In memoriam: Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
— Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement address, 2005

Thank you, Steve:

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• About the original “Think Different” commercial: Apple’s Core Passion. And an unreleased version narrated by Steve himself.
• Mona Simpson (Steve’s sister), New York Times.
• My tribute: Steve Jobs, End of an Era
• John Siracusa, Ars Technica
• Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun Times
• John Gruber: “Limited time, well spent.“
• Michael Sippey: 2 minutes with Steve
• President Obama’s tribute
• Steven Levy, Wired; Levy is author of Insanely Great, an excellent account of the origin of the Macintosh, as well as a history of the iPod.
• Walt Mossberg, All Things D and The Wall Street Journal
• Jason Snell, Macworld
• Miguel Helft, Fortune/CNN Money
• More videos: Ryan at Aked.us has assembled a miscellany of videos combined with some personal reflections. Devour has another video collection (don’t miss the Starbucks and Blue Box videos). And here’s a personal video made for SJ on his 30th birthday, and a vintage Jobs talk, including an account of the first Apple computer, here. Update: The Ultimate Steve Jobs video collection.
• Apple’s quiet, poignant tribute
• MG Siegler, TechCrunch
• “cricket,” the last time I saw Steve Jobs
• Guy Kawasaki, What I learned from Steve
• Bono
• Don Melton, Memories of Steve
• Tim Smith, A story.
• Brian Ford, “Great Artists Steal the Future“
• This is how I feel, too. I need a black armband.

“Now that he’s gone, I’m left feeling empty.
Never again will he walk out on stage.
He saw things we didn’t. He saw things clearly.
A prophet of technology has just passed away.”
Source: Song a Day. More by Jonathan Mann

design by Jonathan Mak

Apple has posted a video of its October 19th celebration of Steve Jobs’ life, featuring moving and revealing reminiscences by Tim Cook, Bill Campbell, Al Gore, and Jony Ive (don’t miss!), and musical performances by Norah Jones and Coldplay. Watch the complete special event (1 hr 21 mins), filmed live at the Apple campus in Cupertino, here.

I preordered Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography from Amazon and also from the iBookstore. Update – consider this highly critical review by John Siracusa. John Gruber endorses Siracusa’s comments, saying: “I went into this podcast knowing that I thought the book was flawed, knowing that Siracusa did too, and expecting to be nodding my head in agreement with him throughout the show. But it’s worse than that. Isaacson blew it, a one-time opportunity forever squandered. Jobs picked the wrong guy.” Gruber elaborates here. Isaacson’s book is what you would expect from People magazine, not from a prize-winning biographer.