Jobs and Schmidt shake hands at iPhone launch in January 2007

The increasing rivalry between Apple and Google has been in the spotlight recently and now The New York Times has published a four page report on the ongoing relationship between to the two mammoth corporations.

The article covers many details of the increasing number of spats, starting out by detailing Apple’s suit against HTC which many believe is a wider attack against Google and its Android smartphone operating system.

At the heart of their dispute is a sense of betrayal: Mr. Jobs believes that Google violated the alliance between the companies by producing cellphones that physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone. In short, he feels that his former friends at Google picked his pocket.

“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business,” Mr. Jobs told Apple employees during an all-hands meeting shortly after the public introduction of the iPad in January, according to two employees who were there and heard the presentation. “Make no mistake: Google wants to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.”

The report offers some details of meetings that were described as “fierce” and heated”.

At one particularly heated meeting in 2008 on Google’s campus, Mr. Jobs angrily told Google executives that if they deployed a version of multitouch — the popular iPhone feature that allows users to control their devices with flicks of their fingers — he would sue.

The New York Times also interesting gives some background on the acquisition of AdMob by Google and how Apple had been bidding on the mobile advertising company at the time. Apple later acquired another firm Quattro.

Illustration of Steve Jobs, left, and Eric Schmidt. Credit: Daniel Adel (Courtesy of New York Times)

Last fall, Apple made a formal bid to acquire AdMob, a rapidly growing mobile advertising company, for $600 million. AdMob specializes in developing ads that run inside mobile phone applications, like those on the iPhone.

While Apple conducted due diligence on the deal, AdMob agreed to a 45-day “no shop” provision, a routine clause that prevented the start-up from offering itself for sale to others, according to three people briefed on the negotiations. But after Apple inexplicably let 45 days pass without consummating its offer, Google pounced.

On talking to both Google and Apple employees the New York TImes discovered that the rivalry is “intense” and many believe that a peacemaker is “sorely needed”. Bill Campbell who serves on Apple’s board has said to have been attempting to “smooth over the problems”.

While Mr. Campbell has tried to be a diplomat and smooth over the problems between Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt, the task hasn’t been easy. Mr. Campbell declined to comment for this article, but people briefed on the matter say that throughout last fall, Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt each lobbied Mr. Campbell to sever his connection with the other’s company, at times even giving him ultimatums to do so.

Finally, Mr. Campbell was forced to choose, and according to a person with knowledge of the situation, he dropped his formal responsibilities at Google, although he is still informally mentoring executives there.

Tim Cook who took the place of Steve Jobs during the first half of 2009 was awarded a discretionary bonus of $5,000,000 and 75,000 stocks “in recognition of his outstanding performance in assuming the day-to-day operations of the Company for the period in fiscal 2009″. The recommendation for compensation was put forward by Steve Jobs.

View entire form 8K (PDF).

Steve Jobs at the 2010 Oscars | Photo by Zadi Diaz - http://flic.kr/p/7JgA4C

Today Forbes published its list of world billionaires, crowning a new richest person with Carlos Slim Helu beating Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to the top. This year Steve Jobs ranked 136th on the world rich list with an increased estimated wealth of $5.5 billion up from $3.9 billion in 2009. Jobs also significantly improved his placing moving down from 178th on the 2009 list.

The list of course is only an estimate and upon publication has become quickly outdated, Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog reminds us that since February 12th 2010 Steve Jobs is $580 million richer on paper. Steve Jobs holds 5.426 million shares in Apple and 138 million shares in Disney.

Apple HQ, 1 Infinite Loop | Photo by Wysz - Flickr

Yesterday afternoon Apple held its annual shareholder meeting at its Cupertino headquarters. This year discussions focused primarily on the company’s financial situation and environmental issues.

At the meeting the shareholders re-elected Jobs and the Apple board of directors. The topic of previous board member Eric Schimdt came up when one shareholder asked if the Google CEO had conducted properly while serving on Apple’s board. Jobs said that “Eric Schmidt conducted himself appropriately and recused himself on matters that might involve conflict”.

Also approved was Ernst and Young as Apple’s public accounting firm for the year 2010.

During the meeting two shareholder proposals were voted down, in-line with board recommendations. The first proposal read as follows, “Shareholders request that the Board of Directors prepare a sustainability report describing corporate strategies regarding climate change, specifically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address other environmental and social impacts such as toxics, recycling and employee and product safety.”

