Steve Jobs' memorial service: 6 highlights

Apple drew back the curtains Monday on the private memorial service the company held last week for its late co-founder, Steve Jobs. The service, which was attended by Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Bono, and Google's Larry Page, had been closed to the public and the media until Apple posted an 81-minute video of the event, titled "Celebrating Steve," on its website. Here, six highlights from the ceremony:

1. New CEO Tim Cook kicked things off

Jobs' successor was the first to speak before the crowd of thousands gathered outside the company's Cupertino headquarters, says the Associated Press. Cook said the past two weeks had the been the saddest of his life. "But I know Steve," he said. "Steve would have wanted this cloud to lift for Apple and our focus to return to the work that he loved so much." Cook also revealed some of the final advice Jobs gave him: "To never ask what he would do, just do what's right."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

2. The crowd heard from Jobs one last time

Early in the service, Cook introduced an audio recording of Apple's 1997 "Think Different" commercial, which featured Richard Dreyfuss narrating — "Here's to the crazy ones… Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do" — over a montage of images of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jim Henson. In the audio played at the service, however, the words "were spoken by the man who wrote them: Steve Jobs," says Lori Preuitt at NBC Bay Area. The moment "seemed to bring down the house."

3. Al Gore rallied Apple's employees

"You have helped, in important ways, to create the joy and love that people associate with what Apple does," the former vice president, who sits on Apple's board of directors, told the gathered employees. He encouraged them to keep focusing "on the creativity and passion that lives inside the insanely great products that you design, engineer, manufacture, and market."

4. iPod designer Jonathan Ive stole the show

Ive shared "deeply personal memories of Jobs" that had the audience both laughing and crying, says Darren Franich at Entertainment Weekly. The iPod designer revealed what Jobs was like in boardroom brainstorming meetings, saying that sometimes his ideas were "dopey" and even "truly dreadful." But "sometimes they took the air from the room… bold, crazy, magnificent ideas, or quiet simple ones which, in their subtlety, their detail, were utterly profound." Ive also divulged how finicky Jobs was as a travel companion. After checking into a hotel, like clockwork Jobs would phone Ive each time to say, "Hey Jony, this hotel sucks. Let's go."

5. Norah Jones moved the crowd

The Grammy-winning blues singer singer took the stage with her piano to perform "The Nearness of You" and "Painter's Song," both from her album Come Away With Me. She also told the crowd that Jobs was a Bob Dylan fan, says Scott Shetler at Pop Crush, and launched into a rendition of Dylan's "Forever Young."

6. And Coldplay cracked a joke

Frontman Chris Martin began by telling the crowd, "We played this song for Steve 10 years ago. He said it was shit. He said we'd never make it." The band then launched into a performance of its first hit single, "Yellow." Martin also shared a story about when Jobs personally fixed his broken laptop, and thanked Martin for putting the band's song in an iTunes commercial. The group then played that song, "Viva la Vida," followed by its hits "Fix You" and "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall."