Slashdot Mirror
Steve Jobs Takes Leave of Absence From Apple
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Network World: "A number of sites are reporting that Apple's CEO Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence till June at least. Speculation over Jobs' possibly failing health has run rampant in the past few weeks. Prior to the recent MacWorld show, Jobs said he had a hormone deficiency that had caused him to dramatically lose weight. In a memo today Jobs told workers his health issues are more complex than he thought." Reader Bastian227 adds a link to this letter from Steve Jobs on Apple's website, which also says that Tim Cook will be responsible for daily operations, though Jobs will remain involved with major strategic decisions.
That's usually when WWDC happens. I think he's planning on doing that keynote.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Love 'em or hate 'em, he's changed a lot in the tech sector. His presence will be missed.
æeee!
He had to lose weight and do hormone therapy before all of the bionic implants could go in...
the market says "sell sell sell!"
watching the stock price collapse is almost funny if it wasnt so sad
.
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/01/05/steve-jobss-health-what-the-pancreas-has-to-do-with-weight-loss/
He's busted his hump over the last few years. He deserves some time off to focus on himself and his family.
It is a sad day.
6 Months = Chemo
Here's to a long life for Mr. Jobs.
I expect another record earnings report for Q1, so I'm grabbing as many February $95 calls as I can afford.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
having the keynote delivered by a head in a jar?
Would it be safe to say that there is a Jobs opening at Apple?
Or would that be Steve closing?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This is all just part of the build-up for what will be the most astounding corporate marketing stunt of all time: the death and resurrection of Steve Jobs.
If he was going for six months of chemo, he wouldn't be talking about returning in six months. More like a year. I think he's taking the leave between now and the next major event, which would be WWDC.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
... Apple now has the thinnest, lightest CEO on the market.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
And I'll BUY BUY BUY tomorrow... do you seriously think anything has fundamentally changed in Apple's business? It still remains to be seen.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Even with the prospect of Jobs having of an extended absence from the day-to-day at Apple I think we will see the company continue to do fine, or at least continue on their existing business path.
While leadership is a key element of business success, so is having a well balanced team of professionals driving your development/innovation teams.
I have to image Apple has this balance in their organization.
He still built up a ton of excitement around all of the Apple products. MP3 players were drab and virtually useless before the iPod - a few years later everyone had one.
Apple products have influenced design across the hardware and software landscape (for the better IMHO).
Without the iPhone, there just wouldn't be any exciting phones out right now. It changed the playing field and helped bring us the G1 and Palm Pre.
æeee!
"Jobs said he had a hormone deficiency that had caused him to dramatically lose weight..."
In related news...
Shareholders show that a Common Sense Deficiency(CSD) causes them to dramatically lose faith in Apple whenever the mere thought of their beloved Steve leaving in any way, shape, or form is mentioned...
Now they can get ready to slide Stevie boy in the company freezer next to Walt.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
And, yeah, 'teh iPhone'. Millions of emo Starbucks drinking retards posting their unboxing vids on youtube and looking for every single possible way they can somehow work their phone into their conversations to try to make it clear just how 'special' they are.
Fuck. This is totally why I hide my iPhone from view when I'm on the bus or in public in general. It was the best, cheapest option (seriously) for me to get an effective browsing/email client on the road (BBs are crazily expensive and the iPhone 3G was having a launch sale) but I'm deeply embarassed to be seen with it.
It's a great device. It does what I need it to do. I'm happy I own it. I just wish nobody else knew that I own it.
I wish him well. As someone who had to retire at age 33 to fight cancer, I know how discouraging it is to have your body spoil what your brain wants to do. But I also found that giving up the full-time job really did improve my health and led to greater productivity in my remaining activities.
He was already missed before even leaving, as recent speculation testifies.
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
Inverse snob.
Oblig.:
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
Steve Jobs: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
Steve Jobs: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
Steve Jobs: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Steve Jobs: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Steve Jobs: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
Steve Jobs: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
Steve Jobs: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Body: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Steve Jobs: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences Jobs with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Body: Ah, thank you very much. ...
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Body: Right.
Too soon?
Learn to discriminate your pancreatic cancers. Adenocarcinoma has a 5% survival rate. Steve had a islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which has a 50 to 75% 5 year survival.
do you seriously think anything has fundamentally changed in Apple's business?
Stock price doesn't have anything to do with the actual fundamentals of a company, only how those fundamentals are perceived. Like it or not, Job's absence may have an effect on stock price, even if the company is run exactly the same as it would have, were he still at the helm. Perception is reality; at least in the market.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Seems like a good idea for Steve to take some time. It gives him a chance to see how well Cook handles the shop when no major new products are shipping and seems to indicate that he is at least semi-comfortable that he's got the right management to oversee day-to-day operations, and gives them a chance to fine-tune anything should he want to retire or passes away pre-maturely. As die-hard as he is, I can't imagine him doing the keynotes if he is too frail (physically) to "wow" the crowd.
