Steve Jobs' Death
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A mosaic art tribute to Steve Jobs by Charis Tsevis
Overview
Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur best known for co-founding and serving as the chief executive officer of Apple Inc.. In early October 2011, Jobs passed away at age of 56 after years of struggling with pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Due to his iconic status in the technology sector and social media, the news of Jobs' death instantly led to an outpour of commemorations and tributes to the man.
Background
On October 5th, 2011, Apple released a statement on its homepage that the Apple founder and former CEO Steve Jobs had passed away. The company initially didn't specify the cause of his death, but it was eventually revealed as complications from a relapse of his pancreatic tumor that he had been battling with since the diagnosis in 2004. On October 7th, 2011, a small private funeral was held by Job's family members and his close associates and a number of public memorial services were organized outside Apple stores in the United States and overseas.
Notable Developments
Official Statement
In remembering the founder of the company, Apple's homepage display was replaced with a portrait of Steve Jobs (shown below, left). A similar epitaph[1] featuring grayscale portrait of Jobs (shown below, right) stayed on display for two weeks, along with an email address (rememberingsteve@apple.com) for people to send in their thoughts, memories or condolences.
"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."
News Media Coverage
The news was first reported by Marketwatch[2], the Associated Press[3] and Gizmodo[4] as early as 7:34pm (ET) and broke news headlines on ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as making the front page of major newspapers around the world. According to Google News[5], at least 1,900 obituary articles and breaking news updates were published by daily news publications and websites within the first hour of the Associated Press report.
Online Reactions
On Reddit, a link thread to an Associated Press tweet confirming Jobs' death was posted within the first hour[14], generating 6,600 comments within the first four hours. Twitter struggled to keep up with the flood of reactionary tweets and hashtags like "RIP Steve Jobs," #ThankYouSteve, "iHeaven" and "Only 56" that shot up to the microblogging service's top 10 trending topics. #SteveJobs also rose to the top globally trending hashtag of the day with a run rate of 72,000 tweets per hour at is peak, according to Twitter analytics services WhatTheTrend[15] and Twopcharts.[16]
Condolences
Numerous influential figures in the social media and technology industry issued statements in remembrance of Jobs, including Apple co-founder and longtime friend Steve Wozniak[6], Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates[7], Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page[8] and Facebook co-founder and chairman Mark Zuckerberg[9]. President Obama[10] also issued a statement on the White House blog. The tech news publication Wired collected reactions and posted them in a tribute to Jobs on their homepage[11]. Music celebrities such as U2 and Coldplay also gave condolences about his death.[12]
Homepage Tributes
A number of high-profile web publications and services temporarily updated their homepages in tribute to Steve Jobs' legacies, including Google, Reddit, Wired and BoingBoing among others.
Notable Examples
Image Tributes
On Tumblr and 4chan, image tributes and commentaries on the death of Steve Jobs soon followed. Videoblogger Ben Hughes[13] posted a two-pane image of an old Macintosh machine and a modern iMac via his Tumblr, which gained tens of thousands of notes overnight. Other iterations consisted of puns on Apple products prefixed with its signature lowercase "i-" and altered images of Apple's logo.
Multiple Steve Jobs Advice Animals also gained popularity, featuring jokes about his death and what could have caused it. The most popular ones are Steve Jobs Says[13] and Scumbag Steve Jobs[14].
As the week passed by, more sophisticated artworks emerged online in remembering Steve Jobs' legacies, such as large-scale photo collages and installations among others. An Athens-based visual designer Charis Tsevis[23] also released a number of photographic mosaics made out of Apple gadgets and other materials portraying Steve Jobs. According to his official portfolio, Tsevis originally created the mosaics as a "get well soon" gesture when Apple's chief executive was on indefinite medical leave. Tsevis' tribute artworks were highlighted in an article by Huffington Post.[25]
Video Tributes
Throughout October, a number of news programs ran special segments on the life of Steve Jobs, while YouTubers uploaded their own montage-style and musical tributes to his accomplishments. In addition, a video clip of Steve Jobs' honorary address at Stanford University's commencement ceremony in 2005 (shown below, bottom right) began making the rounds across blogs and social networking sites, suddenly bringing more than 15 million views to the YouTube video that had been uploaded three years prior to his death.
