Apple releases footage of Steve Jobs memorial

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is allowing the general public to get a look at a heartfelt and star-studded memorial service it held for employees to celebrate the life of Steve Jobs at its Cupertino headquarters last week.

Apple Inc. has not held any public services for Jobs, the company's visionary co-founder who died at age 56 on Oct. 5 afterwards a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

In a way, the video may serve that purpose. It runs 81 minutes and gives a rare glimpse of a company in mourning, showing several executives and board members reminiscing about their time with Jobs and speaking about the indelible mark he left on the research world.

Jobs was a tech visionary who started Apple in his parents' Silicon Valley garage with friend Steve Wozniak in 1976. Both men left the company in 1985, Jobs afterwards a clash with at the time-CEO John Sculley.

Jobs returned as interim CEO in 1997 afterwards Apple, at that time in financial dire straits, purchased a computer company he created called Straightway. He led the company through a remarkable upswing that included the launch of such popular products as the iPhone, iPad and iPod.

He battled pancreatic cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 afterwards taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January — his third since his health problems began — and resigned in August, handing the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Cook. His death came a day afterwards Apple Inc. announced its latest iPhone, the 4S.

The service honoring his life

In the service honoring his life, CEO Tim Cook kicks things off, addressing an overflowing crowd of hundreds of Apple employees both on the ground and peering off balconies of surrounding buildings. As well in the audience was Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, wearing a black shirt and dark sunglasses.

Apple closed all of its retail stores for the service so its many employees at those locations could view the memorial live via a webcast as then.

"However I know Steve. Steve would have wanted this cloud to lift for Apple and our focus to return to the work that he loved so much," he said.

How The Walt Disney Co

Jobs saw how The Walt Disney Co. became "paralyzed" afterwards founder Walt Disney's death, with so many people spending time thinking about what Disney would want. "And he did not want this to occur at Apple," Cook said.

Former Vice President and current Apple board member Al Gore took the stage as so then. And Apple's senior vice president of design, Jonathan Ive, who worked closely with Jobs on products just as the iPod, iPhone and iPad, spoke too.

He as well related a tale of how Jobs' desire for excellence went far beyond designing Apple's products, saying that when the two of them would travel Ive would go up to his room leave his bags packed by the door, and sit on his bed.