Steve Jobs: Thank Him For...

An early computer visionary, Jobs pushed to develop an elegant machine with a user-friendly interface that put the ''personal'' in personal computer.

The original Mac got an iconic introduction to the world with Apple's classic Super Bowl commercial — directed by Ridley Scott — that featured a grim, Big Brother-ruled society awoken by a rebellious, hammer-wielding new girl.

As head of the computer-graphics studio — Jobs' other day job — he helped steer animation into the 21st century with box office hits like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and WALL-E.

After after a decade away from Apple, Jobs returned to his old stomping ground and launched a revamped line of candy-colored desktop and laptop computers that restored Apple's reputation as the cool kid in town.

When everyone else was (illegally) downloading songs off the Internet, Jobs and Co. saw a way to corner the market on legal music downloads with this software marketplace that has yet to be outdone.

It turns out you can reinvent the wheel. Jobs had a hand in revolutionizing portable media with this gadget that shuffled us all into the digital age.

All of Apple's products feature a distinctive minimalist aesthetic. That thinking has translated successfully into the company's retail stores, with their Genius Bars, sleek architecture, and eye-catching displays.

Are you a Mac or are you a PC? That's become the eternal question thanks to the infectious ad series starring John Hodgman and Justin Long.

June 29, 2007 The iPhone arrives and, despite a $499 price tag, quickly sells out to throngs lined up days in advance outside Apple's retail stores.

Apple's robust App Store gave us plenty of cool diversions for our new iDevices. In July 2011, Apple announced that the App Store was offering more than 425,000 apps and that a total of 15 billion apps had been downloaded since the store's inception.

He got us all talking tablets with the sleek game-changer that's still the gold standard.