cnetnews
Apple’s Steve Jobs will be taking a medical leave of absence for the second time in two years but will remain CEO of the company, involved in strategic decision-making.
Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will assume responsibility for the company’s day-to-day operations, amid continuing investor concerns over Apple’s plans for eventual transition in the corner office.
There are a bunch of companies ganging up on Apple right now. It is good. They will have to put more memory in the devices, or at least lower the price increase for each memory increment.
Anyone mess with an Archos 43? I like the look of it as a substitute for the iPod Touch.
Sorry, once Jobs goes, Apple is probably going into a 10 year nosedive where they end up on par with the HPs and Dell’s of the world. Jobs IS Apple and unless someone like Ive can step up and take over the banner, they will lose their mindshare in the market.
Jobs beat his cancer for a good long while. Let’s hope the streak continues.
#3 You can never ‘beat’ cancer. It is never cured, it just into remission for a period of time and will always come back in some form.
If he just got himself off that unhealthy stupid vegan bullshit diet he’s on (and used to treat himself before he stole someone else’s liver from the transplant list the first time) and just ate a couple of cheeseburgers, he’d most likely not have any health issues.
Hopefully the smug jerk won’t make it through this time and the world will be spared any more crippled, under-performing, overpriced iJunk crap and the annoying as dogshit-on-your-shoe fanboys it generates.
Truth is most apple users have no idea who Steve Jobs is. But if Steve leaves apple for whatever reason apple will be bigger then ever after a short stock sell off.
Steve is the one that believes he know what is best for users. Without steve apple will become the tech company for the masses. Cheaper units, more media partners, maybe evening licensing ios or os x.
I am unbelievably upset about all this.
#3: Unfortunately, every time it comes back, the treatment options are fewer and the chances of a long-term remission are not as great. It is upsetting on a personal level, too: I have the same condition he does, so his every relapse reminds me that I am right behind.
#4: What an a-hole you are! Statistically, it’s likely that you might get one too some day. I wish I could revisit the subject with you then, jerk.
#6 I not, so that should balance out the universe.
Apple is nothing without Jobs. Woz was needed to create a product (any product), but Jobs was needed to sell it (any product).
Jobs could sell udders to a bull.
Apple, by all rights, shouldn’t exist. As an information technology company, is makes no sense to sell equipment that is different (hence the need to eventually move from motorola to intel). The only way to sell something that is contrary to the norm, the expected, is to make it seem sexy – like rock and roll – to be on the other side of the fence. To create the myth that a piece of technology can be sexy and cool to the average person.
Of Apple equipment, the function of the item is of secondary importance… sexiness is paramount.
All other technology is only sexy to a very small number of technological people.
That is why the Apple iFanbois are so rabid. Their identity, their personal coolness and sexyness, comes exclusively from spending boring old money on Apple stuff. They are just boring average people without their Jobsian gear.
Computers would have remained all Unixy-DOSy-CP/My command line machines, a lot longer, if Jobs hadn’t recognized that Apple was about to be killed by boring old IBM. He would die if he couldn’t do something bold and different.
Without Jobs, Apple would have ended by 1985. Of course the Mac was a crapy machine, but it was sexy and cool (as was the //, //+, //e) and different (don’t believe me, listen to Jerry Pournell).
Jobs’ amazing talent is to make a machine, that isn’t that attractive in terms of design, so sexy and cool that boring people will wait in line on launch day to buy one. In my lifetime, cars, the icon of sexy consumer machines were not lavished with the attention of Jobs’ stuff.
It will be interesting to see how long Jobs’ notoriety will survive the march of time, but during his life, he is a force that defines an industry. Much like the robber barrons defined steel, railroads, coal etc. industries.
As for Apple, I can’t see them survive without him.
The next Apple will be a different company, lead by a strong (maybe mean) personality that has a singular focus to sell something different.
Gods speed Steve
#4, I’d love to see what you look like, usually the people who waste their time going on and on about “those awful Vegans, so unhealthy…” need a mobility scooter to leave their parents basement 🙂
As far as I know, Steve Jobs has never been Vegan. Think about it, this guy “rules with a Titanium and glass alloy fist”, why would Apple sell products containing dead skin if the Dictator For Life were Vegan?
No Agenda Vegan in Residence signing off
I am of two hearts, I think this means that Jobs is dying. That is bad, I feel sorry for his family.
On the other hand, Apple might finally make a half way decent mouse that has more than one button.
#7 You can rest assured that If I do suffer from caner I don’t have the unlimited funds that Jobs did to be able to quickly dash to a different state and jump to the head of their queue for nice fresh teenage Tennessee liver.
#11 Jobs is as vegan as the day is long (and was a crackpot fruitarian before that). He tried to cure his 1st lot of cancer with a pro-biotic/holistic diet, and only after that stupid fad naturally made things worse did he go to a real doctor (and only just in time) who quickly sent him to the other side of the country to steal a liver in the same way apple steals all its ‘revolutionary’ ideas from other smaller companies and compensating them zilch.
He is a total douche. Disowning his bastard daughter as not his ‘coz I’m as sterile as a brick’ is a real classy thing to do, right. What a prick.
