The Best Steve Jobs Tributes From the Web and Beyond [PHOTOS, VIDEO]
In the hours following the announcement that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had passed away, numerous tributes began pouring in both on and off the web.
Time Magazine literally stopped the presses for the first time in at least 30 years to devote its cover and entire 21-page features section to Jobs. Bloomberg Businessweek scrapped a planned cover of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry to feature the Apple visionary instead.
Meanwhile, on YouTube alone, more than 3,000 videos with Jobs’ name in the title have been uploaded in the past 24 hours, many of them somber tributes to the life-changing technology Jobs helped create.
Popular online comic strip xkcd also did a tribute of its own featuring the iconic “spinning beachball of death,” familiar to many Mac users, acting as an eternal flame of sorts. The alt text for the comic reads, “There’s always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return.”
Designer Jonathan Mak created a poignant twist on the Apple logo that has shown up just about everywhere today.
Several tech luminaries posted statements in reaction to Jobs’ death as well.
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg released a statement– on his Facebook page, of course — saying,
“Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.”
Microsoft co-founder and longtime Jobs rival Bill Gates also released a touching statement, writing,
I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.
Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.
The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
By now you’ve likely seen the beautiful, stark tribute Apple did on its own site, but Wired, Google, and BoingBoing also paid homage to the man who masterminded the iPhone, iPod and iMac.
Wired swapped its normally white background for black and included a photo of Jobs, quotes from those who knew or were affected by him and links to stories about his life and accomplishments:
Google, in its typical understated style, featured a single line of text with Jobs’ birth and death years and a link to Apple.com:
BoingBoing went old-school, changing its entire site to resemble the old desktop design of the Apple Mac:
And 9 to 5 Mac found an unaired version of Apple’s first “Think Different” ad, featuring Jobs himself doing the voiceover (actor Richard Dreyfuss voiced the commercial that originally aired):
Finally, wacky Tawainese animation studio Next Media chimed in with their surprisingly moving tribute.
Those are just the highlights of what we’ve seen. Many more tributes exist, and are all a testament to the impact Steve Jobs had on technology, the world and our daily lives. Share your favorite Steve Jobs tributes in the comments.