRESIDENT, WALT DISNEY and PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS

"Steve ... 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."

SPIKE LEE, PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/ACTOR, ON TWITTER

"VISIONARIES are always called CRAZY in the beginning. A VISIONARY sees things that everybody else says is IMPOSSIBLE, sees a World that People can't invision (sic)-MAC, IPOD, IPAD, IPHONE, ITUNES and PIXAR. I have nothing but Love for Mr. Jobs and Apple, they have always given me and my films L-O-V-E. Peace and Blessings to his family."

Source: Reuters