The board rebutted with, Apple “is already substantially fulfilling—and in many respects exceeding—the request for information in Proposal No. 6″.

On the second opposed and denied proposal was for Apple to amend the bylaws to establish a sustainability committee “to ensure our corporation’s sustained viability”…”responding to changing conditions and knowledge of the natural environment, including but not limited to, natural resource limitations, energy use, waste disposal, and climate change.”

The board opposed the proposal with the following, “[Apple] takes environmental sustainability very seriously, and the Company has made significant progress in reducing the environmental impact of the Company’s operations and products, as described in the Company’s statement in opposition to Proposal No. 6, above. However, the Board does not believe a Board committee dedicated to this issue is necessary”.

After all the proposals were out of the way Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer fielded some questions.

One shareholder asked if Jobs has returned to Apple in a limited capacity, the CEO simply replied with “No” adding that while he was out, “Tim took the helm and Apple didn’t miss a beat.”

Other areas of interest mention include Jobs’ view on Apple’s financial situation. A present shareholder asked if Apple would use it’s current $40 billion cash and short-term investments to pay dividends, Jobs refuted saying that Apple is holding cash to take “big, bold” risks.

Jobs said that China is a market with lots of promise and said that Apple would open 25 retail stores in the near future.

Related: Apple’s 2010 Proxy statement.

Steve Jobs presents the MacBook Air at Macworld 2008 | © World of Apple 2008

The New York Times is reporting that Steve Jobs will participate with an author in writing an authorised biography of the Apple CEO’s life.

According to the report the book is still in early stages on planning but Jobs has invited author Walter Isaacson to tour his childhood home. Isaacson is a former managing director of Time magazine and is currently working at the Aspen Institute. Isaacson has two best-selling biographies “Einstein: His Life and Universe” and “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.” Both published by Simon & Schuster.

People familiar with the plans say that the book will cover Jobs’ entire life from youth through to his years at Apple.

Both Isaacson and Job’s closest assistant Katie Cotton declined to comment to the New York Times.

Steve Jobs presents at Macworld 2008 | © World of Apple 2008

Following last weeks iPad announcement, Steve Jobs held an internal Apple town hall meeting with employees later in the week to field questions on a number of subjects.

Mac Rumors, Wired and Daring Fireball have all individual reported on separate subjects of the meeting, with some sources disputing others.

Two of the big topics during the meet were Google and Adobe. On Google Jobs said that Apple did not enter the search business but Google did enter the phone business and they want to kill the iPhone. Jobs said, “This Don’t be evil [Google mantra] is a load of crap”.

On Adobe and in particular Apple’s lack of inclusion of flash in the iPhone and iPad, “Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”

Jobs also spoke about how Apple will deliver aggressive software updates to the iPhone and that the next iPhone hardware revision would be “A+”.

Although not yet even on sale the Apple CEO said that the iPad was one of the most important products he has been involved with, alongside the iPhone and Mac. Adding that new Macs released in 2010 will bring Apple “to the next level.” But still downplayed any implementation of Blu-ray, until “sales really start to take off”.

Finally Jobs spoke of Apple’s Lala acquisition in which he says that those employees have been brought into the iTunes team.

The question of many peoples lips was the lack of video camera on the iPod touch, when Pogue put this question to Jobs he replied:

“Originally, we weren’t exactly sure how to market the Touch. Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine,” he said. “We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it’s the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that’s the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.”

Pogue also asked why the camera equipped nano can’t snap still photos:

the sensors you need to record video are extremely thin these days—thin enough to fit into the wafer-thin Nano. But the ones with enough resolution for stills, especially with autofocus (like the sensor in the iPhone), are much too thick to cram into a player that’s only .02 inches thick.

After expression his doubts over e-readers in the past Jobs then answered a question about Amazon’s Kindle book reader:

“I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing,” he said. “But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day. Because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.”

Finally Pogue asked how Jobs was doing and wondered if any products had been affected at Apple due to his leave:

“There are some things that I’m focusing a lot of attention on right now—to polish,” he said. “No, I don’t think we’re going to miss a beat. We have some really good stuff coming up.”

“I probably need to gain about 30 pounds, but I feel really good. I’m eating like crazy. A lot of ice cream,”

The report quotes sources saying that Jobs scrapped the tablet twice in the past years, once due to the poor battery life and a second time due to lack of internal storage.

WSJ suggests that Jobs’ sudden scrutiny on the project has been “jarring” for some employees “who had grown accustomed to a level of freedom over strategy and products while the CEO was on leave”.

Strangely the report also includes a quote from Jobs himself, certainly a rare score. The quote which comes from email simply reads; “much of your information is incorrect”.

None of the sources quoted in the report were able to offers specifics on the tablet or when it is likely to be available.

“Steve is back to work,” said Steve Dowling, a spokesman at the Cupertino, California-based company. Jobs is at Apple a few days a week and working from home the rest of the time, he said. “We are very glad to have him back.”

The Loop is also reporting that Jobs was spotted around campus and is said to be still looking thin but have “more color in his face and looked happy.”

James D. Eason, M.D., program director at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute and chief of transplantation confirmed today, with the patient’s permission, that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in partnership with the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

Steve Jobs is said to be recovering well and evidence suggests that the CEO has returned to work this week.

He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available. Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.

In Apple’s press release announcing that it had sold over one million iPhone 3GS devices in it’s first weekend not only did a product name change spelling but a CEO who’s meant to be on leave made an appearance.

It initially looked like an error on behalf of Apple’s PR department (and could still be) but several individuals have confirmed to World of Apple and external sources are also saying that Apple is now opting with iPhone 3GS rather than iPhone 3G S. Apple’s own iPhone 3GS website hasn’t changed and the documentation included with my iPhone 3GS isn’t likely to ever change.

The comment was small, it was subtle but was this the official return of Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs?

“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

Jobs who is expected back to work at the end of June hasn’t had a comment on a press release since before his announcement that he’d be taking a six month medical leave back January.

[Update] World of Apple has received official word from Apple PR that Apple is now using iPhone 3GS, this is evident by a website wide change earlier today on Apple.com. Because of this World of Apple has also changed all references to read iPhone 3GS.

The operation which was said to have taken place in Tennessee is being reported by the Journal as fact more than rumour although no sources are identified and a comment from Jobs’ personal spokeswoman Katie Cotton prompted the customary; “Steve continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there’s nothing further to say.”

The report adds some validity to a rumour which was initially ignored which stated that Steve Jobs was receiving medical treatment in Memphis, Tennessee.

Steve Jobs is expected to return to Apple at the end of June.

The post is in response to several reports from top mainstream publications around the world who have supposedly received confirmation that Steve Jobs will return to Apple at the end of this month.

The first mention of Steve Jobs’ return was in his own memo that announced his medical leave for six months, at the end of the memo Jobs wrote, “I look forward,” adding “to seeing all of you this summer.”

Since that memo Apple has reiterated multiple times that Jobs will return to the company at the end of June, usually with the following thirteen words.

“We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.”

Falling fowl of Apple’s consistent statement was UK based The Times who wrote:

“Steve Jobs will return to work at Apple at the end of this month, it was confirmed today…”

According to The Times confirmation comes in the form of an Apple spokesman who said:

“We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.”

Seem somewhat familiar?

Luckily The Daily Telegraph didn’t fall down quite so hard, but the sensationalist headline has something to be desired.

While Mr. Jobs has been on sick leave, some Apple directors have gotten weekly updates about his medical condition from the CEO’s physician, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Jobs’s recovery “is coming along” and he is on schedule to return to work later this month, said this person, who has seen Mr. Jobs in recent weeks.

WSJ cites sources who have ties to Apple senior management who told them that the company is trying to co-ordinate Jobs’ return with a product launch.

Much of the buzz appears to be conjecture of the type that has swirled around Apple and Mr. Jobs for years. But two people who do business with Apple said senior Apple managers have told them the company is now trying to coordinate Mr. Jobs’s return with a product launch or public event.

The article does not cite when the event would be or what product would be launched alongside Jobs’ return.

Wozniak said that Jobs “doesn’t sound like he’s sick,” but didn’t ask directly how his health was.

Steve Jobs began a six month long break as Apple CEO in January to recuperate. Jobs is said to be returning to Apple in late-June.

Of interest from last nights meeting was the lack of Jobs’ attendance, “I don’t think he would be strong enough if we were here until 1 a.m., and I think there’s a strong possibility of that,” said Howard Ellman, Jobs’ attorney.