Since the major aesthetic overhall in the iMac, MBP and MB lines in the past year or two, and OS X 10.6 shaping up to be a smaller update (aesthetically and technically) to 10.5 than the 10.4->10.5 jump was; it doesn't appear that there is going to be much "new business" from now to then. Maybe some hardware line updates to faster chips, and some 10.5.x updates; but nothing major. I'd imagine 10.6 won't even ship until summer; just in time for the WWDC in June.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
And I'll BUY BUY BUY tomorrow... do you seriously think anything has fundamentally changed in Apple's business? It still remains to be seen.
The reality distortion field has been compromised!
What else do you think has been keeping the viruses at bay? Technology? NO! It was Steves' own convictions which overwhelmed the surrounding paradigm, but no more...
You can't take the sky from me...
I should stop drinking at work.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Well, now you have. A tag is as a reliable rumor as anything else.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
And I'll BUY BUY BUY tomorrow... do you seriously think anything has fundamentally changed in Apple's business? It still remains to be seen.
Well, yeah, something fundamental has changed. Steve Jobs won't be there. Look at Apple's history. That makes all the difference in the world.
When the guy does die... whenever that is... it's going to be earth shattering in the tech sector, and you'll never see anything like it in this business again. Jobs is the Elvis of the computing business. When he goes, you'll see people weeping on TV. Silly or not, that's the way it will be. And the endless speculation for months (and years) will be "Can Apple survive without Steve Jobs?".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'll bet there will be no returning for Jobs. Sad news but a lesson to all. A company should never be about "A" person. None of us are eternal.
Regardless of the trolling and fanboyism, I for one would like to wish him well and hope he gets better in due time. Enjoy your rest, Steve, and get well soon!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
Look, this is Jobs, so it's not AIDS, it's iAIDS. If he's got cancer, it will be iCancer or iMalignancy. I'm really quite worried that he might have iSyphillis or iLeukemia. Get better soon, iJobs!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And not the kind from Motley Fool either.
"AAPL
85.33 -2.38 (-2.71%) Jan 14 4:00pm ET
Open: 86.24
High: 87.25
Low: 84.67
Volume: 37,805,239
Avg Vol: 31,669,000
Mkt Cap: 75.90B
After Hours: 80.00 -5.33 (-6.25%) Jan 14 6:24pm ET"
The after hours drop is said to be directly attributed to Jobs health, according to pundits.
I am not a pundit, but I agree with their assessment.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
For Mr. Jobs, the advice is simple. An Apple a day is what you need to keep the doctor away.
Then who is going to take care of him?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I sympathize with you, it's hard for a nerd to own fashion statement.
There are older phones on the market (Nokia's with Opera for example) that would probably suit you better and save you money. But you couldn't resist, could you? And now all you can do is play it down; the ultimate snob.
Dennis Onstenk
Apple dipped 10% in afterhours. But now it's back up from that to just -6%.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...We need MORE POWER to the REALITY DISTORTION FIELD, now!
No.
If the company is sound, this will be a short term drop follwed by a recovery. If you own shares, and think AAPL is sound without Jobs, then selling makes no sense. Instead, you should be buying the discounted shares in anticipation of a recovery, which is what strong companies do.
On the other hand, if you think AAPL is not strong without Jobs, then WTF were you doing buying AAPL in the first place?
In short, you are making the same mistake all amateurs make.
And no, I'm not a pro, but this point has been emphasized enough, and proven accurate enough, that I take it as correct.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Of course, you have to buy for him to be able to sell. Someone a lot smarter than you will buy from you later after Steve dies and the stock loses 9/10 of it's (nominal) value, but only if it looks like there's leadership that can allow the company continue for long enough for investors to realize they overestimated Steve's role in the company. Say 2 years from now?
Rich people think about the day after tomorrow. Now is not a good time to buy. This stock has nowhere to go but down until at least a few months after Steve is no longer with us. Even then, it will only be worth something if they pull off a successful transition.
So the people who own the phone because it's trendy are just being silly, allowing their thoughts and actions to be influenced by what other people think....and yet you're deeply embarrassed to own one, and hide it when you can. Hmmm.
Let me get this straight: you let the opinions of the type of people who post semiliterate anonymous screeds on Slashdot dictate when, where, and how you use a useful piece of equipment? Wow.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
bay Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
to be able to up and take a 6 month leave of absence. Of course, his salary is only $1.00, so he's only looking at a 50 cent pay cut if he doesn't get "paid," but I'm betting his "bonuses" and stock options will all remain in full effect.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Wrong Steve you idiot! I said the one whose company makes personal computing a living hell, not the cool dude whose company gave us the MAC and the iPod!!
