You read that right. 

Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

That should settle everyone for a while. In response to that letter, Apple’s Board decided to issue a public statement as well:

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors

It is widely recognized both inside and outside of Apple that Steve Jobs is one of the most talented and effective CEOs in the world.

As we have said before, if there ever comes a day when Steve wants to retire or for other reasons cannot continue to fulfill his duties as Apple’s CEO, you will know it.

Apple is very lucky to have Steve as its leader and CEO, and he deserves our complete and unwavering support during his recuperation. He most certainly has that from Apple and its Board.

This could be the best news I’ve heard all year long (well, it’s just been 5 days since). Steve Jobs is fine and will continue to run Apple. We’re looking forward to a WWDC keynote with Jobs delivering the smoking keynote in full health.

When I woke up this morning I was totally hit by the news that I read right here on Smoking Apples. Usually that never happens since I’m always aware of what gets published, so in a way it was a double blow. After reading through it a couple of times, and getting a little perspective, here’s what can be said about this shocking announcement.

This announcement has just as much to do about Jobs’ health, as it does about Apple pulling out of public tradeshows. Why else would he have Phil Schiller give the keynote? Announcing the last ever Macworld Keynote would be something to add to his legacy. Of course, Jobs’ health is his private matter, so I hope we can leave it at that and wish him the best of health. 

But wait, there’s no reason to panic. Apple will still be awesome even if Jobs isn’t going to deliver keynotes, ever. Sure we don’t have our regular dose of RDF to keep us out of perspective, but we’ll survive. After all, Apple engineers will still able to churn out those lovely white aluminium products. (Okay I admit it, Schiller’s presentation is lame, and doesn’t do justice to those lovely aluminium products.) Hopefully, Schiller doing the keynote will be a one time occurrence, just to show us what the world will look like without Steve Jobs. 

Jim Goldman at CNBC on the other hand believes that this is all politics, and nothing to do with Jobs’ pancreas.

I can tell you that sources inside the company tell me that Jobs’ decision was more about politics than his pancreas. Sources tell me that if Jobs for some reason was unable to perform any of his responsibilities as CEO because of health reasons, which would include the Macworld keynote, I should “rest assured that the board would let me know.”

A lot of companies are pulling out of CES and instead having their own special events. Gives them more attention and is more suited to their product timeline. Sounds good to me. But Macworld? Isn’t that like all about Apple? The most talked about Apple event of all time – known to many a macboy as Christmas – and they want to cancel it? Nevertheless, I’ll choose to believe Goldman, especially his last statement, “Steve Jobs is fine. It’s Macworld the expo that’s on its last legs.”

Meanwhile Paul Kent, the guy behind Macworld Expo defends his case: 

Macworld Conference & Expo has thrived for 25 years due to the strong support of tens of thousands of people in the Mac community worldwide who use Macworld as a way to find great products, partake in professional development training and cultivate their personal and professional networks.

We are committed to serve their interests at the Moscone Center, January 4-8, 2010.

That would have been fine, except John Gruber has pulled out a quote from Daring Fireball in 2002, “A Macworld Expo without Apple is like an airport without any airlines. The duty-free shop isn’t going to keep the lights turned on.”

At the end of the day, will we see some awesome new Apple gadgetry? Will Snow Leopard be just as awesome as was promised when Jobs was on stage? Will we see someone from Apple announce in September 2009, that “this is the best iPod lineup ever!”? A definite yes to all of them. Hopefully, a definite yes.

Meanwhile, let’s enjoy our Christmas, as if it were our last (ignorance is bliss, they say). New Mac minis anyone? Voice out your thoughts and comments.

Apple has just released the following press release stating that the 2009 Macworld will be their last:

CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple® today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Apple has used the Macworld convention to announce new products such as the iPhone and showing off OSX Leopard. Will we see a lack of new products coming out from now on? Share your thoughts, sad as they may be, in the comments. 

After announcing the greenest MacBooks ever, Steve Jobs has written a lengthy report on how Apple has fared in their environmental goals. At the beginning of this year, with the release of the MacBook Air, Jobs announced that by the year end Apple would carry out major changes to make their products greener than ever. 

“I’m proud to report that all of Apple’s new product designs are on track to meet our 2008 year-end goal.” - Jobs. 

Jobs also mentions that they now have a special page that will continually provide progress reports on the Apple recycling program. 

Visit Apple.com/environment/update for the whole report. Now if you find such a simple link on a Dell or HP website, be sure to let us know.

Okay, we get it. Steve Jobs is a public figure, and his health is of concern to all of us. Without Steve Jobs, the future of Apple is uncertain, and by the looks of it, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else capable enough to take his shoes. So his health, is almost directly equal to Apple’s health. But there’s a limit to all of this, and one that has been crossed recently. 

Since his fragile appearance at the WWDC, speculation has been going on about Steve’s health. People went as far as getting his obituary ready. Jobs acknoledged this at the September 9th “Let’s Rock” event with a casual “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”. It was said very lightly and in good humour, but also conveyed the message,“stay out of my personal life”. At least that’s what I felt, and have stayed away from Steve’s health issues. 

Then some “Johntw” over at CNN’s iReport, the unedited unfiltered ordinary citizen news site, published a report that Steve Jobs has suffered a major heart attack and has been rushed to the hospital.

Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven’t seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it.

Even if this report were true, it still doesn’t give someone the right to invade the privacy of someone’s health like that.

Apple then denied the claim, and the report was taken down from the site, but not before it was published on Apple blogs, news sites, and made a round trip in Twitter. This resulted in the Apple stock plummeting down to its lowest ever since April 2007. The stock has finally settled at 97, far below from its high points this year. 

CNN has handed over the information of the author to the Securities and Exchange Commission. But whatever action against the user that might follow, will not repair the damage caused not only to the Apple Stock, but to Steve Jobs’ respect for the tech community. And I hope I am proven wrong about this.

What do you think about this issue? Would you like Smoking Apples to publish reports about Steve’s health, or do we let him have his privacy?

To those who have been itching to watch the Jobsnote, but held off from watching the stuttering streaming video, I am proud to be the bearer of good news. The keynote of the “Let’s Rock” Apple Special Event is out as a direct download from the Apple Keynotes podcast.

Watch as Steve Jobs takes the stage in his frail self, unveils iTunes 8, then pretty much shows off the iPod Nano 4G, and tops it off with the new iPod Touch. Not to mention the Genius doing the rounds behind the scenes. By now you wonder if Apple is paying me for all this publicity!

The keynote (iTunes link) tops out at 745MB, in high quality Mpeg4. And just in case it doesn’t grab your attention, the podcast lists some of the previous keynotes as well, going back to the 2007 keynote where Jobs unveiled the iPhone (which, I believe every Apple fan should watch. No exceptions). As for me, I’ve already begun lusting for Macworld 09!

For the first time, there was doubt in the minds of macboys alike, as to whether or not Steve Jobs would be well enough to take the stage. Among the various reports coming in, Dan Lyons mentioned that he doesn’t feel like continuing the Fake Steve Blog because of the real Jobs’ health¹. There were even rumours of this event being the point where Jobs retires as CEO of Apple. And lest we forget, certain companies even have his obituary ready and waiting.

And as we all know, Steve Jobs is Apple, and without him the company’s future is shaky. Steve Jobs sneezes, and the company stock goes rock bottom. With no clear successor to take on the job as CEO, Apple’s future rests upon Jobs’ health. 

Rest assured, Jobs turned up at the keynote alright, started off with his nice little message, and then single handedly drilled through the keynote. That is, not considering the small bit where Schiller was called in to rave about the iPod Touch games. Whether Steve is really fine or not, we will never know. He did still look skinny as he did at the WWDC back in June. One can only pray and hope for the best, that our beloved iCEO may grace many a keynotes ahead of us.

We all know about the NetShare debacle, the tethering app that surprisingly appeared in the App Store, was taken down, appeared again, and was taken down again. What we didn’t know, however, was that this really angered an iPhone user, who sent an email directly up to the God of shiny things himself (that’s Steve Jobs, for all you non-Apple loyalists).

AT&T offers data plans for BlackBerry that include tethering for an additional $30 per month (a total of $60 per month for the BlackBerry+tethering plan).

It seems ludicrous that the same thing is not offered with the iPhone. I understand the desire to prevent tethering with the current data plan, but I am willing to pay more money to allow tethering! With such an advanced device, why can I not do so?

This is where things go wild. Are you ready for this? If you are viewing this on an iPhone, I suggest you be seated, and make sure there is no scope for that phone to fall down on anything other than soft cushions. This is the reply he received:

We agree, and are discussing it with ATT.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

Gizmodo is counting on the “Sent from my iPhone” part to seal this email as totally authentic. AppleInsider didn’t count on it and has since claimed to have verified that the transmission originated from an Apple IP and the same “D-class” as the other emails sent from the co-founder, CEO, and demiGod.

Of course, unless Apple or AT&T make an official announcement, all this talk is to be considered as rumour, and nothing more. [Ed note: For we all know, Phil Schiller could have snapped up Steve’s iPhone when he wasn’t looking and dashed off a couple emails. It’s not like the pass-code lock is very effective anyway.]

[Via Gizmodo]

I didn’t know Steve Jobs personally but anyone who infused life into an almost dead company and went on to become one of the most influential people in the world earns respect in my book. He was a divine man and had a heart of gold. His contributions to mankind will forever be etched… wait, what? Oh, he’s not dead? But wasn’t that his obituary I read on Bloomberg yesterday?

Yes, it was, and yes, he’s not dead. Take a deep breath. You OK there? Yeah, yeah, I promise—he’s alive and well and still making incredibly sexy and expensive products in Cupertino for you to throw wads of cash on. Promise!

It turns out that someone at Bloomberg was updating El Jobso’s obituary and accidentally hit the publish button which, surprisingly enough, does not mean “go back to the drafts section and stay there till 2455” (if you don’t think Jobs will live for at least five hundred years, you’re delusional).

Of course, they unpublished the thing in a hurry and issued a retraction stating that “An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted.” Apparently, several thousand Apple fanboys had already committed suicide by then¹—but hey, at least Jobs lives on.

So, anyway, just to make it crystal clear, beyond a shadow of doubt, Steve Jobs is not dead. No, this is not like the time when he died on a cross and came back to life—that was, like, a totally different scenario.

[Via MacUser]