Remembering Steve Jobs

Posted:
in General Discussion edited October 2021
Apple's late CEO is still venerated and missed. On the tenth anniversary of Steve Jobs's death, AppleInsider explores what the man himself thought about living and dying.

Tim Cook (left) and Steve Jobs (right)
Tim Cook (left) and Steve Jobs (right)


Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died at around 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday October 5, 2011. He was at his Palo Alto home. The Santa Clara County Public Health Department recorded the immediate cause of death as respiratory arrest but that "metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor" was the underlying cause.

Flowers left outside Steve Jobs's Palo Alto house
Flowers left outside Steve Jobs's Palo Alto house


Later that day, his wife Laurene Powell Jobs issued a statement.
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.

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.
Jobs was 56 years old and had been being treated for this rare form of pancreatic cancer since he was 49. Consequently he had been conscious of his health when giving a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. He chose to speak about mortality.






At that point, he had already had a successful operation to remove a tumor but in 2009 he took an extended leave of absence from Apple to undergo further treatment. He had a liver transplant and at the September 2009 Apple event thanked his donor.

"I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs," said Jobs. "I am alive because of their generosity."

We now know that Jobs had refused Tim Cook's offer of a liver transplant but in this same speech he thanked Cook and others for how they "rose to the occasion".

Cook would again take over while Jobs went on another medical leave of absence in January 2011.

Jobs's final public appearance was on June 7, 2011, representing Apple at a Cupertino county meeting where he spoke about plans to build Apple Park.





Just under three months later on August 24, 2011, Jobs formally stepped down as Apple CEO. On his last day he reportedly chaired a board meeting, tried to fool a pre-release version of Siri with questions, and then rode home with Apple attorney George Riley.

That evening, he told biographer Walter Isaacson that "I've had a very lucky career, a very lucky life. I've done all that I can do."

The day he died

AppleInsider managing editor at the time was Neil Hughes. He wrote Steve Jobs's obituary for the site on that day.

"I was at the gym, and I got a bunch of calls. The news broke late and I rushed home to cover it. For me it was a story -- I wasn't really emotional at the time, I was just in work mode, covering it as it needed to be covered," he said. "From a news perspective, I kind of knew it was coming, but it was still unexpected. You just assume a guy like that will live forever."

Journalists write obituaries regularly and you don't put your personal reaction into these pieces. After the work is done, though, things are different.

"I never realized I had a 'relationship' with Steve until later," Hughes said. "There was a lawsuit that involved emails between Eddy Cue and Steve. Something about iBooks. And Steve read one of my stories and actually learned something about his own company from it. The truth is Apple always paid attention, including Steve."

Writer Bob LeVitus, who Steve Jobs would occasionally quote on slides in keynote presentations, says now that even though his death had been expected, it was upsetting. "I was really sad when he died. It was like the end of an era," he remembers.

Bob LeVitus
Bob "Dr Mac" LeVitus


"He was one of those once in a generation guys," says LeVitus. "He was brilliant. Apple isn't going to be the same after Steve. I think Tim Cook tries really hard to keep the spirit of Apple alive and the way Steve would've wanted it. [However] as the company gets bigger and bigger it gets harder and harder to stay true to doing everything excellently."

"I don't know what the next big thing is but I don't know that Apple will hit on it without Steve," continues LeVitus. "Maybe. There's so many smart people at Apple that I'm sure something good will come out of it but Steve was the one that said let's build an MP3 player fo real people who are not geeks. And let's build a phone that actually is smart."

Legacy

As news of Jobs's death broke, friends, colleagues and former rivals spoke about him. Microsoft founder Bill Gates said: "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. I will miss Steve immensely."

On October 19, 2011, Apple held a memorial service for Jobs. It was initially a private event for employees and live-streamed only to Apple Stores around the world. Around a week later, Apple released the video publicly. That video is no longer available on Apple's site but a memorial page is. You can read a selection of people's memories about Steve Jobs and still contribute your own.

