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It’s with deep regret to inform you all that Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs passed away yesterday at the age of 56 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple co-founder, Steve jobs has died at the age of 56, only weeks after resigning as chief executive of Apple Inc. because of health reasons.

Steve Jobs was a brilliant visionary who influenced the technology world in ways no one will ever do again in our lifetime. Having transformed Apple into what it is today, Steve turned what was once a company flirting with bankruptcy, into one of the most successful companies the world has ever seen.

From the first Apple Computer to the iPhone 4S, Steve has brought us many revolutionary devices that we rely on throughout our day to day lives.

Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24th, 1955 to Abdulfattah john Jandali and Joanne Schieble, who were both graduate students attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

However, Jandali and Schieble gave Jobs up for adoption and was eventually adopted by Paul Jobs, a machinist, and Clara Jobs, an accountant.

Jobs attended high school in Cupertino, the town where Apple would be headquartered.

After graduating, he decided to go to Reed College in Oregon, but dropped our after only one semester. Steve remained at the campus for some time, taking the occasional couse in philosophy.

After returning to California in 1974, Jobs took a job at videogame company Atari Inc, but resigned after a few months to travel to India in search of spiritual enlightenment.

Returning in 1975, Jobs met Steve Wozniak (with whom Jobs would later co-found Apple with) at a local computer club.

Both Jobs and Wosniak build a prototype machine in Jobs’ parents garage and eventually co-founded Apple Computer to sell their newly created machines.

Their creation was a hit with some, selling hundreds of the new Apple computer, but it was their next machine, the Apple II, that became the one that launched Apple and defined what they still are today, remaining in production for a total of 16 years. This was the machine that launched the personal computer industry.

For a long time, Apple were on top, but nothing could have proved more disasterous than the Apple II successor, the Apple III, which was plagued by faulty construction. 1983 brought us the Lisa, the first personal computer controlled by on-screen icons activated at the click of a mouse, unfortunately, this didn’t prove to be as successful as Apple had hoped.

It was in 1984 that Jobs’ company produced the first cheaper, smaller, more elegant computer, which was named Macintosh. This was the machine that earned Apple the cult following they still have today.

Howver, sales of the Macintosh were disappointing and Apple struggled. This was the beginning of Jobs’ forced exit from Apple by John Sculley, whom he’d personally recruited as chief executive.

With Jobs stripped of virtually all power and control over the company he’d created, he decided to resign in 1985. Jobs stated 20 years later at Stanford University that “What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, it was devastating.”

After resigning, Jobs founded NeXT Computer who, despite never having any financial success, became the company whose technology gave us the Macs we know and love to this very day.

1986 was the year that Jobs bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd., the company that was owned by Star Wars director George Lucas, and founded what would eventually become Pixar Animation studios.

Thanks to Jobs’ purchase and creative genius, Pixar brought us great classics such as 1995s Toy Story, the first full-length movie generated entirely by computers, which created $361 million in worldwide ticket sales.

With Jobs having married techical excellence with emotional appeal, he’d just created a product that was loved by millions around the world; the formular that defined both Jobs and his future companies for the rest of his life.

Whilst Jobs was enjoying worldwide success for the first time ever, Apple were struggling and eventually reached out to Jobs for help. With Apple’s technology out of date, Apple bought NeXt computer company for the small sum of $429 million and used it’s technology to build the next generation of its own software.

In 1997, Jobs took to the stage before 1,500 Apple devotees at MacWorld Expo at Park Plaza Castle in Boston. However, Apple’s sales were terrible and the company had almost ran out of cash; only to be given a helping hand by arch rivals Microsoft who gave Apple a $150 million cash infusion.

That September, after becoming interum CEO, the first product under his reign was released, the iMac.

The iMac was a revolutionary self-contained computer and monitor that looked like a TV set from some distant future you’d only see in films. This was the first of many revolutionary products that Jobs helped launch; the iPod, the iTunes music store, the iPhone, and iPad would all follow its lead.

Nearly all Apple products were now an instant hit, not because they were at the forefront of technology though, but because they featured innovations that allowed anyone and everybody to use them with ease and made them extremely desirable.

Many companies had creates “Smartphones”, but it was Apple who changed the way we pictured them. Out were the stylus and non-responsive touch screens, and in were the capacitive touch screens with bright colourful displays and software five years ahead of its time.

With every year, came a new Apple product. Every device was better than the last and all reflected the perfection that Jobs had fought for in all of his products.

Andy Miller, whose Waltham-based mobile advertising company was acquired by Apple in 2010, said “He believed…if you weren’t going to do something special, it wasn’t worth doing.”

Presenting new ad designs to Jobs “was like doing a board meeting for the leader of the free world every week,” said Miller, today a partner at the venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners. “You had to be unbelievably well-prepared.”

Jobs was also tough but gracious to business partners, said Ted Morgan, co-founder of Skyhook Inc., a Boston company which makes location software for smartphones. Apple incorporated Skyhook technology into the iPhone, becoming Skyhook’s first major client.

“Of all the people I’ve done deals with over 20 years now, it was by far the most rewarding and encouarging negotiation I’ve ever participated in,” said Morgan. “Even though he was an incredibly tough negotiator, it was the easiest deal we’ve ever done…he was always straight with me and lived up to every promise he ever made.”

Above all else, there was the constant perfectionism, the fervent attention to every detail of every product. “It was like talking to da Vinci,” Miller said.

Even though Jobs had been on medical leave since January, his deteriorating health was unknown to most of the world. This eventually led to his resignation as Apple CEO in August 2011, with Tim Cook taking over.

Steve’s struggle with pancreatic cancer was known to many, but most thought he’d be able to fight it after his previous battles with the disease.

No one knows how Apple will cope in the future without the creative genius, that brought Apple back to life, at its helm.

One thing is for certain though, the world has just lost an incredibly influential and talented man who changed the world as we knew it with his creative genius.

Our thoughts go out to Steve Jobs’ family and friends.

Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011.