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Then: I have no idea who the world's greatest rock star is today. When he dies, I'll ask: "Who was that guy?" Same with the world's greatest rallycross driver. Or car designer. Or philosopher.
I've come to accept that the day Stephen Hawkins dies, and the world has lost probably its finest brain, two thirds of my friends will say: "Hawkins - is that the guy that was playing on the Dallas Cowboys team?" They simply don't care. Just as I don't care about soccer games, oboe playing or the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin. If you laugh at me for not knowing the name of persons in areas that have no importance to me, it tells more of your self-centeredness than of my ignorance.
Jobs was a computer guy. Does that make him special? Do people who know (or care!) nothing about computers have a greater obligation to know of computer guys than astrophysics guys? Or philosophers? Even within the computer field, I have to accept that my younger professional colleagues know nothing about guys such as C.A.R Hoare and and D. Knuth - not even (now deceased) superheroes like Alan Turing or George Bool, both of whom made far more fundamental contributions to the field of Computer Science than Jobs did. (Even Knuth and Hoare have made significantly greater contributions to Computer Science than Jobs has.)
Sure, Jobs did wrap it up very well, and his company sold a whole lot of it. As as salesman he was great. (The products aren't bad either.) But does that oblige any man in the street to know his name? Does that give us a good reason to ridicule people who don't?
Methinks not.
Not everyone is some Apple bitch who wept and wailed over Jobs death.
Yes, there are hundreds of people that are best or famous in their respective fields that I haven't heard off, but Steve Jobs is considered as one of the greatest innovators of our time. Even if you don't agree on that, he is the founder and CEO until recently of worlds most valuable company, larger than Exxon Mobile that is, and that's insane.
Some of the are also directly rude, and not just people who didn't know who he was.
On a side note, I don't even like Apple and I at times hate their fan-club that supports a company that is so "locked", but that is an entire different discussion, and yet I cant deny that Steve has done some incredible stuff.