It would be pure class if wasn't for the late Mr. Jobs mention. Surely, one can think of hundreds of more concrete examples that C enabled other than iOS, like, i don't know, the Internet?
"Linus Torvalds ... reinvented Unix for the internet age"
"Unix-like systems power several hundred million Apple and Android mobile devices, most internet firms' server farms"
Given the massive amounts of attention shown to Jobs' death, mentioning him gives the article sensible context (especially considering that most Economist readers are unlikely to have hear of Ritchie).
The Economist ran an obit of Mr Jobs recently, hence it made sense to refer to it to help regular readers understand the context and relationship between the two figures.