Apple Founder Steve Jobs Dead at 56

[BiG*WiCkEd]

On Wednesday October 5, 2011, 7:50 pm

CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) -- Apple Inc. said the company's co-founder Steve Jobs died Wednesday. He was 56. "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."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-says-company-cofounder-apf-2413458028.html?x=0

Some crazy shit. Very innovative individual.

RIP

W

[D-Nice]

RIP

[BiG*WiCkEd]

By Suzanne Choney
msnbc.com
updated 20 minutes ago 2011-10-05T23:53:00
Print Font: +-Steve Jobs will be remembered as a titan of business, of course. But for those of us who struggled decades ago to learn the machinations of lines of code in order to create something as elementary as a letter on a computer, Jobs will forever be associated with making modern computing simple, seamless and satisfying.

The iconic co-founder of Apple, along with Steve Wozniak, helped create a funny-looking computer named the Apple I, then II, in the 1970s that became synonymous with style and ease of use, as did dozens of products that would follow over the decades, including the Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. With the creation of the iTunes Store and 99-cent song downloads in 2003, he upended the digital music business at a time when it could have easily tipped in favor of piracy, a direction it was headed.

By 2008, the iTunes Store was the leading source for consumers to buy digital music, and it spawned other online-buying websites that tried to follow its simple-to-use model. It also led to Apple's creation of the App Store in 2008 for buying programs and software for the iPhone, and this year, the Mac itself.

The wireless world was completely revolutionized by the release of the iPhone in 2007. At that time, the word "smartphone" was largely equated with BlackBerrys, the standard bearer for the business class. Jobs saw the iPhone as a mobile computing device, and not just a phone, for everyone — something his competitors did not grasp at that time.

'I'll always stay connected with Apple'
Jobs' failing health — he was diagnosed with rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004, and had a liver transplant in 2009 — was obvious to all who saw photos of the world's most famous CEO in recent years in his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck.

Despite taking a leave of absence from Apple earlier this year, he did make a few public appearances to unveil new products — still the showman that he was known to be, with his trademark, "And... one more thing"to deliver the big reveal, whether it was a new Mac or iPhone.

But at each of his subsequent public appearance, he seemed a little more frail and a little less energetic than the time before, the turtlenecks looser, the blue jeans baggier.

 Paul Sakuma  /  AP file
Steve Jobs was not quite 30 when he introduced the  "new 'Macintosh' personal comptuer following a shareholder's meeting Jan. 24, 1984 in Cupertino, Ca. The Macintosh, priced at $2,495, is challenging IBM in the personal computer market" read the original caption for this photo. Advertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoices
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.Apple fans and followers were devastated by his letter of resignation Aug. 24, in which he wrote: "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come."

It was an ominous sign from the man who said, in 1985, "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."

But the threads of the tapestry were fraying. Jobs asked in his letter of resignation to remain as chairman of Apple's board, holding out, as he did so defiantly about many things — products, software, design, marketing — until the end.

Some had hoped Jobs would even make an appearance at Tuesday's unveiling of the new iPhone, nearly six weeks after his resignation. But he did not.

A telling speech
The year after his cancer diagnosis, when Jobs was 50, he gave the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. It's an oft-quoted speech, because it was such a personal one. Jobs the showman was quite the opposite when it came to family matters. But in the speech, he shared his thoughts about many personal things, including his own life — and death.

"No one wants to die," he said. "Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

 Paul Sakuma  /  AP file
Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco, in January 2007, six months before it went on sale. When it did, huge lines formed at Apple Stores around the country, a "tradition" that has continued with each subsequent iPhone release. That was typical Jobs: Dramatic and yet no-nonsense all in the same breath.

"This stuff doesn’t change the world. It really doesn’t," he said about technology in a Wired magazine interview, eight years before he was diagnosed with cancer.

"I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much — if at all."

But Jobs changed technology and how the everyday person used it.

"His impact on the world of technology and American business can not be underestimated," said Tim Bajarin,a technology consultant who attended the Apple shareholders’ meeting in January 1984, where the first Macintosh was unveiled.

"His simple vision of creating products that he would want — ones that were elegant and easy to use, is what drove him and Apple to spectacular success."

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.In a 1985 interview with Playboy, not long after the first Macintosh came out, Jobs said, "We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build."

Telling, too, were his remarks about the quality of the build of the Mac, which was — and still is — pricier than the average computer.

"When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it," he said in the interview. "You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through."

'He basically went on his gut'
Ken Auletta, in a recent interview with CNBC, likened Jobs' legacy to that of inventor and scientist Thomas Edison's a century ago.

While Jobs wasn't a scientist or inventor, he said, Jobs "invented and popularized and conceived products that all of us use, and have changed not only all of our lives, but the lives of many businesses that he's disrupted."

Like Edison, Jobs "was a great businessman. and that's unusual to have that kind of combination," said

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44294819/ns/technology_and_science/?gt1=43001

[OG Jaydc]

Karma

[Will_B]

R.I.P.

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

[Chamillitary Click]

I guess this disproves the theory "money cures cancer".

R.I.P. to a true genius.

[Sir Petey]

steve jobs had flowz like muthafuckaz

[Chamillitary Click]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/oa9IR-VYmKI&amp;feature=related" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/oa9IR-VYmKI&amp;feature=related</a>

Starts at the 4:35 mark. R.I.P.

[Blood$]

R.I.P.

[The_Ripper]

Karma

too bad an useless idiot like you is not dead yet.

[Mr. O]

He's the 2pac of technology.

as a joke, he died because Cook couldn't present shit. 

anyway..RIP JOBS.

[OG Jaydc]

Karma

too bad an useless idiot like you is not dead yet.

When you die you'll be buried at sea next to Osama bin laden

[Mo Z. Dizzle]

RIP

[The_Ripper]

Karma

too bad an useless idiot like you is not dead yet.

When you die you'll be buried at sea next to Osama bin laden

when you die everybody will piss and shits all over your grave  

[OG Jaydc]

When you die your crack head parents will snort your ashes