Update: There’s a small private funeral for Jobs today, followed by a memorial for Apple’s staff, according to reports.
Apple still hasn’t released any details about Steve Jobs’ funeral. It’s likely to be a small private affair, in Steve Jobs’ style.
But the outpouring of tributes at Apple’s retail stores shows the need for a public memorial. And someone like Tim Cook needs to take the reins to arrange it.
All over the world, Apple fans are laying wreaths, candles and written tributes at Apple’s Stores. The outpouring of grief is unusual for any public figure, and is unprecedented for a business leader.
But Jobs was always much more than just a business leader. He’s a cultural figure; and a cultural figure of massive import. Not many people get to change the world. But Jobs did, and several times.
He also captured our hearts. There’s a lot of affection for Steve Jobs, even love. Just look over the tributes here on the site and many others. Over the last few days, hundreds of readers have expressed profound grief over his passing.
Someone of Jobs stature should not be laid to rest quietly and privately. There’s a public need to recognize his extraordinary accomplishments.
It need not be a gaudy affair. It could be dignified and respectful, with eulogies and tributes from friends, colleagues and family.
I would be very moved to see Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Bono and other public figures deliver memorials.
Who would arrange it? I can’t imagine Apple’s PR dept. could manage it (I sent the PR dept an email, but haven’t heard back). Perhaps his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, is working on something. To me, the best candidate is Tim Cook.
I call on Tim Cook to arrange a public memorial for Steve Jobs. It could be held after a private family funeral, perhaps like Michael Jackson’s memorial in 2009.
Jobs was a very private man. He lived quietly and modestly, shunning the spotlight and public events, except when it came time to sell Apple’s latest product. In death, an exception should be made.
We have a need to express our grief. Funerals and memorials are a natural part of the grief process, and it shouldn’t be denied.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
63 responses to “Why There Should Be A Public Memorial For Steve Jobs [Opinion]”
No, just, no.
Steve was an incredibly private man and that should be respected.
he was or will be buried today, no public services planned.
It’s simple “Just take a look at what he’d done for us all in this world, and how he’d better our lives with his enormous ingenuities”. We all just simply love him.
Leander I’m surprised that you think that there should be a public memorial for him since you’ve very clearly stated that you don’t think that he is a particularly admirable human being. I heard you on Twit lambasting Jobs for not being publicly charitable – though you have no idea on whether Jobs did or didn’t give money to charity and this was as especially unkind accusation given that Jobs is completely private. Now that Schmidt and others have hinted at Jobs actually doing private good works, I wonder if you will apologize, though that does little to mitigate your criticisms based on ignorance.
I’m not surprised that you want a public memorial. You want to drive traffic to your site. You want information and exploit what is private, just like your charity criticisms and just like your actions in publishing that ghastly picture of Jobs a few weeks ago.
Shame on you.
The stage is where he belongs, I don’t want his last image to be of a coffin.
I will definetly miss a great great person…..”Steve jobs”… May his soul rest in peace and Please convey my condolences to his family..!!
Harini Katakam
MI
There is really no need for a large public memorial. It seems each store is becoming a memorial where fans all over the world can pay respects. With a large public memorial, many won’t be able to travel to participate and it will simply become a media spectacle. There would be very little overall respect.
“perhaps like Michael Jackson’s memorial in 2009.” You brits and your reverence for American Pop Stars. I can not think of anyone on the planet less “like Michael Jackson” than Steve Jobs. And that’s why I don’t think the Jobs family or the Apple family should be wasting one single minute of their time thinking about or planning a public memorial.
Michael Jackson was a clown and his life was a series of spectacles, the memorial was his fans’ last chance to try to fill their empty lives by participating in a little of that spectacle.
Hey America, you want to memorialize Steve? Stop sucking. Stop resigning the future to the Chinese. Stop accepting the idea that American’s doing great things, innovating and creating a better world, is a part of the past. You want a better future? Build it. Our grand parents did. But so did Steve. Only a couple days ago.
What’s going on is probably just what Steve personally asked, don’t you think? So, let’s not dig too much into this, okay? His family and close friends has to go through the stages of real grief, and they’ll do, privately, not us. There is no “right” to be respected here, we don’t have claims to make. Not about this. Thanks.
Um … actually, there IS a global, public memorial for Steve Jobs that has been on-going around the world since this news broke.
And it seems to me that this spontaneous, creative, human outpouring honors Jobs in a much better way than any manufactured “event” could possibly do.
It seems his family and/or Apple is organizing a website for the public to post and I think that will be enough.
Jobs was a person that touched a lot of lives and inspired a lot of people, but now he is gone and here we are. Get back to life and remember him, it’s probably what he would want.
They need to at least bring back the Think Different ad campaign with Steve in it.
They need to at least bring back the Think Different ad campaign with Steve in it.
People wasting money on laying flowers, candles, wreathes at Apple stores would be better spent sending that money to a charity of their choice in Jobs name. In a few days time the flowers will be swept away and sent to the landfill and forgotten about.
I disagree. Steve was a private man and I don’t see that having a big public memorial like Michael Jackson is right for him. I think maybe having a tribute to him at the next product keynote with video done with iMovie would be much better to acknowledge the public grief. Cause that’s what Steve was at his best and loved doing, the keynote stage.
I have a hard time to get over that rubbish – but I told myself to not comment on this whole thing until he is dead for at least a week.
Agreed. A big event misses the point of Steve’s character.
Something online or a suggested charity would be better. Maybe a small memorial at the campus located where people can leave flowers etc.
Or how about a scholarship or endowment program in Steve’s memory
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It is absolutely not Tim Cook’s responsibility to ‘arrange’ anything. Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple, not a Funeral Director. It’s not a stretch to think that Apple will produce something very dignified and beautiful celebrating the life of a man who had a profound impact on literally billions of people. Out of respect for Steve Jobs, I sincerely hope this doesn’t devolve into a circus.
I think that xiaozi hit the nail on the head, this is already happening in peoples own ways. However, stop bashing Leander over the head about his suggestion and opening a debate, people do feel like they have lost someone, and feel the need to connect and grieve in their own way.
very well said Vikram.
One should respect their decision for being private on Mr Jobs. funeral.
They know How much we all loved Mr Jobs.. ..
Do not give any opinion… Let Steve Jobs’s family decided and all we can do is Respect! Public Funeral or not is doesn’t matter because the world will remember Steve Jobs forever. I love you Steve and thanks for everything. You inspired me how to live in this world. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish and live a life as your last day.
This week we all with Apple commemorating Steve Jobs life.
“We have a need to express our grief. Funerals and memorials are a natural part of the grief process, and it shouldn’t be denied.”
What self-indulgent crap. For all we know, Jobs might have told his family and the company that he wanted no public event when he passed. Given how private he was, why would he want some media circus funeral? You want to publicly grieve, go hold your own event, or go lay a wreath in front of a store like thousands of others are doing. Do whatever you want, but get over the self-indulgence.
Leander, this is ridiculous and very disappointing to read. If you’re serious, then you didn’t understand the man and doing something that would be completely against his ethos is not what should happen. If you don’t actually mean it and you’re just trolling for reaction, ratings, page views, or whatever, then that’s even worse.
We can celebrate Steve Jobs every time we pick up our iPhones (I think my 4S will have a special significance), iPads, iPods or sit down at or with our Macs. That’s all that’s required.
“We have a need to express our grief. Funerals and memorials are a natural part of the grief process, and it shouldn’t be denied.”
I think your last sentence perfectly sums-up how most of us feel right now.
Michael Jackson? No, Steve Jobs is the Princess Di of the tech world…but I disagree that a public memorial would be appropriate or useful. His legacy lives in his products.
Steve was an incredibly private person. He gave so much of his life to us. He deserves his privacy, as does his family. There are memorials popping up across the country and around the world, as people leave their messages at Apple Stores. Take a pad of post-it notes and join one. Steve, his family and Apple do not owe us anything.
I’d prefer to see a Vladimir Lenin style Mausoleum in the Apple Cupertino Campus. YES. A Mausoleum, with his preserved body in display on a glass case, raised high on a pedestal, forever preserved by formaldehyde or whatever preservative they use these days. And then millions of Mac nerds can make a pilgrimage every year to view it and pay homage to Dear Leader.
But I agree with others… now is not the right time for a “public memorial”. Let a few weeks or a few months pass, and then Padawan Tim Cook can erect this above mentioned awesome Memorial in honor of his Jedi Master Steve Jobs.
Wouldn’t it have been cool if Steve had a coffin made out of milled solid Aluminum like All the macpro laptops are made.
Considering the Westboro church wants to desecrate any public memorial I’m just as glad there isn’t one.
Considering the Westboro church wants to desecrate any public memorial I’m just as glad there isn’t one.
Shame on you Leander – you don’t think we can view your other commentaries? What goes around comes around
As much as I wish there was a more public setting for saying goodbye, I think you’re exactly right.