Steve Jobs has died. The world just got a little less interesting.

Certainly no one in my life time has changed the world quite in the same way, much the way Henry Ford changed the lives of my great-grandparents.

It’s hard not to wonder if Apple Corp. will now fall back to the post-1986 miasma that it experienced after it initially booted Jobs from the company. It’s equally hard to see any company ever again make the kind of blazing comeback Apple made after Jobs’ 1997 return.

Aside from a 1930s-vintage movie mogul or two, Jobs may be the only corporate executive with the heart of an artist to ever reach the upper strata of Big Business.

May the wizard rest in peace.

Tonight’s video report from the Associated Press follows: