Church used Iphone to announce Steve Jobs funeral

Westboro Baptist Churchannounced plans Wednesday night to protest Steve Jobs’s funeral, sending the message out. . .wait for it. . . via Twitter for iPhone.

Margie Phelp, daughter of the small church’s founder and the lawyer who represented the church during their First Amendment case at the Supreme Court, (which Westboro won,) was among the Phelps family members to use Apple products to Tweet about the death of the Apple co-founder.

“Westboro will picket his funeral.He had a huge platform; gave God no glory & taught sin,” Margie tweeted Weds. night.

The Topeka, Kan. based church is mostly made up of Phelps family members but has risen to international infamy because of their funeral protests of celebrities and American soldiers. The church’s members believe that God punishes America for its tolerance of sin, including acceptance of homosexuality.

The iPhone-wielding Westboro members seemed unable to find any irony in their embrace of the technology of a man they condemn. One church member even suggested that God was using Jobs to help advance the message of Westboro Baptist Church: “God used Steve Jobs to create amazing STUFF for WBC to preach,” wrote Shirley Phelps-Roper.

Mourning all over the world after Steve’s death

Technology and design admirers flocked to Apple stores worldwide on Thursday to express their sorrow at the death of Steve Jobs, the visionary who transformed the daily lives of millions.

The Apple co-founder who inspired the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He stepped down as Apple chief executive in August.

Flags outside Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, flew at half mast as mourners gathered on a nearby lawn, where fans left flowers and a man played the bagpipes.

In New York City, an impromptu memorial made from fliers featuring pictures of Jobs was erected outside a 24-hour Apple store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, with fans snapping photos of it on their iPhones.

"As soon as I heard the news, I came out to this Apple store to pay my respects," said business professor Gary Hamel. "I saw tears in some people's eyes."

Grieving fans all over the world left flowers, notes and apples with a bite taken out, just like the Apple logo -- instantly recognisable despite being one of the few top brand logos that does not feature the company's name.

Many said their lives had been transformed by Apple.

"I wouldn't be able to run my business without Apple, without its software. I run a video production company. It's allowed me to have my dream business," said David Chiverton who was leaving Apple's flagship Regent Street store in London.

"I bought the iPod nano, in black. I wanted to buy something to remember the day by," Chiverton said.

At the Frankfurt Apple store in Germany, Wolfgang Kummer, ex-managing director of font design and desktop publishing services company Linotype, left a white rose.

"You recognise his hand in all Apple products and I expect we will continue to see his influence," he said, adding that Jobs had changed the world of desktop publishing. "But eventually it will fade."

In Tokyo, a group of fans brought together by Twitter gathered at sunset with candlelight apps turned on on their iPhones and iPads.

And at China's biggest Apple store, in Shanghai, mourner Jin Yi expressed regret that Jobs had not lived to see even closer links between humans and their devices.

"He created these gadgets that changed people's perceptions of machines. But he did not manage to witness the last step in which, through his gadgets, people's lives can be effectively fused with these machines."

Even Apple employees not allowed to give their names to the press because of Jobs's authoritarian style of leadership said they were saddened.

A sombre-looking assistant at an Apple store in the northern English city of Manchester said: "We're carrying on doing our jobs as usual and we're not commenting on this. But at the end of the day it's our boss, and we're all pretty cut up about it."

At the Apple store in Sydney, lawyer George Raptis, who was five years old when he first used a Macintosh computer, spoke for almost everyone who has come into contact with Apple.

"He's changed the face of computing," he said. "There will only ever be one Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs death shakes the world

Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Inc., who introduced simple, well-designed computers for people who were more interested in what technology could do than in how it was done, died Wednesday at age 56.

In a brief statement, Apple announced the death but did not say where he died. Mr. Jobs, who suffered from a rare form of pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant in 2009, stepped down as Apple’s chief executive on Aug. 24.

 

An original thinker who helped create the Macintosh, one of the world’s most influential computers, Mr. Jobs also reinvented the portable music player with the iPod, launched the first successful legal method of selling music online with iTunes and reordered the cellphone market with the iPhone. The introduction of the iPad also jump-started the electronic-tablet market, and it now dominates the field.

 

Calculating that people would be willing to pay a premium price for products that signaled creativity, Mr. Jobs had a genius for understanding the needs of consumersbefore they did.

He knew best of all how to market: “Mac or PC?” became one of the defining questions of the late 20th century, and although Apple sold a mere 5 percent of all computers during that era, Mac users became rabid partisans.

Mr. Jobs was the first crossover technology star, turning Silicon Valley renown into Main Street recognition and paving the way for the rise of the nerds, such as Yahoo founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

And by changing the way people interacted with technology, Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates transformed their era in much the same way Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller revolutionized theirs with the mass-produced automobile and the creation of Standard Oil.

 

As a 21-year-old college dropout in 1976, Mr. Jobs founded Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak. He led the company to multimillion-dollar success within five years but was forced out by the time he was 30.

In January, he took another medical leave. On Aug. 24 he stepped down as Apple’s chief executive, becoming chairman of the board. Apple’s share price immediately dropped 5 percent on the news, but it rebounded the next day. “Steve Jobs running the company from jail would be better for the stock price than Steve Jobs not being CEO,” one stock analyst told Fortune magazine in early 2011.

About Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Steve Jobs is the Chairman of the Board of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976. Apple is leading the consumer technology world with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, its family of iPod media players and iTunes media store, and its Mac computers and iLife and iWork application suites. Apple recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

 

Steve also co-founded and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in 2006 and Steve now serves on Disney's board of directors.

Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and still lives there with his family.

Apple, Pixar.... Every Apple user and the world mourns the greatest of the Century.

Steve jobs' memorable moments

Steve talks about his life and death.