The screen went dead for a second. When it came back on, a thin, greying man in his fifties — wearing circular frameless glasses, a couple of days’ stubble, and a black cotton shirt buttoned to the collar — was talking calmly against a glowing purple and black background. He could have been a cult leader, a dictator from the 22nd century, or perhaps an alien prince, addressing Earth from another dimension. In fact, he was Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Computer: the man who has sold the world 60 million iPods, one billion music downloads, 45 million television show downloads and more than ten million iMacs, thus changing forever the way media is consumed by the masses. He was being interviewed on CNBC, the influential financial news channel.

To anyone who has worked in Silicon Valley, the rhythm and tone of Jobs’s voice was instantly recognisable as the “reality distortion field” — a term invented by one of Jobs’s employees to sum up the Apple CEO’s uncanny ability to convince anyone of anything, regardless of the facts.

“We’re not under investigation by the SEC or anyone else,” said Jobs, referring to America’s much-feared financial regulator. “[But] we did start our own investigation,” he continued. “We did discover some irregularities, and we’re, y’know, letting that investigation have it’s due course . . . and it’ll be completed in the not too distant future.”

The Apple CEO’s manner was that of a doctor, gently dismissing the latest phantom symptom of a hypochondriac patient. And when the camera cut from Jobs to a reporter standing outside Apple’s latest product launch event in San Francisco — a fire engine wailing portentously in the background — it was tempting to feel reassured.

But to anyone who has followed the script of any previous corporate scandal in the United States, it was deeply unsettling. For example: how could Jobs possibly know for certain that the SEC wasn’t investigating Apple’s accounts? Especially given that the iPod manufacturer had left investors panicking in August by declaring that financial reports issued by the company since 2002 “should not be relied upon” — not to mention the fact that the “irregularities” of which Jobs spoke were related directly to his own remuneration package.

Clearly, the implications of the Apple investigation, in terms of tax penalties, SEC fines, possible fraud charges and lawsuits, were potentially catastrophic. Hence the note sent out to clients by the Wall Street analyst Richard Farmer, of Merrill Lynch, which brought up the “potential risk . . . that Steve Jobs might be unable to continue as CEO of Apple”.

Perhaps Jobs, already on to the second act of his career, couldn’t bring himself to even think of such a possibility. Perhaps he had fallen victim to his own reality distortion field. Regardless, the question on everyone else’s minds remained: had that beautiful white Apple turned rotten at its core?

Jobs was born in 1955 to an American mother and a Syrian father, but he was put up for adoption because his parents were unmarried. His Arab roots remain something of a mystery (Jobs has infamously sparred with his biographers), but what’s undisputed is this: he grew up in Cupertino, near San José in California, and co-founded Apple in 1976 with his friend and fellow Homebrew Computer Club member Steve “Woz” Wozniak. Jobs was 21, Wozniak 26.

By 1985, however, Jobs had been ousted by Apple’s board amid complaints about his savage and temperamental management technique.

“It was awful-tasting medicine,” Jobs admitted later, “but I guess the patient needed it.” He didn’t return to Apple until more than a decade later, having spent his exile buying Pixar animation studios from George Lucas for $5 million (he would later sell it for $7.4 billion, a 1,479 per cent profit) and founding NeXT Computer.

Jobs’s return to Apple’s HQ at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, turned out to be one of the greatest comeback stories in American history — a Second Coming, as one book memorably put it. Within a year, Jobs had released the iMac. Three years after that came iTunes, then the iPod, then global revolution. For Apple devotees — and there are many — Jobs was a visionary, a prophet, and an undisputed genius (although his management style remained controversial, and “being Steved” became shorthand for being fired while riding in the elevator with the Apple CEO). By the late 1990s, Apple’s sleek white hardware was a lifestyle choice: an almost political statement of good taste over the ugly compromise of Windows-based PCs. Yet few could have predicted the scale of Apple’s success. Between 1997 and 2006, Apple’s stock multiplied in value by five, from just over $16 to just under $90 (adjusted for stock splits).

PC users bought iPods by the million, then swapped their PCs for iMacs, then fitted them with iSight cameras and Airport wireless base stations.

Meanwhile, Apple began selling its hardware at retail stores that looked like modern art museums — complete with “genius bars” for one-on-one Apple technical support.