After Steve Jobs died, the world has been pondering if it would be the end of innovation. President Barack Obama lauded Steve Jobs as "among the greatest of American innovators" and many have compared him to great inventors Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Jobs, a visionary and a creative genius, helped redefine mobile devices, the music industry, the cinema, and the Internet.

Jobs took only one semester in college but went on to create one of the world's most recognizable brands. Even if he didn't line up four years of products for Apple, Jobs' ideals and mindset have been imprinted on all Apple employees. And Jobs has already blazed the trails for technology today and the future, ensuring that innovation would continue.

But here's the more important question: What if Jobs' was never given a chance to start Apple? Talking about the butterfly effect, what if his adoptive parents didn't allow him to drop out of Reed College? Or what if Paul Jobs, a machinist, didn't teach his son rudimentary electronics and barred Steve from pursuing his garage experiments? Or what if his real father, Abdulfattah Jandali, never gave up Steve to adoption and nurtured his son to be a political science teacher like him?

Would the world turn out the same if Jobs never came? Here are 12 things we would never have enjoyed if Steve never came to be:

10. Only geeks would have access to a computer. Although Jobs didn't invent the computer, the Apple computer was the first machine of its kind designed to be used by the general public. Jobs' computer did not require that the user have a degree in computer science in order to operate it, the Fayetteville Observer's Mary Zahran points out. Zahran compares Jobs to Johannes Gutenberg, a German printer who developed a system of movable type that led to the mass production of books.

9. We won't have cool and beautiful devices. Jobs at one time called Dell computers boring beige boxes. Without Jobs, button-less smartphones or computers with easy to use and elegant user interfaces would not have been the standard. "If some other asshole had been in charge of Apple, you wouldn't have an iPod. You'd have the Apple ToonPlayer III, and it would have 6,000 buttons and you would hate it with every fiber of your being," says Drew Magary in his latest edition of the Deadspin Funbag. With his focus on aesthetics, Jobs made technology more desirable. "Throughout his career, Jobs was obsessed with making complex things understandable, fun to use and easy to access for all," says Stanley Crouch, writing for the

">NY Daily News

.

8. Nobody with a laptop would be buying a $599 slab. Apple has sold 35 million iPads since April 2010 despite a struggling economy. Nobody thought that the $499 to $699 tablets would sell given that the world already has smartphones and laptops. His greatest invention was demand, writes Loren Steffy of the Houston Chronicle. Noting that Jobs "saw what consumers wanted even before they knew what it was, and positioned Apple to exploit that need."

7. America would no longer lead the world in innovation. The United States is no longer the superpower that it used to be -- it lost its pristine triple-A ratings from Standard & Poor's months ago. Because of Jobs, America continues to be the leader in innovation at a time when its economic and political clout is diminishing. Despite tepid economic conditions, Apple has soared to become the world's most valuable tech company. Sure we have Microsoft leading Silicon Valley -- but Microsoft has been making money for its inventions of yester-years and has become an afterthought of the cutting edge. Bill Gates is now more of a philanthropist than an innovator. Without Jobs, we'd have tech giants from Japan or Korea or China probably running the show.

6. People who start businesses from their garages or dormitories -- instead of seriously studying in school -- would be described as "lazy" rather than "future millionaires". It was Frederick Terman, the father of Silicon Valley, who pushed for innovation when as Stanford University's dean of engineering and provost, encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies.

Jobs and others are able to innovate because America encourages innovation, Andres Oppenheimer, writing for the

">South Bend Tribune

, says. But Jobs is the most popular example that start-ups could work. He started his business from his garage in 1976. Jobs showed that with hard-work and despite adversity (he was once fired from the company he started) you can build something a $350 billion company literally from Coke bottles.

5. We'd only be using the Internet to browse and the cellphone to make calls. Jobs changed the way millions listen to music, download content from the Internet, use their cell phones, and interact with their computers. The iPhone for example redefined the smartphone by fusing a mobile phone, a music player, a camera and an internet communicator into one device. "The aesthetics, cleverness and brilliance of many of his products changed and grew to define our culture, not least in its insatiable appetite for new products," says

">Jonty Langley

, weekly columnist of The Baptist Times. Jobs moved technology from his garages to our homes and our pockets and unveiled phenomenal products that raised the bar in the industry. "Jobs is exceptional in the public eye not simply because he was an exceptional capitalist - although he undoubtedly was - but because his products are in the front of our mind," says Chris Berg, writing for ABC's The DRUM.

4. Death would have been a source of fear, not inspiration. "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there," Jobs pointed out. In closing his Stanford University commencement speech, 2005, Jobs said, "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

3. No one would have guts to start something new. Jobs revolutionized mobile phones by coming up with a touch or gesture-based, and physical-keyboard-less and app-based iPhone. His iPad brought everyday portability to computing. A company he founded after being fired from Apple, NeXT Computer, developed the first version of the world wide web. "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new", Jobs once said. Jobs simply followed his guts to come up with something that the mass market would use. He took risks and followed his heart.

2. We would never have seen Toy Story and music would be dead. Pocahontas was fine but Toy Story is revolutionary, paving the way for CGI films. In 1986, gifted animator John Lasseter, tech guru Ed Catmull, and visionary Steve Jobs founded Pixar Animation Studios. They created the first computer animated feature film despite predictions that it could never be done. Jobs had good instincts -- he bought Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for $10 million and later sold it to Disney for $7.4 billion.

And it's not Simon Cowell or American Idol that saved the music industry. "At a time, the early part of the last decade, when the music industry was already spiraling into collapse, due to illegal file sharing, and the shortsighted greed of the major record labels, Jobs not only launched the iPod, but, more key, the iTunes store," Dave Serchuk, says in an article published at Forbes.

1. More people would be without jobs. Apple has 50,000 employees. Thousands more are at factories producing the parts for the iPad and iPhone, many more are at stores selling Apple devices, and thousands of developers and businesses are making money from apps sold at the Apple App store. Imagine if Apple didn't generate this much business or if there was no Apple at all. "Jobs provided employment for hundreds of thousands of Americans, which is immensely more than Obama has done," says Tait Trussell Bio, in his article Barack Obama vs. Steve Jobs, posted in Front Page Mag. According to Jobs, "A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."

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* Profit centric businesses wouldn't please customers. Capitalism has taught businesses to cut the costs and maximize profits. Cutting costs often times means sacrificing quality. But not for Steve Jobs. His focus on quality and excellence trumped conventional business objectives, notes Judith Samuelson, Executive Director, Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program, in her article "Steve Jobs Made Sure Apple's Main Mission Was Satisfied Customers, not Profits". Jobs' created devices that were easy to use and aesthetically beautiful. By being customer-centric, he sold products at margins of 40% -- for the $499 iPad, $600 iPhone or the $2,000 MacBook -- despite a struggling economy.

* A wardrobe of black turtleneck from St. Croix, Levi's jeans and New Balance sneakers would look bad. According to Knitcraft, sales of its $175 St. Croix cotton and microfiber mock black turtlenecks doubled after Jobs died and the company has run out of stock. According to Walter Isaacson, Jobs' chosen biographer, explains how the wardrobe came to be: Jobs years ago tapped fine Japanese fashion icon Issey Miyake to design a uniform for Apple employees. While employees dissented, Jobs has since worn Miyake's classic black turtlenecks in public events, projecting a consistent brand image for his own personal identity.

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"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it," Jobs said in his Stanford University commencement speech.