Steve Jobs -- the mega-genius who co-founded Apple Inc. -- has died ... reps for the company have confirmed. Jobs was 56.

Jobs suffered a number of serious health issues over the years. In 2004, he announced he had a rare -- but treatable -- form of pancreatic cancer ... and had a tumor successfully removed from his pancreas later that year. 

TMZ posted a picture of Jobs two days after he resigned as Apple's CEO in August, clearly showing a deterioration in his health. 

In 2009, Jobs received a liver transplant after announcing his "health-related issues were more complex than I thought."

Jobs is survived by his wife, Laurene, and 4 children.

He will be remembered as the man who put the world into the palm of your hand.

Without Steve Jobs, there wouldn't be an iPhone, an iPad or an iPod - and we may not even know we needed them.

The visionary Apple founder helped usher in a new era of personal computer. In 1984, the Macintosh made computing simpler with a little invention called the mouse and an elegantly innovative operating system.

But that was just for starters. The hippie geek went on to revolutionize the way we live our lives.

He was not a software programmer or a hardware technician. He had a unique ability to know what we want before we realised what it was. With his ingenuity and imagination, the creative genius behind Apple was being compared tonight to Thomas Edison in respect to the immense impact he had around the world.

Who would think a computer company would change the way we listened to music or made phone calls to one another?

As much as his early achievements with the Macintosh II played a key role in the march of the PC, it was his second go round at Apple that cemented his legacy.

He once famously said he wanted to 'make a dent in the universe' and the way he went about it was to ensure Apple made 'the whole widget' - both hardware and software. The company introduced colour monitors long before any of its rivals.

After falling out with Apple, he was ousted at the age of 30, but he returned in 1996 and became CEO the following year. Once back in control, he set about transforming the consumer electronics industry.

Jobs foresaw that the Mac could become the hub at the centre of a digital lifestyle.

With the music industry in chaos with shared music causing online anarchy, Jobs took advantage by creating the iPod, a pocket-sized computer that carried an entire music library. Then came the iTunes store, allowing customers to buy individual songs at just 99 cents a time.

In 2007, he did the same to the mobile phone business, transforming the iPhone into an iconic touchscreen mini-computer that worked as a music player, GPS, camera, paid for Starbucks and did just about everything that was asked of it...including being a cell phone. The App store, allowing users to buy their own applications online, was introduced shortly afterwards.

Three years later came the iPad, the sleek personal tablet computer that combined the ease of use of an Apple computer with the convenience and accessibility of the iPhone.

With each new product, Jobs was the frontman, introducing his latest invention to a public hungry to snap up his latest innovation.

Sadly, he was missing when his successor Tim Cook, showed off the new iPhone yesterday. Now Apple is on its own.

 

 

RIP Steve. We will miss you!