From MSNBC.com
Steve Jobs saw the future and led the world to it. He moved technology from garages to pockets, took entertainment from discs to bytes and turned gadgets into extensions of the people who use them.
Jobs, who founded and ran Apple, told us what we needed before we wanted it. "To some people, this is like Elvis Presley or John Lennon. It's a change in our times. It's the end of an era," said Scott Robbins, 34, a barber and an Apple fan. "It's like the end of the innovators."
Apple announced his death without giving a specific cause. He died peacefully on Wednesday, according to a statement from family members who were present. He was 56.
"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives," Apple's board said in a statement. "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."
President Barack Obama — who described the musical contents of his iPod to Rolling Stone in 2008 and famously gave one of the gadgets to Queen Elizabeth II as a gift the following year — said in a statement that Jobs "exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity."
"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world and talented enough to do it," he said.
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 — and resigned in August. Jobs became Apple's chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.
