On most days, Apple.com is like any other corporate home page — a billboard, a news hub for corporate goings-on and a launching pad for an online store where people can buy stuff. Every once in a while, though, it turns into something unlike any other big company’s home page.
Friday was one such day, when Apple’s home page featured a video tribute to Steven P. Jobs, the company’s co-founder and former chief executive who died a year ago to the day. The 105-second video consisted of still black-and-white images of Mr. Jobs with audio of him announcing Apple products like the iPhone and describing Apple’s corporate philosophy. The music on the soundtrack is Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in G Major for Cello, played by Yo-Yo Ma, who was a friend of Mr. Jobs.
The home page take-over made it modestly more difficult for Apple customers, most of whom were probably unaware that Friday was the anniversary of Mr. Jobs’s death, to buy Apple products. After the video finished playing and a letter from Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, appeared, regular links to Apple’s online store and product pages were displayed.
Apple isn’t alone in using the platinum online real estate of its home page to make a big statement with its customers. Amazon, for instance, periodically wipes all of the normal product pitches from its front door to replace them with letters from its chief executive, Jeff Bezos, including onein July about an education and training program to help Amazon workers improve their skills.
Under Mr. Jobs though, Apple’s home page occasionally became a showcase for events and people that had very little to do with Apple’s business.
In 2007, after Al Gore, the former vice president and an Apple board member, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work bringing attention to climate change, Apple devoted most of its home page to celebrating the event. “We are bursting with pride for Al and this historic recognition of his global contributions,” a message on the page said.
When people that Mr. Jobs admired died, Apple.com was made over in similar fashion. That happened when George Harrison of the Beatles andRosa Parks, the civil rights activist who was featured in Apple’s “Think Different” advertising campaign, passed away, both in 2005.
All of the tributes bore the unmistakable imprint of Mr. Jobs, without whose approval such radical changes to the Apple home page would have been unthinkable. Even after his death, his influence on the site still shows.
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