According to a detailed account by Prince McLean both a shareholder and blogger for AppleInsider the meeting was dominated by politics but also gave way to a happy birthday rendition and some questions for the executive team.

Both McLean and the Associated Press are reporting that Tim Cook fielded a question on Steve Jobs’ plans in which Cook assured investors, and shareholders that Steve Jobs plans to return to the company in June.

The investor had pressed for details about when the board of directors knew Jobs planned to step away from his daily duties. Apple director Arthur Levinson responded only by saying that since Jobs announced Jan. 14 that he needed to go on leave, “nothing has changed.”

Also despite the ban on communication devices some members of the Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity board posted a live blog from the event.

Here’s what they filed (all times EST):

12:04 Cheddarmuff: Just waiting to go in to the meeting. Hanging out with idannyb in the hall. Another solid apple shareholder.

No sign of Goldman yet… more to come later.

12:21 idannyb: Cheddarmuff and I are in the meeting now … Music playing and shareholders filing in. Reuters cornered us to ask a few questions. Apple rep tried to give the reporter the bums rush.

12:46 Cheddarmuff: They separated the media from the shareholders. Not sure who we will and won’t see at this point.

Agenda

1 welcome and intro’s
2 admin (quorum, etc)
3 present board nominees
4 stmts to shareholders and presentation of shareholder proposals
5 other
6 vote
7 q and a

Mgmt team just came in. Phil, johnny, tim

Gore is here.

12:51 Cheddarmuff: Andrea Jung from Avon is here

Looks like most of the mgmt team is here (no Steve of course).

About to begin.

12:54 idannyb: The BOD have taken seats
Gore and Andre Jung (Avon) + full Apple ex mgmt team (sans SJ) -TC, PO, jonny Ive, Ron J., Phil S.
TC….
Starting intros

12:54 Cheddarmuff: Tim talking

Dan cooperman general counsel.

Whole board is here. Tim said no jobs due to medical leave.

1:05 Cheddarmuff: “I am not a crook ” Shelton is not a fan of al gore. Already some drama and comedy (cracking jokes about this being like the academy awards…board election)

1:08 idannyb: Environmental activist now railing about Apple environmental sustainability. Calling out Gore

1:10 Cheddarmuff: Talking about political spending proposal. UAW rep talking

Hp, dell are better than apple at disclosing information.

1:21 Cheddarmuff: Starting to interesting…I like Sheldon, keeps it interesting. Just called the people proposing socialists.

Now talking about climate change.

There was one attempt to talk about jobs health that was shot down quick. Bet there will be more in the Q&A

1:23 idannyb: AFLCIO made a speech on universal health care … Tried to bring up SJ health. Cooperman cut him off
Another shareholder railed over “socialist” AFLCIO… Used profanity and then left the mtg.

Another environment activist took tv mike blasted Gore… Wants AAPL to get greener

1:32 Cheddarmuff: About to move toward q and a. Should be interesting.

1:40 idannyb: Proxy stuff over
TC PO and DC now on stage
Apple has increase rev 4xs in 4 yrs
$8 billio to $32 billion… Income growth even better
Mac and iPod share growing
iPhone 13.7 million iphone’s in 2008
Macbooks very green
iTunes team sold more of something than Walmart
iPhone in 70 countries
App Store success is staggering
Retail opened a store per week
Best experience
Top notebook provider to education in US
T Cook is on a roll!

1:44 idannyb: AFLCIO hitting hard on SJ health
Art Levenson responding.. Nothing new disclosed
We have met all disclosure

1:46 Cheddarmuff: First question about disclosure of Jobs health quoting 10b-5 rules. Saying company should correct bad data

Arthur levinsom responding…jobs still involved. Succession plan has regularly discussed. No disclosure about health or plan.

Next person is complimenting company for beautiful products. Wishes Steve well. Singing happy birthhday to Steve..EVERYONE singing.

[1:51 Reuters is reporting that the shareholders voted to re-elect the company's slate of directors and voted down several shareholder-sponsored resolutions regarding executive pay, sustainability and healthcare reform. (link)]

1:52 Cheddarmuff: Next person asking why there isn’t more diversity in exec team.

Tim- we take diversity very seriously.

Next person… Long preamble and complaining that apple is getting out of macworld.

Tim- I have very fond memories of Macworld. Where we are now with retail investment blows macworld out of the water. Also we can announce press conferences whenever we want now which is better for the company.

