Kernel
Jobs is the figure who, more than any other, makes design literacy a precondition of consumer technology. Apple I (1976), Macintosh (1984), the NeXT detour, the 1997 return, iMac (1998), iPod (2001), iPhone (2007), iPad (2010), Apple Watch (announced 2014). The pattern is consistent: arrive late to a category, redefine it through subtraction, install your firm as the default.
Contribution
The personal computer with a graphical interface as a consumer object. The smartphone-as-platform. The post-Walkman portable music industry. The 21st-century industrial-design vocabulary that every premium electronics company now imitates. The retail-as-cathedral store format.
Lineage
Mentored loosely by Bushnell at Atari and by Mike Markkula at Apple. Re-shaped industrial design via Hartmut Esslinger (frog) and later Jony Ive. The cultural echo runs through every founder since who has tried to ship "taste-driven" technology.
Civilization-scale significance
The cultural figure through whom the founder-as-prophet trope is installed at civilizational scale. The iPhone, more than any other single product, defines what is now meant by "contemporary life."