Apple fans worldwide have gathered to mourn Steve Jobs, following his death last night from pancreatic cancer.
After news broke that the 56-year-old had lost his seven-year battle with the illness, crowds began to grow outside stores.
Fans left Apple products and bouquets, along with heartfelt messages as a tribute to the man who changed the computing, music and phone industries.
Ben Chess, a 29-year-old engineer at internet company Yelp and former intern at Apple, drove to the Apple HQ in Cupertino, California, from San Francisco straight after work to lay flowers.
He said: “It’s the right thing to do.”
There, scores of fans gathered at a nearby lawn as flags outside flew at half-mast and a man played the bagpipes in tribute to Jobs, who died at age 56.
At the Apple store in downtown San Francisco, people displayed pictures of Jobs on their iPads and stuck notes to the store window saying “thank you Steve” and “I hate cancer”.
As well as flowers, mourners laid candles and red apples outside.
In New York, Apple fans made a makeshift memorial from fliers featuring pictures of Jobs outside as 24-hour Apple store on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan.
One flier read: “We will miss you Steve, RIP. Thank you for your vision.”
Steve jobs dies: tributes come in for Apple founder
Keenan Thompson, 21, said he will not leave the store in New York until Apple’s iPhone 4S, which was unveiled earlier this week, comes out.
At the Apple Store on Palo Alto’s University Avenue, Guver Sanchez, 20, said: “I found out through a social networking site. It’s not everyday that an innovator passes.”
In Sydney, Australia, lawyer George Raptis, who first used a Mac when he was five, said: “He changed the face of computing. There will only ever be one Steve Jobs.”
Angelos Nicolaou, a student at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, was at the Apple store on Boylston Street in Boston. He said Jobs “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."