Apple continues to maintain that page and every year, Tim Cook pays tribute to Jobs on the anniversary of his death, with tweets such as this one in 2020:

"A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again." -- Maya Angelou. You're always with us Steve, your memory connects and inspires us every day. pic.twitter.com/X85bjObkPK

-- Tim Cook (@tim_cook)


Writing in 2021, ex-Apple Chief Designer Jony Ive says it was a "brutal, heartbreaking day" when Jobs died.

"After he died, I walked out into the garden," wrote Ive. I remember the sound of the latch on the wooden door as I gently pulled it closed. In the garden, I sat and thought how talking often gets in the way of listening and thinking."

"Perhaps that is why so much of our time together was spent quietly," he continued. "I miss Steve desperately and I will always miss not talking with him."

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

Read on AppleInsider
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    I remember that day, I didn't find out from the media but from a friend of mine messaging me. Felt a bit hollowed out for a while.
    docno42
  • Reply 2 of 36
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    "Steve showed me-- and all of us-- what it means to serve humanity."

    And that is the core of what made him so great.   It may be the core of every great man:   Serving a purpose larger than himself.
    StrangeDaysalbegarcminicoffeesteveauanantksundarammacguicanukstorm
  • Reply 3 of 36
    racerhomie3racerhomie3 Posts: 1,264member
    His Stanford speech really made me see the world in a better way. I wish that he had lived to see the Apple Watch & see it help save lives .
    bigbillygoatgruffStrangeDaysalbegarcpsych_guyGeorgeBMacJWSCdocno42chasmsteveauargonaut
  • Reply 4 of 36
    His Stanford speech really made me see the world in a better way. I wish that he had lived to see the Apple Watch & see it help save lives .
    Whenever I spend a few days in a row unhappy about what I'm doing, I think about that speech and let it inspire me.
    albegarcpsych_guyjony0ronnanantksundaram
  • Reply 5 of 36
    I'll never forget the day he held up the iPhone for the first time and showed it to us all. I though to myself, "There it is. The game changer." I've been an Apple guy since I was in high school tooling around with an Apple II. I just miss this guy and his vision (wrote on a MacBook Pro). RIP Steve Jobs.
    edited October 2018 docno42argonautjony0razorpitronn
  • Reply 6 of 36
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    And I’ll never forget or forgive the trolls on C|net who viciously attacked and vilified Jobs the day he died. There were efforts to organize trips to urinate and defecate on his grave. It was the most vile thing I’d ever read in my life. I pleaded with C|net to delete the most vicious and cruel of those posts to no avail. Those posts are part of the reason I have no tolerance for Android sycophants or Apple haters, no matter their motives. It has gotten me shadow banned on a couple of sites but I don’t care. I will respond tp them just as nastily as they post.
    macplusplussteveaumuthuk_vanalingamuffenmanjony0razorpitronnwilliamlondon
  • Reply 7 of 36
    zroger73zroger73 Posts: 787member
    It's nearly incomprehensible to me how one man and his company could have so much positive influence on the productivity, creativity, and enjoyment of so many millions of lives.

    I was around when Apple was the outcast. Few people wanted their quirky products regardless of how well they worked, how reliable they were, or how simple they were to use.

    Apple became a part of my life about a decade ago when I purchased my first Mac and iPhone and sold my last Windows-based PC and flip phone. I've since had several Apple computers, tablets, phones, and other devices and accessories. My Apple Watch and iPhone are always present every where I go. Most of the movies and television shows I watch come from one of my Apple TV devices. Most of the music I listen to comes my HomePods.

    In only ten years, Apple has grown from a curiosity to a constant part of my daily life.
    jony0ronn
  • Reply 8 of 36
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    RIP, Steve.  I hope the Mac survives his passing but it's looking less and less like what made the Mac special for me is slowly being stripped out :(

    We need the next Steve Jobs to pick up and carry things forward instead of repacking what we already have.
    aegeanralphiemobirdwilliamlondon
  • Reply 9 of 36
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,273member
    docno42 said:
    RIP, Steve.  I hope the Mac survives his passing but it's looking less and less like what made the Mac special for me is slowly being stripped out :(

    We need the next Steve Jobs to pick up and carry things forward instead of repacking what we already have.
    You're not looking hard enough. The latest MacBook Pro is a wonder, the current Mac mini is a value-added beast, and the MacBook Air continues to be the normal-user workhorse that people finally, reluctantly trade in after six to ten years of service. The "regular" Macs remain unchallenged as the best consumer desktops money can buy, but neither Steve nor Tim is responsible for the (sensible) shift away from desktops (and now we're starting to see the same in laptops -- and Steve actually predicted this would happen!). The Apple Watch, the iPad, and the HomePod are -- unquestionably -- the three current Apple devices Steve himself would have loved the most, because they most embody what he was trying to do -- warts and all. And of course the iPhone 11 is getting the most rave reviews of any iPhone ever.

    What's been "stripped out" of the Mac experience isn't anything in the Mac -- it's your privilege as the centre of Apple's attention as a Mac user 25 to 30 years ago, when Apple made little else but Macs, and the experience you enjoyed was being one the "elite" who purchased a "boutique" computer that was (and still is!) awesome and not to the taste of the "mundanes." To put it more bluntly, you miss the cult and find it polluted by the mainstream now.

    Your rose-coloured glasses have overlooked or conveniently ignored the many missteps Apple made while Steve was around (both times) in favour of his titanic accomplishments, and I certainly don't blame people for this -- but it's not the truth, and it's not healthy to mythologize him (Steve would certainly have hated that). The truth is that Apple has evolved pretty much the way Steve always hoped it would -- into a mainstream and influential company that finally has the power to make "a dent in the universe" bigger than catering exclusively to some well-off snobs, and (of chief importance when he was alive) stabilizing the company through excellent products that nearly everyone can access.

    Whether you think Apple is still doing that or not doesn't really matter -- the facts are all on the record, and the Apple experience in 2019 is more diverse, more interesting, higher-quality, and more popular (and yes, lucrative) than it has ever been at any time in its history. And that's not an opinion.
    edited October 2019 MacQcargonautjony0DAalsethrazorpitronnmacguiuraharabestkeptsecretDetnator
  • Reply 10 of 36
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    From Tim:
    "Steve showed me—and all of us—what it means to serve humanity. We miss him, today and every day, and we’ll never forget the example he set for us"

    There are those who changed the world forever -- and changed it for the better:  People like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein -- and Steve Jobs.

    And, each of them had one thing in common:   Their goal, their life's work, was to serve humanity.  Yes Tim, they should serve as examples for each and every one of us!

    While the world moves on from their deaths, it will never be the same again -- and they can never be replaced.  All we can do is accept what they gave us and try to do our best, in our own way, to follow the examples that they set.

    Thank You!
    uffenmanrazorpit
  • Reply 11 of 36
    mocsegmocseg Posts: 86member
    Jobs was the great god of extreme egoism and we can see now how lost and miserable he really was.
    A man who was grabbing and grabbing, even parking spaces for disabled drivers, often wanted two and suddenly turned with all his billions into the grave. And his fans have to make up his good deeds and false last words.
    As believers fall away and new generations grow, they will put it in the right place - it will become the worst possible example, while perhaps civilization will be gone anyway, because there is no society that can survive such egoism, let alone glorify it.


    edited October 2019 williamlondon
  • Reply 12 of 36
    mocseg said:
    Jobs was the great god of extreme egoism and we can see now how lost and miserable he really was.
    A man who was grabbing and grabbing, even parking spaces for disabled drivers, often wanted two and suddenly turned with all his billions into the grave. And his fans have to make up his good deeds and false last words.
    As believers fall away and new generations grow, they will put it in the right place - it will become the worst possible example, while perhaps civilization will be gone anyway, because there is no society that can survive such egoism, let alone glorify it.
    Well, if you were given up for adoption and subsequently developed neurotic behaviours expressing a need for confirmation of being loved and desired, I hope that others would treat you with more understanding than you are showing here.