1:57 idannyb: TC responding to “keep macworld” speech… Spoke eloquently about Apple stores, Apple reaching so many customer and platform build of iphone and app store

1:59 idannyb: Far more responses being delivered by BOD members

2:04 idannyb: Too many soap box agenda driven questions this year…
No core shareholder vaule Qs
Tempted to grab a mic but mtg winding down

2:22 Cheddarmuff: Meeting over. I got to talk with Tim Cook after the meeting…a very nice guy. We overheard a discussion with Peter as well.

Got to talk with Jim Goldman on the way out. Nice guy.

# # #

As Bloomberg reports the meeting will give shareholders a chance to question Apple executives and directors on the state of Apple and most likely Steve Jobs’ health.

Steve Jobs has been on medical leave from Apple since mid-January and is set to return to the company in June.

Bloomberg adds that the SEC investigation doesn’t mean investigators have seen any wrongdoing.

To bring any case, the SEC would probably have to show the company tried to benefit by withholding information about an unambiguous diagnosis, said Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor and SEC lawyer who now teaches at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

“It would be difficult, and certainly a new area of the law,” Henning said. “You would have to pin down exactly what they knew, and with a health issue — unlike a merger or a decline in revenue — it’s not subject to definitive answers.”

“The company has used him and made him a public figure to increase the value of Apple,” said John Dienhart, who holds the Frank Shrontz Chair for Professional Ethics at Seattle University. “If you take the good from that, then you have to take the bad.”

During the call which will be available for replay shortly the two senior executives fielded questions on most subjects.

Netbooks

When asked about a netbook priced at around $500, Cook answered, “We’re watching that space, but right now from our point of view, the products in there are principally based on hardware that’s much less powerful than we think customers want, software technology that is not good, cramped keyboards, small displays.”

Adding, “We don’t think people will be pleased with those products. It’s a category we watch, we’ve got some ideas here, but right now we think the products are inferior and will not provide an experience to customers they’re happy with.”

Apple TV

During the call and in it’s results Apple declined to give specific numbers of how many Apple TV units it had shipped but Tim Cook did disclose that sales were up 300% year-over-year. Apple still considers Apple TV a hobby but Cook said, “We will continue to invest in it because we fundamentally believe there’s something there in the future.”

Steve Jobs

The question was inevitable and Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes couldn’t help himself and asked straight up how Jobs was doing. Naturally Oppenheimer repeated the current Apple mantra, “Steve is the CEO of Apple and intends to be involved in major strategic decisions”.

Cook added that Apple has a strong executive team in charge of 35,000 employees who he described as “wicked smart”. Cook went onto explain that the values of Apple are “extremely well-entrenched,”

“And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and the self-honesty to admit where we’re wrong. And I think regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. I would just reiterate that Apple is doing the best work in its history,” said Cook.

iPhone nano

In response to a question on iPhone pricing Apple COO Tim Cook replied, “We are now in over 70 countries with the iPhone and you’re correct, some of them are non-subsidized markets. Examples are, the largest is in terms of size of the market, our sales are clearly materially less in those markets than they are in the subsidized markets with contracts. We are constantly evaluating the best way to play in these markets. We know there’s a huge opportunity here, and we will make adjustments in the future there to play in a better way.”

Cook went onto talk about speculation around the iPhone nano saying, “You know us, we’re not going to play in the low-end voice phone business. That’s not who we are. That’s not why we’re here. We’ll let somebody do that, our goal is not to be the unit share leader in the phone industry. It is to build the best phone.”

Back in 2004 Cook ran the shop for just over one month while Steve Jobs recovered from surgery that removed a malignant tumour from his pancreas. At the time Apple’s stock also suffered in a similar way to how it has today dropping 2.3% on August 2, 2004 the day following Steve Jobs email from his hospital bed. By September 1, 2004 AAPL was back at $35.86 or a 10.9% gain since early August.

The differences between Apple now and Apple then are fairly stark, in July 2004 the company reported earnings of $61 million on sales of $2.014 billion. Apple had around $5 billion in the bank.

In Apple’s last quarterly statement (the next is due on January 21) the company announced $1.14 billion on sales of $7.9 billion, with nearly $25 billion in cash.

Tim Cook was given the title of Chief Operating Officer in 2005 and oversees Apple’s supply chains, sales, and support services as well as the company’s Mac division.

In 2006 the Wall Street Journal profiled Cook describing him as a “low-key operator” who fixed Apple’s serious manufacturing and inventory issues in the late 90’s. Cook is also said to have a reputation for detail.

Fortune also published an extensive profile of Cook in late 2008 after months of speculation about Jobs’ health, the article was aptly titled “The genius behind Steve”.

Image courtesy of Flickr user lemagit.

According to the sources Steve Jobs is suffering from a condition which prevents his body from absorbing food, doctors have advised him to cut down on stress.

Steve Jobs announced via an email to employees yesterday that he will be taking a sideline at Apple until the end of June, in the mean time COO Tim Cook will take the reins.

Many analysts and investors have weighed in on how they believe the news will affect Apple in 2009. Expectations towards the end of 2008 pointed towards Apple releasing a lower-end version of the iPhone dubbed “iPhone nano” and some kind of ultra-portable device, often described as a medium between the MacBook and iPhone.

“You can’t really dismiss the idea that if he would be gone from the company it would be a great loss, but there are a lot of innovative minds at Apple,” said Ted Parrish, portfolio manager at the Henssler Equity Fund in Georgia an owner of Apple stock.

“The company is in a great position, its product cycle is strong and we would buy Apple on weakness associated with this news.”

Analyst for Oppenheimer, Yair Reiner expects Jobs’ announcement to have “zero” impact on on Apple’s product plans for 2009 however the CEOs departure would affect future products still in the planning stages.

“Over the least ten years he has been the person who has filtered and synthesized the collective genius of all of Apple’s engineers … he has picked and chosen the best and ripest ideas and played a critical role in fitting those great concepts into great products” wrote Reiner in a report Thursday.

Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu added that although Jobs is a top innovator in history Apple has Jobs ideas institutionalised in its DNA.

“Apple is going to do well … there’s a lot of people at Apple who are responsible for its success” added Wu.

“What’s more important is the overall economy and people’s ability to pay $1,000 for an Apple notebook or pay $75 or $300 for an iPod or pay $200 for an iPhone,” said Mike Binger, fund manager at Thrivent Financial, an owner of Apple shares.

“That’s more pertinent to where the stock is going to go than how involved Steve is on a day-to-day basis.”

Gene Munster an analyst for Piper Jaffray added in a report on Wednesday evening that customers won’t stop buying products from Apple despite Jobs taking a sideline.

“We believe that during Jobs’ absence, Apple’s sales will be unaffected,” analyst Gene Munster told clients. “More importantly, we believe the pace of innovation will remain solid, driven by key product-minded executives,” he continued. “From an operational perspective, we expect [chief operating officer Tim] Cook to maintain the same standard of excellence that he demands as COO.”

Continuing on the subject of the “capable” Cook Munster said “while the iconic leadership of Steve Jobs cannot be fully replaced, we believe his core attributes as a CEO, operationally and with products, can be replicated,” adding “Cook provides the operational expertise for the company, which would serve him well as Apple’s CEO.”

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Letter quoted in full:

Dear Apple Community,

Steve

“We haven’t made the announcement yet. We usually do this in concert with Apple… I have no reason to believe that plans are not moving ahead,” for Jobs to speak.

PCPro quotes this customer experience:

“Every 50 clicks, my trackpad will stop responding for five to clicks,” reports one poster. “Generally this will resolve itself given a few seconds, and is not directly dependent on number of times the trackpad is clicked while unresponsive.”

According to another blogger an email to Steve Jobs resulted in a call back from Apple. Despite the call back containing little substance it does confirm that Apple is aware of the issue.

Today the situation has been fortified further as reported by Mac Rumors an email coming from Steve Jobs’ email account reveals that a “software fix is coming soon”.

Since the original email (pictured) the original sender has replied to which Steve Jobs replied again:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Steve Jobs
Date: Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: Firewire RIP?
To: Xxxxx

-David

The report which first appeared on CNN’s iReport website was swiftly denied by Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling but caused Apple’s stock to hit a 52-week low of $94.

The report by a citizen journalist which appeared on CNN’s iReport detailed that Steve Jobs was rushed to an emergency room after suffering “a major heart attack.”

When Apple was asked for further details this morning Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling told journalists that “The story is not true.”