Two are still minors. He will spend some time with them.
Tell you what, I'll let you short my real ones tomorrow after my having shorting them today. I could use the extra cabbage.
That's the thing about the stock market, by the time you think you know something, it's already too late...
After Hours: 79.61 -5.72 (-6.70%)
Absolute poppycock.
"Drab and useless"...I sure hope you're not actually referring to your iPod as a fashion accessory...
My Creative Zen 30GB (many years old) is still, to this day, absolutely useful as an mp3 player.
I'm going to make a /. post next time Michael Morhaime (head of Blizzard) is hung over. Honestly, what other CEOs get this cult level of worship?
What other CEOs have personally made noticeable changes to the world?
Jobs was indirectly responsible for the IBM PC, which is what "PC compatible" computers were imitations of. IBM created the PC in response to the threat they felt from Apple.
Jobs was responsible for bringing a lot of the ideas from Xerox PARC to a mainstream market, something Xerox couldn't have done. Most people don't realize that Apple pioneered the "noun, then verb" paradigm we're all familiar with in GUIs (select an icon, then choose something to do with it); Xerox's GUI required the user to select an action first, before selecting the item upon which to perform it. This makes sense if you're used to a command line, but it's less intuitive to the masses.
After leaving Apple, Jobs created NeXT, which was the source of much of what became Mac OS X. Microsoft has been incorporating a lot of Apple's ideas into Vista and Windows 7.
Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas, and was at the helm during the creation of the first feature film ever to be entirely computer animated. Jobs now sits on the board of directors of Disney and owns 7% of the company. RenderMan has become an industry standard.
This isn't worship; Jobs has been genuinely influential in a lot of areas. The fact that you (correctly) felt the need to add "(head of Blizzard)" after Morhaime's name is why he doesn't get this kind of attention. Sure, Blizzard has had a significant impact on computer gaming... but what else has he done?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090114/apple_jobs.html has an article on it.
This post brought to you in part by the word "House" and the letters M & D.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
This is just Apple's plan to get rid of him....again.
bullshit. Perhaps you saw MP3 players ad drab and useless before the iPod but I can assure you the millions of other people sure did not. And get this news, millions of people still don't use iPods nor iPhones because their MP3 players or smartphones of choice are still vastly superior to the iThings that Apple puts out. Apple makes a nice product but it's for the sheep of the world who blindly follow Apple and limit their demands to only that which Apple says they should have!
Even healthy living can kill you I guess.
Eat more bacon, you won't live long. but at least you can have some bacon.
Actually, it comes in a variety of colors!
iStool: Shit different(TM).
Acquiring a software company, and designing a phone concept are 2 totally different things. That would be like me saying I preclude the modern fuel injected engine, because I acquired a company that makes pistons before engines had fuel injection...
Just because they purchased a software company, has nothing to do with the hardware, or the final product.
It does in the long term. Yeah, if you're day trading you care a lot about the latest Steve-news. If you're investing then you care much more about those actual fundamentals of the company.
I just don't see that Jobs going changes the fundamentals of the company all that much. I think Apple at the current price is a great buy, and if it tanks tomorrow, it is a great buy. Time to take some money out of bonds :)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
So instead of having a virtually guaranteed death sentence, Steve has a one-in-four to one-in-two chance of dying within 5 years? Still not very good odds.
For those unaware...
A put option is a guarantee for the holder of the put option to be able to sell something at a specified price.
So, even if the price goes down, he still gets to cash in on the sell price offered by the put option.
He could even buy new stock at the now-lowered price, and sell it at the option price.
Call options are similarly advantageous when the stock is going up.
Long means he owns a positive amount of them. (as opposed to owing someone else AAPL put options)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Already too late, and usually an excellent time to do exactly the opposite of what you thought you should do.
There are still non-performers at Apple. MobileMe is screwing the pooch and has been since the dot-mac days. Also, who the hell are the bozos vetting iPhone apps?
A far as Steve's Health goes, economists and epidemiologists can predict when you are going to die with something like an 85% certainty. Basically, almost everyone experiences a 7X increase in health care costs, and then is dead in two years. Things don't look so good for Steve. This is too bad, because he's done a lot for the computing world.
> MP3 players were drab and virtually useless before the iPod
This was modded +5 Insightful?!
Your mistake was not to do explicit capital allocation in your portfolio to that Apple stock. Basically, you should have explicitly planned to keep your Apple stake within a certain size; either an absolute size ("I will hold no more than $10,000 on AAPL at any one time") or as a percentage of your portfolio ("I will hold no more than 5% of my portfolio on AAPL"). Then, when the stock skyrocketed, you should have sold shares to account for the excess value of your holding relative to your planned cap.
Anyway, AAPL closed at 85.33 today. If you paid $50 for it, that's a 70% total return. Looking at the stock prices chart, AAPL was around that level at the following times: Sep. 2005 and Jul. 2006. In the former case, that's about a 17.41% annualized return; in the latter, it's about 23.84%. You haven't done badly in any sense. Just do make sure that you set a good rule for when to sell, and follow it strictly and mechanically.
Are you adequate?
...Or is it just a pretty, expensive, show-off chunk of easily scratched plastic....
Of course that is all it is but they are selling like hot-cakes and Apple is laughing all the way to the bank, even in a recession. Same is true of those "expensive' Macs many here on /. are moaning about.
All theory is gray
Immediate stock price is affected by perception, but the fundamentals drive the price over the long term. Think about this. Say Steve Jobs dies in a few months -- Apple stock tanks in the short term, but three months later, they release better than expected earnings, Macs, iPods and iPhones are still selling at a record pace. The stock will shoot up like it's the second coming. That's not to say that if SJ is gone, Apple might eventually lose market share and the stock price settle, but this immediate drop is not an indicator of anything.
Frankly, in a choice between buying stock in a company with good numbers like Citibank or Enron and buying a stock in a company with Warren Buffet at the helm, like Berkshire-Hathaway, I would take Warren Buffet.
But that's just me.
I don't suppose his frequent use of off-list pharmaceuticals and other fun-seeking drugs during his youth would have had anything to do with his poor health. While 60 isn't old, it seems like a lot of people his age who "lived too hard" are now suffering the consequences through odd early/uneven aging, hormonal issues, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and other odd things we've not seen before.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'll give you a hint. It wasn't the Microsoft shills.
You know, when you sell them, you sell them to someone buying them. Think a second about why that guy/institution buys that stock of yours.
Interesting that the majority of replies agree with me, but the post was still moderated -1, troll. I think that the way slashdot moderation works, if a comment ever drops to -1, it drops off most people's view... so it sticks at that level.
Have a friend going for a second try on parathyroid (and now maybe thyroid) tumor surgery next week. It is my understanding the tumor is non-malignant but the tissue is literally indistinguishable by eye from healthy tissue and needs a marker. They have to figure out a 3D "eyeball" of it with a radiation counter after they slit the throat open. First try, they just didn't feel they had the parameters so they closed up and they're going in again.
I'm kind of sick of facts
Fixed that for you. Facts:
1. Apple was the first to use a micro hard drive.
2. Everything else was either a tiny flash memory player (64 megs) or used a heavy desktop drive.
3. Apple used 400 Mbps Firewire when everyone else used 11 Mbps USB 1.1.
4. They had a good hardware/software interface.
As to point #4, I remember a nice Penny Arcade strip from way back (which unfortunately I can't find right now) where Jonathan asks Tycho how well Musicmatch staked up against iTunes. It went something like this:
Tycho: Imagine iTunes as a fresh orange, glistening with morning dew...
Johnathan: Okay...."
Tycho: And Musicmatch is a bag filled with dog poop.
Johnathan: Yuck! Dog poop isn't even food!
Tycho: Exactly.
Sorta, but there's a pretty good chance, as others have pointed out, that Apple will probably have a very good earnings report in the next few months. You can trade on the news, but the signal to noise ratio on this bit of information is very low. It doesn't give you a good leading indication of where Apple's business is actually going. It's not predictive in the way that something more disruptive, like iPhone sales crashing.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
This was modded +5 Insightful?!
It was because it was. See my response to defaria downthread.
mp3 players might have been drab before the iPod, but they were certainly far from useless.
Are you forgetting that Apple was the first to use a 5 gig micro hard drive? Everything else was either tiny flash memory (64-256 megs) or heavy desktop hard drives. And Apple used 400 Mpbs Firewire when everything else used 11 Mpbs USB 1.1.
You can argue the iPod was priced high, or that it's nothing special now. You can't argue that it wasn't revolutionary when it came out.
Learn to discriminate your pancreatic cancers. Adenocarcinoma has a 5% survival rate. Steve had a islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which has a 50 to 75% 5 year survival.
Unfortunately, someone has to make up the other 25%.
I've seen these numbers, but I don't see how they are relevant. What are the survival rates for billionaires? Surely Steve can buy some more life.
Steve Jobs - Net Worth: US $5.4 Billion (2008 Forbes)
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
Apple makes a nice product but it's for the sheep of the world who blindly follow Apple and limit their demands to only that which Apple says they should have!
I dunno about that one. I hate apple, but I have an ipod classic ever since my Neuros II went tits-up. It matched on all my criteria.
1. Plays MP3s: Check.
2. Can use standard 1/8" stereo headphones: Check
3. Works in Mass Storage mode OR works with linux: Check
4. Costs less than $2/GB: Check.
5. Wasn't from Creative. (Too many bad experiences with Nomads to buy another one)
Honestly, it was the only hard drive-based player (#4) that met #3. And I looked. Boy did I look.
