Jobs death caused by respiratory arrest

Apple co-founder fought pancreatic cancer in 2004, had liver transplant in 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - A copy of Steve Jobs' death certificate made public on Monday indicates that the Apple Inc co-founder died of respiratory arrest resulting from pancreatic cancer that had spread to other organs.

Jobs died last Wednesday at age 56. Apple did not disclose his cause of death, but Jobs had been in poor health for a number of years.

He battled pancreatic cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after 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, Tim Cook.

The death certificate, released by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department and obtained by The Associated Press, said Jobs had a metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor for the past five years. It listed his immediate cause of death as respiratory arrest.

He died at his home in Palo Alto. No autopsy was performed, and he was buried on Friday.

The certificate listed Jobs' occupation as a high-tech entrepreneur. Jobs started Apple Inc in his parents' Silicon Valley garage with friend Steve Wozniak in 1976. Both men left Apple in 1985 - Jobs following a clash with then-CEO John Sculley.

Jobs died the day after Apple announced its latest iPhone, the 4S, which will go on sale on Friday. Some fans and investors were initially disappointed that Apple didn't come out with a smartphone that is radically different from the existing iPhone 4. But Apple said first-day pre-orders of the device topped 1 million - higher than the record set by the iPhone 4 when it was released last year.

Apple employees will hold a memorial service to celebrate Jobs' life Oct 19 at 10 am at the company's Cupertino, California, campus, according to an e-mail sent out by Cook. An Apple spokesman said that the company will not be holding any public services.

Meanwhile, a Hong Kong design student's tribute to Steve Jobs that generated a buzz in cyberspace following his death is not original, but it is not a rip-off, according to Jonathan Mak, 19.

Mak said on Monday he was not the first to come up with the design that fits Jobs' silhouette into the bite of the Apple logo. He was speaking after comments surfaced on Twitter that a UK-based designer, known as Raid71 on the web, created the original design in May.

But Mak added that he was unaware of the design by Raid71 when he posted his tribute on the Internet, which spread like wildfire in cyberspace on Thursday after Jobs died.

It drew hundreds of thousands of posts, and commemorative caps and T-shirts peddled on eBay featured his design. The logo was even used by Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher as his Twitter profile picture.

Mak, a student at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University School of Design, acknowledged he was not the original creator of the design.

"I didn't rip off his work," Mak said. "I still arrived at the solution on my own, and my conscience is still clear, but I'm more than happy to acknowledge the fact that somebody did it before me."

Like Mak's design, the UK-based designer fits Jobs' silhouette into the bite of the Apple logo. But the dimensions and proportions of that design differ from Mak's logo.

AP - Reuters

(China Daily 10/12/2011 page10)