Steve Jobs Thought Outside the Glovebox

The year was 2008. During a Rolls-Royce media event, I was poking around the interior of Phantom Coupe. Base price: $400,000.

As you might expect, nothing was familiar. The woodwork was so exquisitely finished, it shamed my most prized piece of furniture.

The leather was so buttery its original owner wouldn't have recognized it.

Then I opened the glovebox, where I discovered an iPod adaptor.

Moments later, as strains of J.S. Bach's Air Suite filled the car, courtesy of my battered iPod, I felt at home.

And then I imagined some tycoon in tennis whites or jodhpurs rocking out to the Doobie Brothers and figured people aren't really that much different from each other.

We all enjoy the same things. Apple founder Steve Jobs knew that. And he used that knowledge to bring us together.

R.I.P. Steve.