Jobs death prompts grief at Apple stores worldwide

Reporting from Cupertino, Calif.— From Apple Inc.'s secretive headquarters in the Silicon Valley to its sleek stores around the world, employees and fans were stunned by the news of the death of the man they universally called Steve, even though it was known he was gravely ill.


Flags flew at half-staff at the company's sprawling campus here, where workers described the mood inside as eerie and somber. Hardware engineer Henry Dai was at an afternoon meeting when news of Steve Jobs' death came in an email to employees from Chief Executive Tim Cook. First, Dai said, everyone in the room got quiet.


"But we had to resume the meeting right away," said Dai, 41. "We had to work. It was the right thing to do. It's what he would have wanted."


Employees milled about outside as work let out, waiting for shuttle buses home, reminiscing and snapping photos with their phones.


Mike Korinek, a 29-year-old packaging designer, said he hadn't worked at the company long and hadn't "had the chance to meet Steve, but it's a very, very sad


day.


"I'm working extra hours for the man and his legacy."


Outside Apple stores, makeshift shrines appeared within hours of the announcement of Jobs' death.


Chris Cunningham quietly walked up to the Pasadena store and set down one white rose and a red apple on which he had carefully carved "bye."


"It's really sad, he's gone," said Cunningham, 39, a private school administrative worker, teary and wearing a shirt with the blue Apple icon on it. "The future of his legacy is in other hands. It's just terrible."


So many fans gathered at the Santa Monica store that an Apple employee came from inside — where business continued uninterrupted — and politely asked the mourners to step back and not block the entrance.


"Steve Jobs was one of the great inventors, certainly of our time," said John Peed, 41, of Malibu, owner of a graphics design firm who said he came to the store "just to pay homage."


Jobs, who died on Wednesday aged 56, overturned the way users browse the Internet by giving them the iPod, iPhone and iPad. He had stepped down as chief executive of the world's largest technology company in August.


Computer fans in China seemed particularly moved.


"I came here to see how they'll operate on the first day after they had lost Steve Jobs," Jin Yi, 27, said in China's biggest Apple store in Shanghai, which opened last month.


"I also came here to mourn in my own way. It is such a pity today. 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."


FLOWERS, GREETING CARDS, FLIERS


In Hong Kong, Charanchee Chiu laid a single sunflower and white rose in front of the city centre Apple store.


"I am sad. I think he should have lived longer," he said, acknowledging that he had sent messages to Jobs to advise him on health and Tai Chi, the Chinese form of martial arts reputed to improve practitioners' well-being.


At the downtown San Francisco Apple store, people held pictures of Jobs aloft on iPads and taped greeting cards and post-it notes to the store window saying "thank you Steve" and "I hate cancer." Candles and red apples were placed outside.


Store employee Cory Moll described Jobs as a personal inspiration. "We're lucky to have had him for as long as we did," said Moll, holding an iPad displaying a quote in memorial to Jobs.


"What he's done for us as a culture, it resonates uniquely in every person. Even if they never use an Apple product, the impact they have had is so far-reaching."


Across the country 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 mourners snapping photos of it on their iPhones.


"We will miss you Steve, RIP. Thank you for your vision," read one flier.


Business professor Gary Hamel said he left for the store as soon as he found out about Jobs' death.


"As soon as I heard the news, I came out to this Apple store to pay my respects," he said, clutching the power cord he had just bought inside. "I saw tears in some people's eyes."


Outside an Apple store in New York's SoHo neighborhood, two men laid candles, bouquets of flowers, an apple and, for a while, placed an iPod Touch on the ground.


At a Boston store, student Angelos Nicolaou said Jobs had "inspired us to be rebels and challenge the status quo. I hope there will be more leaders like him. It seems like the world is running out of them."


In Sydney, Australia, lawyer George Raptis, who was five years old when he first used a Macintosh computer, made his way to the glass-panelled Apple store when he heard the news.


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


Some of those who flocked to Apple stores when they heard of Jobs' passing were thinking of Apple's future without its co-founder. The company named Tim Cook as its new CEO at the end of August when Jobs stepped down.


"They had a lot of time to prepare for the transition," said Guilherme Ferraz, 44, a Brazilian businessman outside a Manhattan Apple store. "Tim Cook will continue his legacy."