Apple announced Wednesday that iconic founder Steve Jobs has died. The Apple website contains an in memoriam photo with the notation “Steve Jobs 1955-2011.” Jobs retired from Apple recently amid speculation he was losing his long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Here’s a quick look at Jobs’ life and some of his many accomplishments:
* Jobs was given up for adoption as an infant. He was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs .
* He worked on electronics in his garage with his father during his childhood. His father was a machinist. Together they would take apart and rebuild electronic items.
* Jobs was not much for study. His fourth grade teacher reportedly had to bribe him to get him to do his work. But his test scores were so high the school proposed he jump grades — a proposal his parents rebuffed.
* During high school, Jobs hung out at Hewlitt Packard where he met Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, already a computer engineer.
* After six months at Reed College, Jobs had enough and dropped out.
* He took a short-lived job as a video game designer with Atari in 1974.
* Seeking spiritual enlightenment, he made a pilgrimage to India.
* On his return, he and Wozniak founded Apple in the same garage where Jobs once took apart electronics with his dad. Jobs sold his Volkswagen and Wozniak his scientific calculator to get start-up costs for their new business.
* Jobs and Wozniak became known as pioneers in the computer field, opening the era of personal computing. Their first personal computers sold for $666.66.
* Jobs left Apple in 1985 after a power struggle in which the board fired him. He went on to found NeXT software and invest in Pixar Studios. Pixar succeeded. NeXT did not. Jobs went back to Apple in 1987 and remained employed there until 2011.
* Jobs fought pancreatic cancer since 2003 but continued to lead Apple.
* Among the company’s many accomplishments under Jobs’ leadership, Apple invented the Apple I, Apple II, MacIntosh, Macbook Air, the iPod, the iPhone, and iTunes.
* An authorized Steve Jobs biography is due out Nov. 21.