A visionary who touched our lives, changed world

There’s nothing inherently local about the death of Steve Jobs. But his death at the young age of 56 reminds us not only of the fragility of life but of the ravages of a disease that, like his innovations, is all around us.

His life, of course, made an impact worldwide. As President Obama noted, many people learned of his death on a device he invented. We’d go further to say that a majority of suburban homes in our circulation area have at least one of those devices — a Mac, an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad.

If you’re one of the few that might not have an Apple product, you likely have a competitor’s offering that was modeled after what Jobs dreamed up. And if you still say you haven’t been touched by Jobs, then you haven’t watched “Toy Story” or “A Bug’s Life” or “Finding Nemo” — all films made by Pixar Animation Studios, which Jobs bought in 1986 and sold to Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion.

As Obama said, he was a visionary. He was an icon of the digital age, and he transformed how we work and how we play.

Clearly, Jobs knew how to think differently, creatively. And then he took that knowledge and he built a mystique, an aura around Apple that few could match. And when he was fired from Apple in the mid-1980s, he developed Pixar into an award-winning animation studio that redefined movie animation and delighted children and adults alike. He did so while also heading up a new computer company eventually bought by Apple.

And when he returned to Apple in the late 1990s, he resurrected the company and brought it to the heights it enjoys today. Where before the Mac vs. PC debate could be argued endlessly and, indeed, still is, there was no doubt that Apple by the end of the first decade of the 21st century was leading the battle of the new digital age with iPod, iTunes, iPhone and finally, iPad. As a newspaper, we recognized this when we created apps for the iPhone and iPad before any other smartphone or tablet in our recent foray into paid content online.

“Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world and talented enough to do it,” Obama said.

Jobs tried to pass that on to a new generation when the college dropout told a Stanford graduating class in 2005: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

And yet, it can’t be left unsaid: For all his ingenuity and wealth, his death reminds us once again that cancer strikes anyone, at any time, including this West Coast genius. He was diagnosed in 2003 with a rare form of pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant in 2009. As you think about the changes Steve Jobs brought to your life, we ask that you take some time to think about all the others who have struggled with this disease and give to a charity of your choice that is helping to wage war on cancer generally or pancreatic cancer specifically.

It’s very simple to do: Just search the Internet on one of those devices Steve Jobs helped create.