Steve Jobs dies

Apple is in mourning as their emblematic CEO Steve Jobs has passed away.

It will be a difficult morning as Apple fans wake up today. Apple’s home page has announced the horrible news. Steve Jobs has passed away at the age of 56. He had resigned from his post as CEO of Apple in the summer – although he will always remain the emblematic leader of the company.

Steve Jobs wrote in August at the time of his resignation that "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". He nevertheless remained on the company’s board of directors.

Apple speaks of losing a "visionary" and a "creative genius", a "source of inspiration" and a "mentor" for numerous staff members. The homages have come from further afield than just Apple, with Bill Gates (ex-CEO and cofounder of Microsoft) talking of his sadness and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and cofounder of Facebook speaking of the loss of a friend and mentor.

Apple has also made it possible for people to send their condolences or thoughts by setting up the rememberingsteve@apple.com email address where messages can be sent.

Steve Jobs cofounded Apple in 1976 with the company’s first office being in his garage. It was here that the first Apple, the Apple I was designed. In 1984, the first Macintosh was released, with this being a computer for the general public with a graphical interface and mouse.

Due to internal conflict, Steve Jobs was fired from the company in 1985, an event that he had trouble accepting until his return close to ten years later when Apple was almost bankrupt. In the meantime, Steve Jobs purchased the Pixar animation studios and foundered the company NeXT which designed a Unix based operating system on which Mac OS X is today built.

Since the beginning of the 2000’s, the man behind Apple’s products has shaken up numerous markets with the iPod linked to iTunes for music, the iPhone and more recently the iPad. He was present for the release of all of these products despite having health issues.

After beating cancer in 2003, Steve Jobs had to undergo a liver transplant in 2009. He passes on today with Apple being one of the largest listed companies in the world.