Steve Jobs saw the future and led the world to it. He moved technology from garages to pockets took entertainment from discs to bytes and turned gadgets into extensions of the people who use them.

Jobs, who founded and ran Apple, told us what we needed before we wanted it.

“To some people, this is like Elvis Presley or John Lennon. It’s a change in our times. It’s the end of an era,” said Scott Robbins, 34, a barber and an Apple fan. “It’s like the end of the innovators.”

Apple announced Jobs’ death Wednesday night and remembered him as a “visionary and creative genius.” The company announced no cause of death, but Jobs had been diagnosed with a rare pancreatic cancer seven years ago and had a liver transplant in 2009. He was 56.

Steve Jobs was grieved around the world Thursday through the very devices he conceived: People held up pictures of candles on their iPads, reviewed his life on Macintosh computers and tapped out tributes on iPhones.

Cayman’s own MAC store pays tribute to the technology innovator on their website: “Oh,

how we’d hoped this day would never come. Steve Jobs changed our lives profoundly.

“We deeply mourn the passing of Steven P. Jobs. We have all lost a true Renaissance man. Mr. Jobs made the world a better place while courageously fighting an insidious disease during the last several years of his life and under much public scrutiny.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends. Thank you, Mr. Jobs for everything you have given to the world. Rest in peace.”

On Thursday, the Apple website, which usually features slick presentations of multicolored iPods and ever-thinner MacBook laptop computers, simply displayed a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and finger to his beard as if in contemplation.

In a measure of his impact on personal technology, Jobs was venerated by his fiercest competitors in the hours after his death.

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, a company that Apple once treated as Goliath to its David, then blew past in market value, said it was “an insanely great honor” to have known Jobs. A statement of grief came from Sony, whose Walkman and Discman were buried by the iPod.

Google added a link to the Apple site on its famously minimalist search page.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, thanked him for changing the world.

To the extent that there is an online version of the old-time public square, it was overrun Thursday by remembrances of Jobs.