A gizmo-God to geeks and gearheads, but also worshipped by klutzes and luddites alike for introducing beautiful form, elegant function and matchless simplicity to workday electronics, Jobs died peacefully surrounded by his family, including his wife of 20 years and three children.
Presidents, CEOs and other luminaries sent in glowing tributes, but a timeless sentiment came from an Applehead who tweeted, "Life is smoother since we can touch instead of push."
It was a reference to the feather-light, touch-driven operating process Jobs introduced that changed the look and feel of today's devices, brought aesthetics to electronics, and made it accessible to all. Another compared him to Gutenberg, the inventor of the movable type, while yet another called him the "Michelangelo of our times". Still others invoked Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison.
US President Barack Obama summoned his trademark eloquence in a tribute to Jobs, who was just 56, calling him "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".
At a time of profound self-doubt in the US over its economic future, with jobs, as in work, on the minds of its leaders, Obama, himself owner of an iPad, said Steve Jobs "exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity... transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world".
Indeed, America is gutted, and the outpouring of sadness and veneration surpassed that given to any hero or icon in the modern era. Even Jobs' great peer and contemporary, Microsoft's Bill Gates, was stricken by the passing of his sometime rival. "For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honour. I will miss Steve immensely," Gates said in a statement, recalling that they have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who wasn't born when Jobs introduced the first Apple computer wrote: "Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world." The founders of Google and Yahoo issued similar statements in an outpouring that one industry writer compared to a "technological 21-gun salute".
Reams are being written and hours are being broadcast about what Jobs brought into our lives, but someone put it in just one word: joy. Adults glowed with childlike happiness at owning an Apple device, a line-up that included Mac computers, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Millions lined up overnight before Apple stores to receive new products as if it were manna from heaven.
If India introduced the world's cheapest tablet computer for $ 35 (ironically on the day of his death), the inspiration behind it was Jobs.
Indeed, India played a pivotal role in his development as is well-recorded in his profiles. He headed off to the subcontinent during his angst-filled days after college, eating free meals at a Hare Krishna temple in Oregon to save money for the trip, and got interested in Hinduism and Buddhism during his year-long travels there. He returned to the US dressed as a monk, and some credit the simplicity of Apple devices to his continuing practice of Zen Buddhism.
About Gates, Jobs once joked, "He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."
Now, it is Jobs who has gone off to a place beyond the ashram, having changed the world.
