High profile businessmen and rich people tend to have their reported quirks. Money allows this sort of thing, but Steve Jobs wasn’t known for any kind of eccentricities that money allows, like having a diamond-plated iPad or something. He did, however, manage to avoid having a license plate on his Mercedes SL55 AMG. This wasn’t made possible because he cut some kind of deal with state government, but because of a loophole in the California vehicle laws that stated a new car has a maximum of six months to be without a license plate. Yes, this is going where you think it is: Steve Jobs cut a deal with a leasing company that allowed him to lease a new Mercedes SL55 AMG every six months so as to avoid having to slap a license plate on the back.

It wasn’t revealed why he didn’t want license plate numbers on his car — one can only assume he didn’t want to be tracked — but, you know, he had an iPhone. I’ll be here all night.

Under Steve Jobs, Apple changed how most people listen to music and established a gold standard for both smart phones and tablet computers. All this while the company’s set-top box called Apple TV has seen only modest sales. However, excerpts from Jobs’ forthcoming authorized biography by Walter Isaacson suggest that Apple’s assault on the living room is only just starting.

Isaacson said that Jobs wanted to make TV simpler, more elegant, and fully connected to Apple’s existing media infrastructure. The Washington Post quotes Isaacson quoting Jobs:

‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ [Steve Jobs] told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’

Rumors of an updated Apple TV have been swirling for some time, but perhaps some far grander could be the last “one more thing” Steve Jobs has in store for us. 

If you’re planning on visiting an Apple Store tomorrow, you might want to make other plans. According to Reuters, all U.S. Apple stores will close on Wednesday between 10 AM and 11:30 AM PT (2 PM to 3:30 EST) during a memorial Apple will hold for their late founder Steve Jobs.

During this down time, employees will be able to watch a live stream of what is being called a celebration of the technology innovator. The actual event itself will be held in an outdoor amphitheatre on Apple’s corporate campus. In the wake of Jobs’ death, there has already been a spontaneous outpouring of grief around the world in addition to a private funeral and a separate memorial service. Now it seems it’s the employees’ turn to raise a glass to their former employer.

The above mural of Steve Jobs, reportedly created with 4,001 Post-it notes, was erected on the window of an Apple store in Munich, Germany. The mural only uses three different colors of notes, yellow, green and blue, and took a team of five people around six hours to complete, using only a sheet of A4 paper with an image of the finished product on it as their guide. As one can see from the photo, the mural is tall, measuring in at six meters in height. Head on past the break for another picture of the mural, as well as a time-lapse video of the mural’s construction.

The Internet has been abuzz about the death of Steve Jobs for days, and while some may already be overly saturated with the recent deluge coverage, Infographic World made a handy infographic to explain why the coverage has been a deluge rather than a drizzle for which one doesn’t even bother to open an umbrella. So, head on past the jump and check out the easily consumable informational graphic conveying the life of Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs made the black turtleneck and 501 jeans an instantly noticeable, iconic form of dress, becoming widespread enough to the point where the outfit is one of the first Jobs-related items that gets parodied when doing a bit. Following the announcement of Jobs’ death, sales of the famous turtleneck actually significantly increased. Though the outfit became recognizable as a representation of Jobs, and to a lesser extent, Apple itself, its inception wasn’t all too celebrated, and was initially rejected by Apple.

In a book due to release in a couple of weeks, entitled Steve Jobs, biographer Walter Isaacson explains the turtleneck’s origins. In the 1980s, Jobs spoke with Sony chairman Akio Morita about why everyone in the factories wore uniforms, to which Mortia explained that after the war, people didn’t have enough clothes so Sony had to give them something to wear. Eventually, the uniforms evolved into their own styles, and created a kind of bond amongst employees. Jobs wanted Apple employees to have a similar bond, so he contacted the designer of the Sony uniforms, Issey Miyake, and asked Miyake to make a vest for Apple employees. Jobs presented the vest, and Apple employees were not fond of it. “Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.” He grew to enjoy the idea of having a uniform for himself, however, both for the convenience of having a daily go-to outfit, and because it conveyed a signature style.

The death certificate of Steve Jobs shows that his cause of death is listed as respiratory arrest at around 3 pm on October 5, caused by a pancreatic tumor. He died in his home in Palo Alto, and his death certificate lists his occupation as “entrepreneur” in the area of “high tech.” There was no autopsy performed. On October 7, Jobs was buried at a non-denominational cemetery in Santa Clara. A few days before Jobs died, Apple contacted the the Palo Alto police department and notified them that Jobs was expected to die in the coming days. The police department was made aware so they could have patrols ready in case a large amount of mourners gathered at Jobs’ house.

In an internal email sent out by Tim Cook to Apple employees (seen after the break), it has been revealed that Apple will be holding an event to celebrate Jobs’ life, which will take place in on October 19 in the outdoor amphitheater on Apple’s Infinite Loop campus.

It’s no secret that the late Steve Jobs loved simplicity and elegance, and probably cubes, too. After all, he brought out not only the ill-fated Apple Cube but the iller-fated NeXT Cube. However, his most famous cube is probably the above-ground portion of the flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York, which became the site of a spontaneous memorial after Jobs’ passing.

We’ve talked on the site about what the death of Steve Jobs means, but it’s still strange to see such public displays of grief at — of all places — a high-end retail outlet. In truth, while these people surely feel sadness, they seem to be mourning Steve Jobs the character, the public figure. As such, perhaps it’s fitting that they express their loss at the place most connected to that persona.

Grief is a strange thing. See more pictures of what the memorial looked like yesterday evening after the break.

As the joke goes, I first learned about the passing of Steve Jobs on my iPhone. But I’m not much of an Apple devotee; it’s the first I’ve owned and that’s only been since this summer. I don’t have a MacBook — never have — and of all the various iterations of iPod devices, I’ve been gifted an original iPod Nano and an 80GB iPod Classic over the years.

The only money I’ve directly given to Apple in my lifetime has been through iTunes and perhaps the recent purchase of my iPhone, though I’m not positive how much of that actually trickled back to the corporate overlords. All of this is to say that I don’t have a huge investment in Apple and never have.

But the passing of Steve Jobs is not something anyone involved in the tech scene can ignore.

Though this unaired Apple commercial narrated by Steve Jobs has been viewable on the Internet for some time, it suddenly holds a new level of significance after Jobs’ passing. The narration, music, and black and white visuals provide a somber backdrop for Jobs’ speech describing the innovative and unique minds in our society. The quote the commercial ends with, “The people who are craziest enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do” will surely gain a revived and new level of prominence now that Jobs is gone.