Inside an Apple store on 59th Street in New York City, it was business as usual tonight – even after the death of Apple’s founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs.

Two of the resident “geniuses” were busy explaining the new processor in the iPhone 4S to a rapt customer. They said they were not allowed to comment on Jobs’ passing. Nor, for that matter, would any of their colleagues or a manager. They would not even comment on whether or not they were allowed to comment.

A security guard said he was told to pick up any flowers and remove anything like a shrine.

But Apple fans at the store had plenty to say.

A message is written on the window of the Apple Store in Santa Monica, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

One man started bawling, iPad in arms, when asked how he felt about Jobs’ death.

Jessica Mellow, 26, of New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, said she and a friend have been taking turns sitting in line in front of the store for nine days awaiting the new iPhone. The two still had nine more days to go.

“When I’m in an Apple store, it feels like being with family,” she said. “And I think that goes back to him [Jobs]. He created THIS. The people here want to help you and that says a lot about him.”

Of Jobs’ death from unspecified causes, she said of the man who has battled a type of pancreatic cancer: “It just shows no matter rich or poor, male or female, cancer doesn’t discriminate.”

David Del Toro, 37, of Miami, said he was at the store because, “I felt that I had to do something, to come here, to honor him.”

Why?

“For all he did, his inventions, the way he changed technology and communications,” Del Toro said, “I felt I was obligated, in a way, just to say, ‘Thank you.’”