Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56.
The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage.
A friend of the family said that Mr. Jobs died of complications from pancreatic cancer, with which he waged a long and public struggle, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment. He continued to introduce new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.
In university in the late 1980’s I stared with wonder at the computer science lab. It was geek to me. But in the early 1990’s, working in publishing in my home town of Nashville, I had to learn to use a computer, and I did so on a Macintosh, and have used one ever since.
My first Mac was a Powerbook 1400cs, and it cost about $5,000 bucks in 1995. It was the machine I first connected to the internet on, in a house in Whitefish, Montana in 1996. (At that time, Apple stock was in the $17 range. It has since split twice, and sits around $375.) Apple computers have had a huge positive impact on my life. I am on my 3rd Powerbook, I’ve owned an iBook, and the iPod Photo (it still works fine, and it was a refurb in 2004), two original iPhones (my wife uses one as a phone, and the other plays music in the kitchen), an iPhone 3GS and soon a 4S (its time to upgrade). My kids have owned a shuffle (it still works too), two Nano’s, and now two iPod Touches. And now, my wife has an iPad, and since the last video store in our town just vanished, we have an Apple TV. You can read the impact of Steve Jobs and Apple elsewhere, but for me, it just works, and has for 21 years, and in so many ways. Thanks Steve.