“Steve Jobs is healthy, was taken by surprise by all the speculation about his health swirling around him after his last public appearance in June, and says while he could ’stand to gain 10 or 15 pounds,’ he’s doing just fine,” Jim Goldman reports for CNBC.

“I agreed not to address the speculation about his health on camera, because Jobs didn’t want to go there. As long as I could ask a passing question about his health off-camera, but on the record after the interview, I’d be satisfied. Apple agreed,” Goldman continued.

In the interview itself Goldman quizzed Jobs on the lack of Mac announcements at the event, Jobs rebutted by explaining that the event was music focused.

Jobs also admitted that customers preferred the older iPod nano and thus reverted to the vertical form factor.

“It was very clear to us that customers preferred the vertical form-factor for their iPods. That was the first- and second-generation,” Jobs said. “The third-generation we went to a squarish design so we could fit in a really high-res screen. And we managed to do both in this [fourth-generation iPod nano].”

During the event company CEO, Steve Jobs introduced, brand new iPod nanos, a revamped iPod touch and iTunes 8.

[Update] A 700MB download is now available to download in Podcast form.

The rumours of an ill Jobs were put to bed after a reporter purportedly received an abrupt phone call from Jobs himself who revealed in detail his health.

Today, analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray stated that he expects Steve Jobs to be on hand at tomorrow’s media event which should boost the confidence of investors and boost the price of shares.

“We are confident that Steve Jobs will be presenting and we anticipate his appearance at the event to be viewed as a positive,” Munster wrote under the heading Steve Jobs’ Appearance Will Be Key in his report to clients on Monday.

“While some investors are concerned that Jobs will not deliver the keynote,” wrote Munster, “we have reason to believe he will. Therefore, we believe his health has improved since the June event, which would be a positive for the stock.”

[Update] John Gruber notes on his blog that Jobs is “just as thin as he was in June”.

Many report the iPhone 2.0 firmware suddenly failing to load non-default apps regardless of their nature, briefly loading them before abruptly jumping back to the home screen.

The bug occurs both with freshly downloaded software and with updates, but is reported as never having a definite fix; although some report successfully deleting and re-downloading apps to regain access, others find the solution either having no effect or gradually decaying over time to where the apps again fail to run. Restoring the iPhone also seldom works.

Jobs replied with a one-line answer:

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September.”

According to Jobs more than 60 million applications have been downloaded for the iPhone and iPod touch, roughly 2 million per day. Revenue from those 60 million applications was $30 million, 70% went to developers, 30% was kept by Apple.

According to the Wall Street Journal if Apple continues at its current sales pace then the company stands to take in at least $360 million over the year in revenue.

“This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon,” Jobs said. “Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software,” he added.

Jobs also commented on stories last week that Apple had built an internal “kill-switch” into the iPhone which could allow the company to remotely disable applications.

“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he said.

Team,

Steve

In the email Jobs reportedly acknowledges many of MobileMe’s flaws and explains how the entire launch could have been handled better, adding that more time and testing was also needed.

Jobs wrote that MobileMe’s services should have been rolled out slowly instead of launching it “as a monolithic service”.

“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” Jobs wrote in an email to employees. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence”.

Additionally Eddy Cue is now heading up the MobileMe team, cue who previously was in charge of the iTunes Store is now in charge of Internet services, including MobileMe, the App Store and the iTunes Store.

“The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services,” Jobs says. “And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year”.

According to Joe Nocera of the New York Times Jobs called him Thursday afternoon and said, “This is Steve Jobs… You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong”.

Jobs went onto explain some details about his recent health issues to Nocera but only on the basis that it was kept off the record.

According to Nocera Jobs’ health problems were more than a “common bug” but weren’t life threatening and the Apple CEO does not have a reoccurrence of cancer.

Last week World of Apple detailed an issue where 1% of MobileMe users were unable to receive mail.

As the issue appears to be ongoing Steve Jobs has reportedly made a request for a blog to be setup detailing the continuing effort to resolve the issues.

An RSS feed of the blog is also available.

According to Alley Insider Jobs billed Apple for $550,000 in expenses in the last three months of 2007, that cost then reportedly dropped to $30,000 in the first few months of 2008 and now an SEC filing reveals that Jobs racked up $102,000 in expenses during the June quarter.

In the past many investors have noted that increased use of Jobs’ private jet means exciting prospects are ahead as the Apple CEO does his dealings around the world face-to-face.