Bullshit, before the iphone was a twinkle in Steve's eye we had Palm and WindowsMobile doing a lot of things you cant do today with an iphone. Tethering, copy and paste, downloading any app you like, *gasp* running software you wrote, choosing whatever wireless company you want to go with, outlook syncing, voip, etc.
Useless mp3 players? Perhaps useless as a fashion accessory, but I had an mp3 player before the ipod was even released. Worked fine, thanks for asking.
>Of course that is all it is but they are selling like hot-cakes
Yes we must all judge things by popularity. Good idea! The best phone: the iphone. The best artistic endeavor in human history: the reality show. The best food: McDonalds. The best country: india.
I think you can see where Im going with this.
Hes not dead yet jim.
/. reposts.
Anyways i was more reffering to http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/07/1511242 http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1840225 http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/05/1429210 http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/01/210226
Talking about Job's last keynote and retirement. Seems excessive to have 4 topics on this in 14 days. Maybe it is just
I'd wait a week or two. If the stock dip after 9/11 taught me anything, it's that irrational sell-offs take a little while to turn around. (it was ~2 months btw for that one, but I'm not sure how that scales to a single company.)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Yeah, I suppose informative would be a better tag.
Smoking doesn't guarantee lung cancer either. That doesn't mean it's unrelated.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
As a comic once said: "Health food doesn't make you live longer, it just makes it seem longer."
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I don't suppose his frequent use of off-list pharmaceuticals and other fun-seeking drugs during his youth would have had anything to do with his poor health. While 60 isn't old, it seems like a lot of people his age who "lived too hard" are now suffering the consequences through odd early/uneven aging, hormonal issues, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and other odd things we've not seen before.
Always pisses me off when people use the argument of "'blah' diseases that we've never seen before" - all we've done is improved diagnostics so we can tell "what" is killing you, and in some cases, "why" you got it.
He didn't substantiate his assertion, so it wasn't informative. Let me guess. Are you a theist?
> It was because it was. See my response to defaria downthread.
I don't think your response to defaria contained sufficient empirical evidence to adequately support the assertion that MP3 players were "virtually useless before the iPod." But at least you provided some evidence, unlike Rayban, so thanks for contributing.
There are older phones on the market (Nokia's with Opera for example) that would probably suit you better and save you money
I have used an iPhone, and Nokias and various flavors of mobile Opera.
You have got to be fucking kidding.
The Palm is the first device I've seen where the browser seems as reasonable to use.
You just don't want to admit a device that some consider fashionable can also be extremely utilitarian.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it were truly serious, Apple Board would not be doing their fiduciary duty to keep it a secret. What I'm amazed at is the interesting timing, which has been one of Jobs' key strengths since his return to Apple. With the economy in a lull and no serious threat from rival companies, and major products for the year already planned and in works - if there is a good time to step aside to take a break and also evaluate his succession team's performance while alive - this is it. Don't count out Apple's penchant for drama and marketing, using Jobs return mid-year to boost other product announcements and take the wind out of the sail of every other tech company again. What does Arnie say as the Terminator...?
Tired counterculturalism that rejects anything that's popular, even though there are plenty of popular things that are good?
My first mp3 player, which is still kicking around in drawer or a closeted box, was a Creative Nomad II MG. $250 for 64 mb and $100 for a 128 mb mmc card -- $350 total. For that, I got a player with controls that were so awkwardly placed on the sides that even after a year of steady use, I had to actually look at it to change songs -- it was ridiculously easy to delete songs instead of skip them. The screen was extra small too.
Several years later I picked up a refurbed ipod for half the price with 15 gb of storage and controls I could use without looking at them. I recently got an 80 gb model, refurb, for half the price of my Creative, and the controls are even better than my old 15 gb model -- as long as I'm not searching through my library, I can control it "eyes-free" effortlessly and without thinking about it. Now, I'm sure most players don't have controls as dreadful as my Creative, but the fact the ipod is easy to use is not some kind of reality distortion event. The ipod is objectively better designed because I can adjust the volume and skip songs without looking at it. With the Nomad, anytime you pressed a button without looking I risked random outcomes up to and including song deletion. Reality distortion would be thinking that the Nomad was better than an ipod.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
"MP3 players were drab and virtually useless before the iPod - a few years later everyone had one."
I've never understood why people make comments like this. The iPod was a step backwards in terms of features and such, I'm not even convinced iTunes is any easier to use than the icon I could just drag and drop my MP3s into in Windows either. The iPod was actually quite a late arrival in the MP3 market, many forget that MP3s were already becoming somewhat mainstream (we already had support in some car sound systems for example). It's certainly fair to credit the iPod as the product that took the mainstream, but not necessarily the product that acted as a catalyst for mainstream- the fact you could store thousands of tracks in the space of half a portable CD player and not need to carry media around was already a good enough catalyst. People would've bought players regardless, but it was the style and prestige factor of the iPod that got it most of those sales, as well of course as it being in the right place at the right time- arriving just as the MP3 market was already taking off.
