Steve Jobs Dies October 5, 2011: Apple, Pixar and His Legacy

Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011, at age 56. As an Apple co-founder, NeXT founder and leader of Pixar, he helped turn emerging technologies into products that large audiences could understand and use. His influence came from product judgment, persuasion and demanding collaboration rather than solitary invention, and the same intensity that produced admired devices also made his management style controversial.

Apple Begins with Wozniak’s Computer

Jobs grew up in California and met Steve Wozniak through a mutual friend. Wozniak was the stronger circuit designer; Jobs saw that the compact computer he created could become a product. With Ronald Wayne, they formed Apple Computer in 1976. Wayne soon sold his share.

The Apple I was a circuit board rather than a complete consumer appliance. The Apple II, introduced in 1977, arrived as a finished case with color graphics and expansion capability. It became one of the machines that moved personal computing from hobby clubs into homes, schools and businesses.

As Apple expanded, Jobs pushed teams toward graphical interfaces he had seen demonstrated at Xerox PARC. The Lisa was expensive and sold poorly, but the Macintosh launched in 1984 with a mouse, windows and icons aimed at ordinary users. Its memorable Super Bowl advertisement promised a break with corporate computing.

Apple’s growth did not make Jobs secure. Conflict with chief executive John Sculley and the board left him without operating control. He resigned in 1985, eleven years before the return that would define his public reputation.

NeXT and Pixar During the Years Away

Jobs founded NeXT to build advanced workstations for education and business. Its computers were elegant and costly, limiting sales, but the NeXTSTEP operating system introduced development tools and a software foundation that later mattered enormously to Apple.

In 1986, Jobs bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm and established the company that became Pixar. It initially sold graphics hardware while a creative team developed animated shorts and production tools. The business struggled before moving decisively toward films.

Pixar’s Toy Story opened in 1995 as the first fully computer-animated feature film. Its success began a run that included A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. Jobs negotiated the company’s relationship with Disney and became its public business leader, while directors, artists and engineers created the films.

Disney purchased Pixar in 2006, making Jobs the entertainment company’s largest individual shareholder and a board member. His Pixar role showed that his interests extended beyond computer hardware into the systems connecting technology, storytelling and distribution.

Returning to a Struggling Apple

Apple bought NeXT in 1996 to obtain its software and bring Jobs back as an adviser. He became interim chief executive in 1997. The company had too many overlapping products, weakening finances and uncertainty about its operating system.

Jobs reduced the product line to a simple grid of consumer and professional desktops and portables. The colorful iMac, introduced in 1998, made internet setup and industrial design central to its appeal. NeXT technology became the basis of Mac OS X, which in turn underlies later Apple operating systems.

The iPod arrived in 2001, paired first with iTunes and later with the iTunes Music Store. Apple used a combination of device, desktop software and licensed music to make legal digital purchasing straightforward. The company’s retail stores gave it direct contact with customers and a stage for products.

In 2007, Jobs introduced the iPhone as a phone, internet communicator and touchscreen iPod. The App Store followed in 2008. The first iPad went on sale in 2010, extending the mobile interface to a larger screen. None was the first device in its category, but each joined hardware, software and services with unusual consistency.

Illness, Resignation and October 5

Jobs disclosed in 2004 that he had undergone surgery for a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. This disease differs from the most common and usually more aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. He later took medical leaves and received a liver transplant in 2009.

His visible weight loss produced speculation that sometimes ignored his privacy. Apple investors also debated how much the company should disclose about a chief executive whose involvement was considered unusually important to its value.

On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned as chief executive and recommended Tim Cook, who had managed operations and served during medical leaves. Jobs became board chair. Apple introduced the iPhone 4S on October 4. Jobs died the following day at his Palo Alto home.

Apple placed a memorial message on its website and invited people to share memories. Public tributes appeared outside stores around the world. He was survived by his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, four children and other family members.

Achievement Without the Lone-Inventor Myth

Jobs’s presentations often made products appear as the result of one clear vision. In practice, they came from teams of engineers, designers, marketers, suppliers and software developers. Wozniak’s engineering, Jony Ive’s design leadership, Cook’s operations work and many less visible contributions were essential.

Employees and biographies have also described Jobs as impatient, cutting and sometimes unfair. A useful legacy does not require smoothing those accounts away. His standards could focus teams and also impose personal costs.

His strongest contribution was often choosing which technologies to combine, which features to remove and how to explain the finished object. Apple under Jobs made design part of function: how a product started, synchronized, displayed type, fit in a hand and connected to a store.

October 5 appears on the 2011 calendar as the end of one life, not the end of those products or debates. Apple continued under Cook, while Pixar remained inside Disney. Jobs’s legacy is visible not only in devices but in the expectation that hardware, software and services should be designed together. For the rest of that year’s technology and cultural history, see the full 2011 US calendar.