Apple celebrates life of Steve Jobs

Doors were locked and curtains drawn at Apple Stores to allow retail store employees to tune into a private memorial being held in an amphitheater at the company’s headquarters in the northern California city of Cupertino. Shops reopened at noon, two hours after the event began.

Employees from Apple satellite offices streamed to the main campus to honor the man who altered modern life with iPhones, iPods, iPads and Macintosh computers.

Video streamed from a news helicopter showed a central courtyard at Apple headquarters packed with people.

Messages evidently fired off on Twitter by people at the memorial claimed that music stars Coldplay and Norah Jones performed in honor of Jobs.

“Memorial for Steve Jobs is magnificent!” said a tweet from a Silicon Valley man claiming to work as a recruiter for the team handling software that runs Apple mobile devices.

“Cold Play & Norah Jones @InfiniteLoop,” the brief message concluded, the tag an apparent reference to Apple headquarters’ street address of One Infinite Loop.

The celebration in memory of Jobs reportedly ended with a rendition of the Randy Newman song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” featured in the blockbuster film “Toy Story” made by Pixar, a studio created by Jobs.

The Internet buzzed with word of Apple stores around the world temporarily closing to let employees watch live streams of the memorial at which Jobs’s usually poised successor led a heartfelt remembrance of the visionary.

At the Apple Store in Georgetown, in the US capital of Washington, white curtains were drawn to prevent onlookers from seeing inside. A white sign stated the shop would be closed for three hours, with no explanation why.

An employee of the Apple flagship store on the swank Fifth Avenue in New York told AFP that all Apple stores in the United States would be closed on Wednesday to allow employees to “watch” the ceremony in memory of Jobs.

Meanwhile, people around the globe were given an online outlet for their grief at a “Remembering Steve” website at apple.com/stevejobs.

“Over a million people from all over the world have shared their memories, thoughts, and feelings about Steve,” a message said on the website.

“One thing they all have in common — from personal friends to colleagues to owners of Apple products — is how they’ve been touched by his passion and creativity.”

Comments and condolences received at a rememberingsteve@apple.com email address streamed onto the web page.

“I am 17, and growing up watching every keynote presentation by the man in the black turtleneck was foundational to me,” one message read.

“His vision has done the better part of defining the Millennial (generation’s) lifestyle, and I’m proud to say I am heavily influenced by Apple,” the teenager added.

“Everything about the company has inspired my philosophy on technology, and guaranteed Steve Jobs’s methods will continue to be a driving force for me until, and beyond the day when I start my first company.”

Celebrities and Silicon Valley nobility paid tribute to the revered Apple co-founder on Sunday at a private memorial service held under tight security at Stanford University.

Those at the memorial for Jobs — who died in his California home on October 5 of cancer at the age of 56 — reportedly included former US president Bill Clinton along with film and music stars, and founders of top Internet firms.

Venerable television news magazine 60 Minutes said on its Facebook page that on Sunday it will broadcast an interview with Walter Isaacson, the author of a biography Jobs sanctioned to provide insight into his life.

“Isaacson says that Jobs wanted the book to be wholly, if not brutally, honest,” according to 60 Minutes, which said that Jobs told the author nothing was off limits.

Publisher Simon & Schuster on Monday will release “Steve Jobs,” pre-orders of which rocketed after the beloved Apple co-founder’s death.