By Chloe Schneider
Yesterday we were truly saddened by the news that the ultimate Apple genius Steve Jobs had died at just 56. Jobs had been battling pancreatic cancer since 2004 and stepped down as Apple’s CEO on August 24 2011.
“Apple has lost a visionary and a creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunte enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor,” the company said in an official statement, “Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”
The Legacy
Although Steve Jobs life may have been unfairly cut short, we can all take comfort in the fact that it was a life well lived. The technological mastermind often spoke of the joy his work and family brought 
him. His wife of nineteen years Laurence and their three children Reed, 19, Erin, 16, and Eve, 13, survive him. Jobs also leaves another daughter, journalist Lisa Brennan-Jobs, whom was born to his former partner Chistiann Brennan.
1979 was the year Jobs and his business partner Steve Wozniak set up Apple and in 1984 the very first Macintosh went on sale. But Bill Gates Windows rapidly overtook the Macintosh and Jobs was kicked out of Apple in 1985.
It was then that Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas, taking the innovative motion-picture company to heights it had never imagined and pulling off the deal with Disney which eventually led to Disney buying the company from Jobs in January 2006 for $7.4 billion.
This fortune led Jobs back to Apple where he quickly took the role of ‘interim CEO’ and hired Tim Cook, the now chief executive, who helped breathe life back into Apple and the Macintosh. The candy-coloured iMac was introduced and quickly became the coolest kid on the block.
From here, there was no stopping Apple. They set their sites on music and introduced the world to the iPod and iTunes, two technologies that turned the music world on its head.
Mobile Phones were the 
next target and suddenly the iPhone was the hottest accessory to have. It was all this success that allowed Jobs to turn his eyes back to a flopped idea of 2001—the tablet computer. And with the iPad, the way we work and play changed completely.
With Steve Jobs, technology became a lifestyle and the computers were made personal, intuitive and, well, a lot of fun. We’re sure anyone of you living the iLife will agree it’s the high life and we can hardly imagine our world without Apple.
The Tributes
Twitter and Facebook exploded with messages to Jobs who was undoubtedly one of the greatest living inventors. Bill Gates, Jobs biggest competitor, released a statement and tweeted words of remembrance, saying, “For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor.”
President Obama released an official statement expressing his condolences, calling Jobs one of America’s greatest innovators.
Former President Bill Clinton and Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckberg also released official statements remembering the brilliant Jobs.
All around the world the public have been leaving their tributes to Jobs at their local Apple store. In Manhatten a fan has scrawled the words ‘iLove Steve’ on the walls, in London, apples etched with Jobs’ mantra ‘Think Different’ have been left, Tokyo saw lit candles on iPads like a high-tech candlelight vigil, each of the monitors in a Singapore store showed an image of Jobs for the day and in Sydney fans have left flowers and notes outside Apple stores around the city.
In His Own Words
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Stanford commencement speech 2005
“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” – Steve Jobs’ pitch to John Sculley, the Pepsi-Cola CEO Jobs brought on to run Apple
“None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” – Jobs responding to whether he did market research for the iPad
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Inc. Magazine
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.” – Wall Street Journal 1993
“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Business Week 1998
“No one wants to die. 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.” – Stanford commencement speech, June 2005