I don't disagree that Jobs and his marketing team were excellent at creating hype and shifting units, but I'm still not convinced it's because the products are necessarily ground breaking, or even that high quality (battery problems, easily scratched screens etc.?).
Apple under Steve has been good at what designer clothes companies are good at, building a brand that people want because they feel it gives them that extra bit of prestige. People will take Armani jeans over some bog standard jeans if they have the opportunity, the bog standard ones may even wear better and be more durable, but for many, the name matters most.
I agree with you more on the iPhone though, certainly it seems to have pushed other companies into gear in some respects, but I think it's worked both ways in a way. Apple came along with a phone with not too many features but with a really nice looking UI and a much more tightly integrated experience. This has pushed other companies to follow, but on the same note, Apple has been pushed to follow the likes of Nokia with 3G, GPS and so on also when it became clear the iPhone was losing customers because of lack of said features so it has been a two way street. The underlying point though is that yes, without Apple, existing phone manufacturers wouldn't have had that much needed push.
"What other CEOs have personally made noticeable changes to the world?"
Warren Buffet, Larry Page, Fred Smith, Lakshmi Mittal, George David, Richard Fuld, Jeffrey Immelt, Henning Kagermann, Alan Lafley, James Sinegal, Michael Dell, Satoru Iwata, Rupert Murdoch, Steven Reinemund, Larry Fink, Peter Rose, Terry Leahy, Eric Schmidt, Charlie Ergen, Bill Gates...
Need I go on?
"This isn't worship"
You indirectly suggested Steve Jobs is the only CEO who has personally made noticable changes to the world. It's hard to imagine how that could be anything other than worship.
No doubt, Jobs has done an amazing Job, but he's certainly not unique. Some of the names above changed it for the good, some for the worse, but Jobs sits at neither end of the scale. Whilst he may not be as evil as Murdoch he's also not been the philanthropist with his fortunes that Bill Gates has either. If you go beyond CEOs he's even less of a rarity- what about Tim Berners-Lee, what about countless political leaders and the like for example?
I know it's nice for some Apple fans to take things a little to the extreme and suggest Jobs really is Jesus, but seriously? Do you really believe Jobs is so special he's changed the world more so then many other CEOs or people?
I'd have more respect for the guy if him and Apple were a little more philathropic.
Job's achievements should be recognised for what they are- impressive achievements as a leader in the technology industry, but to blow it up to be more than that, to suggest that he stands out as entirely unique in the scale of his achievements or that he's even necessarily a nice man is ignorant of the facts.
I heard that the Messiah is taking office soon.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagonoma
Reminds me of George Carlin's old line: "Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time."
Bark less. Wag more.
Actually the early days of Apple are rather revisionistic. While Apple cannot be denied to have influenced the IBM PC somewhat, I personally do not think Apple has invented the personal computer which became the IBM PC, Apple was sort of third behind Commodore and Radio Shack also in the timeline (I do not mention the Altair here which was just an important footnote in history albeit being the first)
It is rather clear that IBM took a serious lesson from the early Commodores and TRS models... more than it did from Apple!
Statistics is a bitch.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Probe it keemosabee.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I am Steve's pancreas. I get cancer, I kill Steve.
Just a point... have you ever returned your CFL lightbulbs for warranty replacement? Umm... and did you make sure to follow the postal regulations for shipping hazardous materials?
Did you make sure to get the Circuit City Extended Warranty for your Christmas gifts?
Did you make sure to check whether Circuit City was even there this month?
So unlocking the iPhone invalidates a bunch of nonsense that is only worth whatever the company wants it to be worth, later, minus whatever penalty they want to apply to you, to "discourage frivoulous complaints"...
And you still have a problem with invalidating a warranty?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
One thing I haven't seen anywhere is who will be taking over Steve's responsibility for the next 5-6 months that he is out.
Perhaps John Sculley will be getting a call...not!
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
As a minor counterpoint, we also couldn't detect these things reliably until relatively recently, so it's hard to say if these "odd things" are something new, or simply something we're just figuring out.
"One thing I haven't seen anywhere is who will be taking over Steve's responsibility for the next 5-6 months that he is out"
"I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day operations"
davecb5620@gmail.com
He's 53.
Translation: you're a Kool Aid drinking anti-Apple fanboy, a breed vastly more common than the Apple fanboy. Apple could cure cancer and legalize pot, and you'd still find something to bitch about.
Without the iPhone, there just wouldn't be any exciting phones out right now.
I find my N95 to be more exciting than an iPhone. Having a truly open platform (self-signing free programmes is annoying though) is a lot better than being locked to an app store.
