Steve Jobs

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sat down with "The Early Show" on CBS this morning to talk about his friend, Steve Jobs.

"When I heard the news, my mind just went blank, like I'd been clobbered with a hammer," Wozniak said on the show, which airs on CBS, the company that owns CNET. "I didn't expect it more than anyone else. Over night, a lot of the memories [came back]: things that we did together, how important they were, the way that Steve thought, and he talked, and his leadership from the early days, … Read more

The one thing that every video game visionary has in common is that they all set out to make something about video games better.

From the guys that came up with the whole concept in the first place, to all of the auteurs, artists, storytellers, and technologists that have followed they've all set about to make the experience of playing video games better. To make them more fun. To make them easier to understand, and more enjoyable to interact with.

All of them except one.

Steve Jobs has arguably had more of an impact on the way video games … Read more

commentary When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs stepped down from his role as CEO two months ago, the immediate question "was what happens to Apple next?" With Jobs' passing yesterday, the company now faces that scenario.

From an outsider's perspective, the near-term seems clear. The company says it has a succession plan, which it enacted in August at Jobs' request, installing Tim Cook as CEO. The company also has a new iPhone--its hottest money making product--launching next week, followed a week later with what is likely to be another record setting quarter.

But what people wonder about is … Read more

PARIS--It's a sign of just how deeply Apple technology has moved into people's lives that Cedric Jacquiot awoke early this morning to an iPhone notification with the news that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had died.

And it's a sign of the importance of Jobs himself that Jacquiot, on his way to work, decided to go to the Apple Store to purchase a memorial iPod.

"That's why I bought a Shuffle," Jacquiot said. "It's a collector's item, I guess."

He was one of a handful of people who made a pilgrimage … Read more

For many people, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs spoke most vividly through the distinctive consumer electronics products and services he ushered into the world--the Mac, the NeXT computer, the iPhone, iTunes and the iPod. But Jobs, who died today at age 56, also left behind a record of his life in words, sometimes as a showman on stage, sometimes in more intimate interviews.

Below, we present some brief excerpts from those moments, in an effort to convey a sense of the man behind the popular machines.

GROWING UP IN SILICON VALLEY (ca. 1960)

"I grew up in Silicon Valley. My … Read more

From one coast to the other, ordinary men and women bowed their heads in tribute to a man who changed the technology world in extraordinary ways.

Not long after hearing the news that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had died, people at Apple stores stopped to share their reactions.

"He was kind of like this generation's John Lennon," said Frank Arico, 58, a software developer visiting San Francisco for the Oracle OpenWorld conference this week.

It was a theme that got repeated in conversations with people who knew Jobs as a larger-than-life pop culture icon but felt the … Read more

Steve Jobs has passed away and what you'll find on these pages and many Web pages like them are planned storylines about the life Apple's co-founder.

That's life in the news business. You plan ahead. Now that we're posting stories, video packages, and other pieces of content it all just feels off. Like way off.

Why? You don't quite know what your reaction will be until the moment actually comes. We all knew Jobs' day would come. We also knew it would come soon. That's why the thoughts that emerged when Jobs stepped down … Read more

Renowned technology pioneer Steve Jobs died today at the age of 56. The Apple co-founder had been the company's CEO until August when he stepped down for health reasons. For the past two months, he was Apple's chairman of the board.

You can read more in our full coverage. Here's a recounting of key moments in Jobs' life.

February 24, 1955: Steven Paul Jobs is born in San Francisco to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali. The then-unmarried couple give up their son to adoption. Paul and Clara Jobs become Jobs' non-biological parents.

1961: The Jobs family moves to Mountain View, Calif., part of what would later become known as Silicon Valley.

1968: Jobs calls Bill Hewlett, the co-founder and co-namesake of Hewlett-Packard, looking for spare parts to build a frequency counter. Hewlett gives Jobs the parts, as well as an internship with the company that summer.

1970: Meets future Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak through a friend. In Wozniak's 2006 autobiography, "iWoz," he notes that the two "hit it off" immediately, despite their four-year age difference.

1972: Graduates from Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., and enrolls at Reed College in Portland, Ore., only to drop out a semester later. Jobs would go on to sit in on classes that interested him, such as calligraphy, despite not getting credit for them.

1974: Begins a brief stint as an engineer at Atari. Working the night shift, he employs Wozniak to help whittle down the hardware required for a prototype of a single-player version of Pong, the game that would go on to become Breakout. Jobs leaves Atari in the summer to travel through India, only to return to California to live in a commune.

1976: Co-founds Apple Computer with Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. That same year, the company sells the Apple I in the form of a kit that sells for $666.66.

January 3, 1977: Apple incorporates.

June 5, 1977:Releases the Apple II, the first commercially available personal computer in a plastic case with color graphics--and Apple's first successful personal computer.

December 12, 1980: Apple goes public, putting Jobs' net worth north of $200 million.

January 24, 1984: Two days after the $1.5 million Ridley Scott-directed "1984" Super Bowl commercial airs, introduces the Macintosh to much fanfare during Apple's shareholder meeting. "For the first time ever, I'd like to let Macintosh speak for itself." The computer's voice then says, "Never trust a computer you can't lift." Macintosh becomes the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface.

September 12, 1985: CEO John Sculley engineers Jobs' ouster from Apple. Jobs resigns as Apple chairman, saying in a board meeting, "I've been thinking a lot, and it's time for me to get on with my life. It's obvious that I've got to do something. I'm 30 years old." Soon thereafter, Jobs starts NeXT Computer (which later becomes NeXT Software), funded by selling $70 million of his Apple stock. An "interpersonal" NeXT workstation, sporting a built-in Ethernet port, is used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN to become the first server of the World Wide Web.

February 3, 1986: For $10 million, buys the Graphics Group division of Lucasfilm that becomes Pixar Animation Studios.

1988: NeXT Computer releases its first computer.… Read more

In the early days of personal computing, Ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe received a call from Steve Jobs, a person he didn't know, to talk about a company he had never heard of--Apple Computer. Over time, Jobs became a "hero" and sometime-collaborator.

CNET contacted Metcalfe to share his memories about Jobs, who died today, which we publish here:

Today is a sad day.

It's been 31 years since Robyn and I got married at that small white church in Woodside, but what we remember most about our wedding in 1980 is that Steve Jobs was there.

Was … Read more