On October 5th, 2012, Apple revealed a tribute video to Steve Jobs on the company's homepage in remembering the one year anniversary of his death. Featuring black-and-white still images and excerpts of quotes from his keynote speeches, the video highlighted some of Apple's most celebrated accomplishments made under the supervision of Jobs. The message was also accompanied by a letter from the successive CEO Tim Cook (shown below).
One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple. No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself. Our values originated from Steve and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We share the same privilege and responsibility of carrying his legacy into the future.
Death Hoaxes
Between Jobs' announcement of his diagnosis in 2004 and his death in 2011, there had been a number of premature obituaries and breaking news updates falsely reporting on the passing of Apple's co-founder. Jobs maintained his chief executie role in the company until August 2011 when he resigned from his post.
- In August 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published an obituary article of Steve Jobs that had been put together by the staff in the case of such event. The report quickly spread through its corporate news service and the rumor intensified as blogs and other news carriers began syndicating the story.
- During the Macworld Keynote speech in January 2009, Apple-related forum MacRumors was infiltrated by a hacker who defaced the website with false news of Steve Job's death that read "STEVE JOBS JUST DIED." The news media speculated that the hacker was associated with Anonymous and 4chan .
- In September 2011, CBS reported via one of its Twitter accounts that Steve Jobs had passed from a heart attack. The post was removed within minutes with a formal retraction, but not before the information was re-tweeted by some of the account’s 11,000+ followers.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Apple Homepage – /stevejobs
[2] Marketwatch – Statement by Apple's Board of Directors
[3] Associated Press – Apple says company co-founder Steve Jobs has died
[4] Gizmodo – Steve Jobs Is Dead
[5] Google News – Search Results for Steve Job / Past 24 Hours
[6] Anderson Cooper 360 – Steve Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs
[7] The GatesNotes – Steve Jobs
[8] Google Plus – Larry Page's Status Update
[9] Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg's Status Update
[10] The White House Blog – President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs
[12] FMQB – Bono, Coldplay Pay Tribute To Steve Jobs
[13] Tumblr – RIP Steve Jobs
[14] Memegenerator – Steve Jobs Says
[15] Memegenerator – Scumbag Steve Jobs
[16] Reddit – Steve Jobs Apple CEO Has Died
[17] What The Trend – Now Trending
[18] Twopchart – Check the Current Speed of #SteveJobs
[19] SFGate – Apple's Jobs has cancerous tumor removed
[20] Radaronline – Steve Jobs receiving treatment at cancer clinic
[21] The Next Web – Steve Jobs receiving cancer treatment
[22] Google Plus – Michael Dell's Status Update
fn23 – Tsevis Visual Design – Steve Jobs Portraits
[24] Huffington Post – Steve Jobs Tribute
![Steve Jobs From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about a person who has recently died. Some information, such as that pertaining to the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change as more facts become known. Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 October 5, 2011)2l68 was an American computer entrepreneur and inventor. He was co-founder, 9 chairman, and chief executive officer of Appl Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer.[12] In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula,9 and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple Il series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse- driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Macintosh.11314 from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.171 He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006.18] Consequently Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7 percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.192021122) His aim to develop products that are both functional and elegant earned him a devoted following3] On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple's CEO. In his letter of resignation, Jobs strongly recommended that the Apple executive Steve Jobs e Inc. 1011] Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985,(15116]J obs resigned tober 5, 2011, Apple announced that Jobs had died [8128] He was 56 years old.[29] Apple expressed disappointment that its model of CEO had demonstrated only around 70% of the battery life of its competitors. However, it noted that it had created one of the thinnest, lightest CEOs on the market and that it expected the newer model, Tim Cook, to have a battery life comparable to that of other CEOs on the market. Jobs holding a white iPhone 4 at Wo Developers Conference 2010 Steven Paul Jobs February 24, 195511 San Francisco, Californ October 5, 2011 (aged Palo Alto, California, U.S Reed College (one sem 1972) Born 1 Early years Died areer 2.1 Beginnings of Apple Computer 2.2 NeXT Computer 2.3 Pixar and Disney Alma mater](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/000/220/004/ZrOZd.png "ZrOZd.png")