Nick
I agree that maybe MP3s would have gained traction on their own, but i think for both original iPods and the iPhone, you're greatly underestimating the power of interface; the loveliness of the clickwheel, all the major paradigm shifts and tiny little gracenotes of the iPhone... it's not just about "looking great". Not just style, not just prestige, not just hype.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Last week, when Steve Jobs announced that his recent weight loss was due to "a hormone imbalance," I got calls from reporters and others (which, I must admit, I ducked) asking me if that was the medical problem he had confessed to when he and I had had our infamous phone call last summer -- the one where he called me a slime bucket and denied that he had a recurrence of cancer. The answer is no, it wasn't. It was something else -- which of course I still can't disclose because the conversation was off the record.
http://executivesuite.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/its-time-for-apple-to-come-clean/?hp
This has caused at least one reputable news source to report that Steve Jobs is dying of AIDS.
Futurist Traditionalism
You indirectly suggested Steve Jobs is the only CEO who has personally made noticable changes to the world. It's hard to imagine how that could be anything other than worship.
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that Jobs is the only one, merely that he is one of them.
I know it's nice for some Apple fans to take things a little to the extreme and suggest Jobs really is Jesus, but seriously? Do you really believe Jobs is so special he's changed the world more so then many other CEOs or people?
More than any other CEOs or people, no, of course not. More than many CEOs, yes, absolutely - that's the point I was trying to make.
I'd have more respect for the guy if him and Apple were a little more philathropic.
That would be nice. Hopefully he'll start shifting in that direction.
Job's achievements should be recognised for what they are- impressive achievements as a leader in the technology industry, but to blow it up to be more than that, to suggest that he stands out as entirely unique in the scale of his achievements or that he's even necessarily a nice man is ignorant of the facts.
Again, I didn't mean to imply that he's unique in this respect, only that he should indeed be recognized for his achievements. My point was merely that Jobs taking a 6-month leave of absence for health reasons is significant and notable, which is why we're discussing it here. The CEO of Blizzard getting a hangover is not.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
>Of course that is all it is but they are selling like hot-cakes
Yes we must all judge things by popularity. Good idea! The best phone: the iphone. The best artistic endeavor in human history: the reality show. The best food: McDonalds. The best country: india.
I think you can see where Im going with this.
Yeah, you are saying all the people telling us the iPhone is not the market leader by far are trying to sell us shitty phones.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Actually the early days of Apple are rather revisionistic. While Apple cannot be denied to have influenced the IBM PC somewhat, I personally do not think Apple has invented the personal computer which became the IBM PC, Apple was sort of third behind Commodore and Radio Shack also in the timeline (I do not mention the Altair here which was just an important footnote in history albeit being the first)
It is rather clear that IBM took a serious lesson from the early Commodores and TRS models... more than it did from Apple!
Wikipedia does seem to back you up; they also credit the Atari 400 and 800. I wonder where I got the idea that it was mostly Apple that IBM was afraid of.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Since that 'my health is perfectly fine' letter is increasingly looking like BS, he better hope he doesn't get sued for making a material misrepresentation to the shareholders.
You can argue the iPod was priced high, or that it's nothing special now. You can't argue that it wasn't revolutionary when it came out.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
For about 1 in 130 people in the US, eating gluten can lead to rapid weight loss and malabsorption of food (like Steve). If you're a vegetarian, this is a bit of a pain due to the prevalence of gluten in fake meat products.
I doubt this is what Steve has, but Celiac disease is often a suspect after mysterious weight loss. The reason I don't think he has it is because diagnosis does not usually include time off from work.
It is not uncommon for people to discover they have it late in life due to ambiguous/absent symptoms and general lack of awareness among doctors. Ironically, diagnosis is pretty straightforward. A simple blood test followed by an endoscope, if necessary. Treatment is very simple - don't eat gluten.
Ironically I think looking at your list you've actually inspired a more Jobs fanboi attitude than I personally had before. I don't think anyone else on that list has had quite the wide range of influence and/or long duration of influence as Jobs. A few on the list have influence only because they of their business acumen and success in competing well in established markets. Michael Dell for instance has very little influence of interest to me (or most nerds) because it has nothing to do with how computers work, or what they're used for, he's just sold a bunch of them. His few innovations have to do with inventory management & retailing. Important but rather boring work: assembling other peoples technologies into a box for sale, and if we're better at managing inventory we can sell them for less than the next guy selling identical boxes... woohoo!!! THAT'S the guy I want to read about on Slashdot.
Job's influence is more interesting because it isn't from primarily from his business success but from being the first one to identify new technologies as important and viable. To be the first one to do new things in a big enough way to have a wide impact. Other people may have invented or done the early pioneering of any/all of the innovations we associate with Apple or Jobs but in each case it was Jobs who was the first to take those innovations and introduce them to the broader word. The PC, the GUI, the MP3 player, Computer animated films, etc. That plus a colorful personality and an enormous ego that ensures a lot of drama in the process and sure, he merits the constant attention he gets on slashdot.
