Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs Dead at 56

[keithlewis]

R.I.P.

Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and former CEO who invented and masterfully marketed ever-sleeker gadgets that transformed everyday technology, from the personal computer to the iPod and iPhone, has died. He was 56.

Apple announced his death without giving a specific cause. He had been battling pancreatic cancer.

"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."

Jobs had battled cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January — his third since his health problems began — before resigning as CEO six weeks ago. Jobs became Apple's chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.

By the time he turned the reins of the company over to Cook, Jobs had become one of the business world’s greatest comeback kids.

The company he founded, was fired from and then returned to had gone from also-ran to technology industry leader. Under Jobs’ intensely detail-oriented leadership, Apple created several iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad, that have changed the face of consumer technology forever.

In the process, he transformed Apple into one of the nation's most valuable companies and himself into one of the world's richest men.

Just Wednesday the company released a new version of the iPhone, the first such major product announcement in years that didn't involve Jobs.

Jobs' family issued a statement: "Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family. ... 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."

Cook sent a statement to employees that in part read: "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."

Microsoft co-founder and sometimes Jobs rival Bill Gates tweeted: "Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to Steve Jobs’ family & friends. The world rarely sees someone who made such a profound impact."

Medical experts expressed sadness but not surprise at Jobs’ death, which followed treatment for a neuroendocrine pancreatic tumor, first diagnosed in 2004, a liver transplant in 2009, and then, likely, the recurrence of disease earlier this year.

“He not only had the cancer, he was battling the immune suppression after the liver transplant,” noted Dr. Timothy Donahue of the UCLA Center for Pancreatic Disease in Los Angeles.

In patients who have liver transplants after such tumors, the median survival rate is typically about two years.

“It’s even more remarkable he was able to do what he did,” Donahue said.

Job's ability to continue working as long as he did likely was a result of his personal constitution, his dedication to his work and the care of doctors who could help him receive specialized therapies, said Dr. Jeffrey I. Mechanick, an endocrinologist with Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

In the end, however, even the most dedicated patients have to bend to the disease, he added.

“Sometimes, they just have to say, ‘I’m going to spend time with my family,’” Mechanick said.

Steven Paul Jobs was born Feb. 24, 1955, in San Francisco to Joanne Simpson, then an unmarried graduate student, and Abdulfattah Jandali, a student from Syria. Simpson gave Jobs up for adoption, though she married Jandali and a few years later had a second child with him, Mona Simpson, who became a novelist.

Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs of Los Altos, California, a working-class couple who nurtured his early interest in electronics. He saw his first computer terminal at NASA's Ames Research Center when he was around 11 and landed a summer job at Hewlett-Packard before he had finished high school.

Jobs is survived by his biological mother; sister Mona Simpson; Lisa Brennan-Jobs, his daughter by onetime girlfriend Chrisann Brennan; wife Laurene; and their three children, Erin, Reed and Eve.

[ArmyofDarkness]

One of a kind! RIP