Steve Jobs
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American information technology entrepreneur and inventor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc.; CEO and largest shareholder of Pixar Animation Studios; a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT Inc. Jobs is widely recognized as a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Shortly after his death, Jobs’ official biographer, Walter Isaacson, described him as a "creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing,
Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. The duo gained fame and wealth a year later for the Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced personal computers. In 1979, after a tour of Xerox PARC, Jobs saw the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto, which was mouse-driven and had a graphical user interface (GUI). This led to development of the unsuccessful Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the very successful Macintosh in 1984. In addition to being the first mass-produced computer with a GUI, the Macintosh instigated the sudden rise of the desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to feature vector graphics. Following a long power struggle, Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985'
After leaving Apple, Jobs took a few of its members with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in state-of-the-art computers for higher-education and business markets. In addition, Jobs helped to initiate the development of the visual effects industry when he founded the spinout of the computer graphics division of George Lucas's company Lucasfilm in 1986. The new company, Pixar, would eventually produce the first fully computer-animated film, Toy Story—an event made possible in part because of Jobs's financial support.
In 1997, Apple purchased next, allowing Jobs to become the former's CEO once again. He would return the company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, back to profitability. Beginning in 1997 with the "Think different" advertising campaign, Jobs worked closely with designer Jonathan Ive to develop a line of products that would have larger cultural ramifications: the iMac, iTunes, Apple Stores, the iPod, the iTunes Store, the iPhone, the App Store, and the iPad. Mac OS was also revamped into Mac OS X, based on NeXT's NeXTSTEP platform.
Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor in 2003 and died of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5, 2011.
Pre-Apple
In 1973, Steve Wozniak designed his own version of the classic video game Pong. After finishing it, Wozniak gave the board to Jobs, who then took the game down to Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California. Atari thought that Jobs had built it and gave him a job as a technician. Atari's co-founder Nolan Bushnell later described him as "difficult but valuable", pointing out that "he was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that."
Apple
Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in 1975. In 1976, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. After Wozniak showed it to Jobs, who suggested that they sell it, they and Ronald Wayne formed Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs's Los Altos home on Crist Drive. Wayne stayed only a short time, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the active primary cofounders of the company. A neighbor on Crist Drive recalled Jobs as odd, an individual who would greet his clients "with his underwear hanging out, barefoot and hippie-like." Another neighbor, Larry Waterland, who had just finished his PhD at Stanford in chemical engineering, recalled dismissing Jobs's budding business: " 'You punched cards, put them in a big deck,' he said about the mainframe machines of that time. 'Steve took me over to the garage. He had a circuit board with a chip on it, a DuMont TV set, a Panasonic cassette tape deck and a keyboard.
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak (Jobs oversaw the development of the Apple II's unusual case and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply. It was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire by Jobs and was the first consumer product sold by Apple Computer.
iMac
Apple iMac was introduced in 1998 and its innovative design was directly the result of Jobs's return to Apple. Apple boasted "the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else's." Described as "cartoonlike", the first iMac, clad in Bondi Blue plastic, was unlike any personal computer that came before. In 1999, Apple introduced the Graphite gray Apple iMac and since has varied the shape, color and size considerably while maintaining the all-in-one design. Design ideas were intended to create a connection with the user such as the handle and a breathing light effect when the computer went to sleep. The Apple iMac sold for $1,299 at that time.
iTunes
iTunes is a media player, media library, online radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple Inc. It is used to play, download, and organize digital audio and video (as well as other types of media available on the iTunes Store) on personal computers running the OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The iTunes Store is also available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
iPod
The first generation of iPod was released October 23, 2001. The major innovation of the iPod was its small size achieved by using a 1.8" hard drive compared to the 2.5" drives common to players at that time.
iPhone
Jobs holding an iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010
Apple began work on the first iPhone in 2005 and the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. The iPhone created such a sensation that a survey indicated six out of ten Americans were aware of its release. Time Magazine declared it "Invention of the Year" for 2007. The Apple iPhone is a small device with multimedia capabilities and functions as a quad-band touch screen smartphone. A year later, the iPhone 3G was released in July 2008 with three key features: support for GPS, 3G data and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA.
iPad
iPad is an iOS-based line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPad was released on April 3, 2010; the most recent iPad models, the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 4, were released on October 22, 2014 and September 9, 2015.
Death
Jobs died at his Palo Alto, California, home around 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, because of complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer, resulting in respiratory arrest. He had lost consciousness the day before and died with his wife, children, and sisters at his side.