And despite all the iGadgets and hoopla and massive market cap, this to me is what Jobs should be remembered for. He built a computer ecosystem that I bought into in 1987, and have never left. The doomed NeXt Computer OS was based on Unix, and Jobs made sure that Mac OS X was a Unix-based system that appealed to both traditional Mac GUI-only types and Unix geeks who wanted to get into their systems and tweak the code. It's an ingenious system that powers every Mac today and enables much of the world to get their computing work done.

Yes, I like my iPhone and iPods, but the Mac OS--which allows use of excellent open-source software, check for programs you won't be able to live without--is the rock-solid base that Jobs brought to the firm he rejoined and rejuvenated. This to me is his legacy--becoming a mogul in three separate, flashy industries by the age of 50 is unprecedented, but when I sit down at my Mac and It Just Works, I think: what else did he need to prove?