From virtual candlelight vigils using iPhones to low-tech tributes, Apple fans around the world mourned company co-founder Steve Jobs on Thursday.
His death was announced Wednesday, just six weeks after Jobs stepped down from his role as Apple CEO.
Known to millions as the public face of Apple, Jobs had battled very serious health problems in the final years of his life.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and underwent a liver transplant, all while attending to his intensive duties at the company.
In the Ginza retail district in Tokyo, mourners held a virtual candlelight vigil on Thursday, carrying iPhones and iPads that displayed graphics of flickering candles.
On the low-tech end of the scale, mourners in Hong Kong left hand-written letters on Post-It notes that they then stuck on an iPad display outside of an Apple store. Many paid simple tribute to Jobs with messages such as "RIP" and "We miss Steve."
In New York, mourners left flowers and real candles outside the Apple store in midtown, while others snapped pictures of the memorial on their iPhones.
In Australia, Stephen Jarjoura said the world had lost a historic figure in Jobs, who will be remembered alongside genius inventors like Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison.
"I was so saddened. For me it was like Michael Jackson or Princess Diana -- that magnitude," Jarjoura said at the Apple store in Sydney.
In Syria, mourners paused to pay tribute to Jobs, whose birth father hailed from Homs, the country's third-largest city.
"This shows that this country can produce geniuses, if only we had freedoms instead of a suffocating dictatorship," said Sara, a 23-year-old Syrian student who declined to give her last name.
Nearly 24 hours after Jobs' death, phrases linked to the tech titan were still a trending topic on Twitter, including Think Different, Stay Hungry and #iSad.
Jobs told us ‘where we were going'
Earlier Thursday, tech analyst Carmi Levy said the news of Jobs' death was not a surprise, but his passing remained a tragic event for those who admired the iconic Apple leader.
"Shock is the only word that comes to mind," Levy told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday morning.
Levy said Jobs built a reputation for being able to see where the future was headed and using that foresight to help Apple develop products that would keep them ahead of the curve.
"Everyone who uses technology, they all looked to him as the guy who told us where we were going, what we were going to be using and how it would change our lives," he said.
Indeed, the wave of innovative products that Apple brought to market under Jobs' tenure helped establish the Cupertino, Calif.-based company as a leader of the modern tech world.
The news of his death has sparked concern among Apple users that it will be hard for the company to continue its record of innovation under a new leader.
"Jobs was a legendary figure; every company needs a spiritual leader," said Li Zilong, an iPod user and 20-year-old university student who spoke to an Associated Press reporter outside a Beijing Apple store.
"Without Jobs, I don't know if Apple can give us more classic products, like the iPhone 4."
Aside from his health problems, Jobs also faced many battles at Apple over the years.
In the mid-1980s, Jobs was pushed out of the company he had once founded with Steve Wozniak.
For the next decade Jobs went out on his own, founding the computer company NeXT Inc. and pursuing other opportunities. In 1996, Apple would buy that company for $430 million and a year later Jobs was serving as the company's interim CEO.
Over the next 14 years, Jobs took on the full-time CEO job and helped help bring Apple back to profitability, as the company ascended to a point where it became a dominant force in the tech world and one of the most valuable companies in the United States.
Apple has sold 300 million iPods, 129 million iPhones and 29 million iPads, a success that sent its stock price soaring from $5 in 1997 to more than $400.
On Thursday, Apple stock only suffered a mild jolt, closing down only 88 cents at $377.37.
Tech industry leaders remembered Jobs as a respected businessman and formidable competitor.
"Steve Jobs was a great visionary and respected competitor," Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the co-CEOs of Research In Motion, said in a statement.
Sony President and CEO Howard Stringer said Jobs would not be forgotten.
"The digital age has lost its leading light, but Steve's innovation and creativity will inspire dreamers and thinkers for generations."
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates simply said he would miss his former industry rival.
"For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it's been an insanely great honour. I will miss Steve immensely," Gates said.
With files from The Associated Press
