Freehold Apple Store Customers Memorialize Steve Jobs

The Macintosh sign was left dark outside the Freehold Raceway Mall Apple Store Thursday. According to a Freehold Apple Store employee, locations across the country did not light their iconic signs in remembrance of Steve Jobs, the company’s co-founder who died of pancreatic cancer on Wednesday.

Post-It pads and pens were placed in front of the Freehold store to allow Apple employees and customers to write notes about Jobs. About 50 notes were tacked up to the glass door and an apple and a battery-lit candle were left outside the store. Several passers-by took photos of the display with iPhones, a device Jobs introduced to the world in 2007.

One note read: “Steven, you changed my life and the lives of millions. Your foot print is on the world till the world ends. Thank you for everything. ‘Here’s to the crazies.’”

Chris Elscoe, 20, of Marlboro, read over the remembrances left at the Freehold store and noted that Apple products have become a way of life for his generation.

“All my friends have iPhones. Our whole life is about our phone,” Elscoe joked.

Jackson resident Jay Rodriguez, 36, said Apple products are integral to his work as film and music video director.

“Everything we do is based off of Apple products. We edit on their hardware, we edit with their software,” Rodriguez said.

He first started using a Macintosh in 1986 and said he was shocked and saddened to learn of Jobs’ death. He had anticipated a bigger reaction from the Monmouth customer base at the Apple Store.

“I actually expected more. I don’t know why, but I expected to see wall to wall,” Rodriguez said of the notes left at the Freehold location.

Nevertheless, Jobs’ legacy remained a topic of discussion at the Apple Store Thursday.

“Steve Jobs was a huge deal. He was definitely a big innovator. He was one of the stars of the smart phone,” Elscoe said.