    Steve had many, many faults - as do we all. He managed to accomplish a great many things that are admired by lots of people, despite these faults. I choose to see the silver lining, not the cloud.
    seanjmuthuk_vanalingamlolliverDetnatorhammeroftruthwilliamlondon
  • Reply 13 of 36
    1st1st Posts: 443member
    never forget that day when the news showed on TV at airport of HK (I was just landed for a visit). Rest of time became very fuzzy, the news was the only thing I remember on that day.
  • Reply 14 of 36
    mocseg said:
    Jobs was the great god of extreme egoism and we can see now how lost and miserable he really was.
    A man who was grabbing and grabbing, even parking spaces for disabled drivers, often wanted two and suddenly turned with all his billions into the grave. And his fans have to make up his good deeds and false last words.
    As believers fall away and new generations grow, they will put it in the right place - it will become the worst possible example, while perhaps civilization will be gone anyway, because there is no society that can survive such egoism, let alone glorify it.


    Attention whore. 
    razorpitseanjlolliverEsquireCatswilliamlondon
  • Reply 15 of 36
    lkrupp said:
    And I’ll never forget or forgive the trolls on C|net who viciously attacked and vilified Jobs the day he died. There were efforts to organize trips to urinate and defecate on his grave. It was the most vile thing I’d ever read in my life. I pleaded with C|net to delete the most vicious and cruel of those posts to no avail. Those posts are part of the reason I have no tolerance for Android sycophants or Apple haters, no matter their motives. It has gotten me shadow banned on a couple of sites but I don’t care. I will respond tp them just as nastily as they post.

    Yes, and what makes me more sad is that, those haters even don’t realize that theirs Android devices are what they are, only because of Steve Jobs.
    So, if they were smart enough, they should say: “Thanks Steve!”
    ronnseanjEsquireCats
  • Reply 16 of 36
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,630member
    Thank you, Steve.  I never met you.  You did indeed Help change the world.  

    We miss you.  
    edited October 2020 qwerty52muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 17 of 36
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    mocseg said:
    Jobs was the great god of extreme egoism and we can see now how lost and miserable he really was.
    A man who was grabbing and grabbing, even parking spaces for disabled drivers, often wanted two and suddenly turned with all his billions into the grave. And his fans have to make up his good deeds and false last words.
    As believers fall away and new generations grow, they will put it in the right place - it will become the worst possible example, while perhaps civilization will be gone anyway, because there is no society that can survive such egoism, let alone glorify it.
    Well, if you were given up for adoption and subsequently developed neurotic behaviours expressing a need for confirmation of being loved and desired, I hope that others would treat you with more understanding than you are showing here.

    Steve had many, many faults - as do we all. He managed to accomplish a great many things that are admired by lots of people, despite these faults. I choose to see the silver lining, not the cloud.
    I would go so far as to say it was his faults that made him the success he was. Look at Bell, Edison, Rockefeller, Carnage, all of the people that founded companies that changed the world, had big egos. They all had a temper. They all had the self confidence to say "do it right or you're fired". Nice guys who get along and don't rock the boat are great, but they don't have what it takes to change the world. 

    So yeah, Jobs had his faults. He also had vision to see what he wanted and go for it. He had the confidence to toss the first iPod in a fish tank, point at the bubbles, and say "See, there's still wasted space, make it smaller." He had the ego to come back to a company that was staggering and think he could bring it back from the brink, and then do it. He then had the courage to take that same company and bet everything on a revolutionary phone without a keyboard that most every "expert" said would fail. It was his confidence, his demanding attitude to what he saw as the "right" way to do something, his ability to look everyone in the world in the face and say 'you're doing it wrong, let me show you how to do it right,' that made him who he was.

