By Tony Field
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has died after a long battle with illness.
The 56-year-old created the iPod and the iPhone and turned Apple into the world’s biggest technology company.
The announcement of his death comes just six weeks after he resigned as Apple’s chief executive.
No cause of death has been officially given, but sources close to Jobs’ family say it was complications from pancreatic cancer.
It is almost impossible to overstate the impact of Jobs on our lives. Devices like the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone didn’t just change computers, but the music and movie industries too.
“If you are using a computer today, or a smart phone, you are likely using one of his creations – or something that was based on it,” says computer writer Matt Honen.
It was a remarkable life – and a lucky one, according to Jobs himself. Because, he said, he found what he loved to do early in his life.
“The only way to be truly satisfied it do what you believe is truly great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do,” Jobs said in a 2005 speech to students at Stanford University. “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle.”
A college dropout, Jobs founded Apple in his parents garage with his friend Steve Wozniak. Eight years later they created Macintosh, a breakthrough in home computers because it was so easy to use.
But after falling out with Apple’s management team Jobs left and bought a small animation studio from George Lucas, turning it into animation giant Pixar.
Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and oversaw the creation of one innovative device after another; the iPod, the iPhone and iPad.
“I think the most important thing to remember about Steve Jobs is his absolute and total dedication,” says NZ Apple importer Mal Thompson. “His dedication and determination made the company what it is today.”
But Jobs’ final years were plagued by ill health and in 2004 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In 2009 he underwent a liver transplant, taking leave from Apple.
In a speech at Stanford University, just a year after the cancer diagnosis, Jobs told students how for three decades he had already been living his life as if every day was his last.
“For the past 33 years I have looked in the mirror each day and asked myself, ‘If this were the last day of my life, would I want to be doing what I am about to do today?’ and whenever the answer has been no for too many days, then I know it is time to change something,” he said.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose.”
President Barack Obama is among those who have paid tribute, calling him a visionary and saying there may be no greater tribute to Jobs’ success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.
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.
3 News
source: newshub archive