Warren Buffet, Murdoch etc. are as influential in their way as Jobs is but you might have noticed a slight bias on this site towards news about computers and technology as opposed to major market newspaper circulation numbers or stock valuations. Others on the list are known for new, innovative, influential technologies we're all interested in. Though not many have been doing so repeatedly for over 30 years. Tim Berners Lee for instance had one huge breakthrough innovation that changed the world. It's Individually more impressive than anything Steve Jobs ever personally did because it was his sole invention whereas Jobs just identifies such inventions and markets them to the world. On the other hand Jobs has had his more modest involvement in more such innovations. Berners Lee gets his fair amount of mention here but Jobs gets more press because he's still doing stuff that influences the technologies we're using. Berners Lee, not quite as much or as colorfully. (As an interesting aside Berners Lee used Objective-C on a NeXT machine to write the first web server & client... Not to in any way credit Steve Jobs but funny to note in such a conversation)
" - Apple Inc. (NASDAQ)
81.70 -3.63 (-4.25%) Jan 15 12:58pm ET
Open: 80.50
High: 82.59
Low: 80.05
Volume: 39,310,466
Avg Vol: 31,577,000
Mkt Cap: 72.67B"
Hmm, Looks like I was EXACTLY RIGHT.
Where's the snide comment now boy?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
" - Apple Inc. (NASDAQ)
81.70 -3.63 (-4.25%) Jan 15 12:58pm ET
Open: 80.50
High: 82.59
Low: 80.05
Volume: 39,310,466
Avg Vol: 31,577,000
Mkt Cap: 72.67B"
I'll revisit this at closing, and I'll still be right.
People like you never think someone else might be better at this than you, but I am and now you know it.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I thought the same thing as well. I have celiac disease, as do my mother and sister. It takes an average of 11 years of being misdiagnosed before they hit upon celiac as the cause of health problems (can't cite -- sorry), however this is hopefully changing as awareness grows.
Some people do have 'refractory sprue', where the the damage done to the intestine from ingesting gluten doesn't heal. This is rare, but can be a huge problem. If this was his case, I can see it necessitating time off. (Joe C from Kid Rock's band had these types of complications if I'm not mistaken. I do know his cause of death is listed as complications from celiac disease, so I'd guess that's the case).
However if he has run of the mill celiac, it would be a pretty minor deal -- at least for someone with the cash for a personal chef, someone to shop for him, etc.
Sweet informative mod.
...Yes we must all judge things by popularity...
If you were running a business like Apple is, rather than a charity, you would be interested in selling as many widgets and making as fat a profit on each as possible. So yes, in THIS case at least, even you as a business person, would judge your success by how many people were willing to fork over a nice chunk of change to you.
All theory is gray
The documentation pirates of silicon valley which got many things wrong timewise :-)
... Apple now has the thinnest, lightest CEO on the market.
Unfortunately, due to a design decision, you'll have to replace him every so often because you can't replace just the battery.
>Everything else was either tiny flash memory (64-256 megs) or heavy desktop hard drives
Err, no. When I opened by old Archos Jukebox mp3 player I found a 2.5" laptop hard drive. Not a 3.5 desktop drive. I dont think Ive ever seen one with a desktop drive.
The first generation ipod had a 1.8" drive, which is a laptop drive, but a little smaller than the 2.5". So its not "OMG BIG DESKTOP DRIVE vs MICRODRIVE" its really 2.5" vs 1.8". At least until Apple moved to the Hitachi Microdrive, but that wasnt for a few years. Its not fair to compare a device from 1999 to one in 2004. Also, considering how many ipod mini's I went through which all had bad drives, perhaps the microdrive wasnt such a good idea. The move to flash, which ironically was what original mp3 players used, was a smart move.
Please try and quote George correctly....
(from the same news cast as the Hippy Dippy Weather Man, you know, we're expecting a Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high!!!!)
(in the voice of a newscaster)
Err, no. When I opened by old Archos Jukebox mp3 player I found a 2.5" laptop hard drive.
A valid nit. The Archos did indeed come out before the iPod, and used a 2.5" hard drive. However, it was two and a half times as big and weighed almost twice as much as the first iPod. It was also hobbled by USB 1.1 and Musicmatch, which was nicely described in a Penny Arcade strip (that I unfortunately can't find but do remember):
Tycho: Imagine iTunes as a fresh orange, glistening with morning dew...
Johnathan: Okay....
Tycho: And Musicmatch is a bag filled with dog poop.
Johnathan: Yuck! Dog poop isn't even food!
Tycho: Exactly.