    So yeah it would be bad if the world were made up of people like that. But you need a few to shake things up. Otherwise we would still be typing on DOS computers, or flying propellor airplanes, or riding steamships, or sitting in a cave in Europe. 
    muthuk_vanalingamlolliver
  • Reply 18 of 36
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    I want to add one other thing. Jobs personal strength, his ego, his confidence in himself, didn't always serve him well. He was pushed out of Apple originally because he was too disruptive. It took a decade in the wilderness, Pixar, Next, and other companies, for him to learn how to take his strengths, and his faults and use them to be an effective leader. Without that setback, I doubt he could have brought Apple back when he returned. 

    However there is one area where it failed him badly; his cancer. He got the diagnoses, and immediately thought he could treat it himself with diet and other "alternative" treatments. It didn't work. Months later he finally realized that he had to do what the doctors said, but it was too late. Mind you pancreatic cancer has a high mortality rate. It's possible that standard treatments would not have been any more effective. But by delaying he gave up any chance of them working. 

    This is personal for me. Six months after Jobs passed away from cancer, I was diagnosed. I heard all the alternative theories, all the snake oil claims, all the BS about how using marijuana oil will make it all go away, or how these special mushrooms will cure it without side effects, and I dumped all of it in the trash. I did what my Doctors said and now, three major surgeries, seven months of chemo, and eight years of hell later I'm cancer free. Doing what his Doctors said may not have saved Jobs life, but not doing it, taking the 'alternative therapy' route he guaranteed the outcome. 
    edited October 2020 ronndewmeseanj
  • Reply 19 of 36
    pembrokepembroke Posts: 230member
    SJ was the right catalyst at the right time in the right place. It is only right when aggrandising SJ to always - always - acknowledge that SJ was remarkably lucky to have met and partnered with the technical genius Steve Wozniak, without whom we wouldn’t be commenting here. 
    ronnseanjDetnator
  • Reply 20 of 36
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member
    DAalseth said:
    mocseg said:
    Jobs was the great god of extreme egoism and we can see now how lost and miserable he really was.
    A man who was grabbing and grabbing, even parking spaces for disabled drivers, often wanted two and suddenly turned with all his billions into the grave. And his fans have to make up his good deeds and false last words.
    As believers fall away and new generations grow, they will put it in the right place - it will become the worst possible example, while perhaps civilization will be gone anyway, because there is no society that can survive such egoism, let alone glorify it.
    Well, if you were given up for adoption and subsequently developed neurotic behaviours expressing a need for confirmation of being loved and desired, I hope that others would treat you with more understanding than you are showing here.

    Steve had many, many faults - as do we all. He managed to accomplish a great many things that are admired by lots of people, despite these faults. I choose to see the silver lining, not the cloud.
    I would go so far as to say it was his faults that made him the success he was. Look at Bell, Edison, Rockefeller, Carnage, all of the people that founded companies that changed the world, had big egos. They all had a temper. They all had the self confidence to say "do it right or you're fired". Nice guys who get along and don't rock the boat are great, but they don't have what it takes to change the world. 

    So yeah, Jobs had his faults. He also had vision to see what he wanted and go for it. He had the confidence to toss the first iPod in a fish tank, point at the bubbles, and say "See, there's still wasted space, make it smaller." He had the ego to come back to a company that was staggering and think he could bring it back from the brink, and then do it. He then had the courage to take that same company and bet everything on a revolutionary phone without a keyboard that most every "expert" said would fail. It was his confidence, his demanding attitude to what he saw as the "right" way to do something, his ability to look everyone in the world in the face and say 'you're doing it wrong, let me show you how to do it right,' that made him who he was.

    So yeah it would be bad if the world were made up of people like that. But you need a few to shake things up. Otherwise we would still be typing on DOS computers, or flying propellor airplanes, or riding steamships, or sitting in a cave in Europe. 
    You could argue we wouldn’t even have DOS computers if we some how removed those type of people in society.  ;)

    I go as far back as the Vic 20. You want an interesting book, read Commodore: A Company on the Edge by Brian Bagall. You’ll quickly see Jobs’ behavior was not unique. 
Sign In or Register to comment.