Watch, just watch. Stephen Colbert, America’s favorite persnickety alter ego, breaks face as he nears the end of tonight’s tribute to Steve Jobs, a man who most of us never met, but whose death a lot of us — for many many reasons – are sad about tonight, and probably tomorrow, and quite likely the next day, etc.

Colbert digs through his show archives to present an evolving portrait of Apple products as a hot commodity, quipping, “No one else could make me beg quite like him; ‘Apple, what part of ‘Give me a free iPhone ‘don’t you understand?”’Come on Apple, give me one through the TV, I know you have the technology.’”

Later on Colbert, who is the (self-described) “first non-Apple person to have an iPad” recounts what it was like to preview and present the device months before launch at the 52nd Grammy Awards, revealing an email he received from Jobs himself afterwards,”I was one of the few people who could call Steve Jobs a close friend — in that he communicated with me once.”

The communication?

“Sweet!

Thanks,

Steve”

To which Colbert, breaking character and with a 100% sincerity, proceeded to respond while on-air:

“Right back at ya!

Thanks for everything.”

Indeed.

Crunchbase

• STEVE JOBS

Person: Steve Jobs

Companies: Pixar, NeXT, Apple

Steve Jobs was the co-founder and CEO of Apple and formerly Pixar. Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California to Joanne Simpson and a Syrian father. Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California then adopted him. In 1972, Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. One semester later, he had dropped out, later taking up the study of philosophy and foreign cultures. Steve Jobs had a deep-seated interest in...

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