My aunt got one of those scooters, and they’re great fun, but I don’t need one quite yet. I’ll post a pic in 20-30 years when I get me a hover scooter though.
# 4 Zybch said, 1-“You can never ‘beat’ cancer. It is never cured,” 2-“Hopefully the smug jerk won’t make it through this time”
Zybch: Your first statement is absolute rubbish. There are many cured cancers. I, myself, had a cancerous skin lesion removed. I’m cured! There are many types of cancer that we medicos struggle to beat into remission. But there are quite a few we can cure.
Your second statement proves we can’t cure shit-for-brains.
#4 Hopefully the smug jerk won’t make it through this time…
Easy hater! Who in their right mind wants anyone to die from cancer? It’s the worse thing that can happen to any person or family. Try climbing out of your mom’s basement for a change. Maybe the fresh air will do you some good.
Markets closed Tuesday when Apple announces Jobs medical leave.
Markets open Wednesday and stock drops 3-5% in early trading.
Markets close Wednesday and stock recovers to loss of 2%. Apple announces earnings and beats street estimates by $2 billion.
Markets open Thursday and stock up 3% on open. Intraday gain ~5%. Open to open closer to 7%.
#4 Thank you.
Maybe he got it from his Ipad.
Yeah, time for Apple to go.
When Jobs goes, the flawlessly operating Apple machine will start to come apart. Maybe this is for the best.
Right now, the only thing making people feel good about this civilization of ours is the progress of high technology. Everything else is corrupt, doesn’t work, and is beyond repair.
Even Windows 7 — which some of you idiot fanboys think is a good operating system — is a piece of garbage. The other day I had to cancel a print job — and got the same bullshit window that I have seen in every version of Windows since ’98: the print job wouldn’t cancel, wouldn’ clear from the queue. Same old, same old.
If it weren’t for Apple products and other entertainment technologies, people would directly feel that this civilization is in total crisis. The sense that we’re doing something right with (entertainment) technology is all that is left. When that goes, and iPods start to suck, people will really feel the futility attached to things as they really are.
#13 Jobs had to wait over a year for his transplant. He has also spent much time and money making it easier for others that need transplants to get them he just doesn’t publicize it.
Jobs has been a benefit to all tech users like it or not. All other tech companies especially in the last decade follow Apples lead.
You are truly a sick human to wish for someone to die in pain just to get some feeling of joy.
Whatever organ he needs now, he’ll get it at the fastest priority.
This just occurred to me:
I wonder if Gates and Balmer are smiling in their coffee right now??
It’s a given that Apple will undergo massive restructuring when Jobs is gone and that it’s competitiveness and market share may suffer.
Ah_Yea said “I wonder if Gates and Balmer are smiling in their coffee right now??”
Nope. Apple isn’t in their top 3 as a competitive threat.
jobs,
If all other tech companies follow apples lead then innovation would stop completely but all our existing tech would be more usable and less functional than it currently is.
# 22 Ah_Yea said, “a given that Apple will undergo massive restructuring when Jobs is gone and that it’s competitiveness and market share may suffer.”
Full disclosure – I am NO Apple fan.
What I expect will happen when Stevie leaves the scene is that within a couple of years there will be a huge move to make the company more profitable. To go for the bigger market share. There will be a shuffle of CEOs and finally, Apple products will see a two-tier line – top of the line, highly engineered, well-constructed gear like they produce now. AND a second tier stack of crap they will sell at Wal-Mart, Target. 7-11 and Jiffy-Lube. This will make the fanbois back off buying anything and everything Apple releases and the second-tier gear will become the mainstream. That will be the death knell for Apple.
Don’t get me wrong! I haven’t owned an Apple product since my Apple 2E (except I do have an Airport now) but I thank Stevie everyday. Without the iPod, my wonderful Creative MP3 probably would never have appeared. Without the iPhone, I’d still be using a Nokia instead of a Nexus One. Without the iPad, I wouldn’t be impatiently waiting for the right Android tablet. I fear for the progress of personal electronics once Jobs has gone from the scene and Apple just becomes a purveyor of iCrap.
Having said my piece, I’m off to Laos for a week or so. Have fun.
Ha. I was stupid tired last night. 😉 That should have been:
Markets closed Monday when Apple announces Jobs medical leave.
Markets open Tuesday and stock drops 3-5% in early trading.
Markets close Tuesday and stock recovers to loss of 2%. Apple announces earnings and beats street estimates by $2 billion.
Markets open Wednesday and stock up 3% on open. Intraday gain ~5%. Open to open closer to 7%.
Now you pick holes in my fearless predictions.
Steve Jobs’ diet is not vegan. It is piscetarian (vegetables and fish).
http://isstevejobsdead.com/
Not good for Steve’s health. This is likely a notice of his failing health. That, as always, is sad.
This will be bad for the company but only time will tell whether it will signal Apple’s decline into insignificance or not. All predictions here are rather useless. But it is fun to speculate and with that I say, this will lead to a decline in Apple one way or another IF he dies.
I like the look and feel of their products but their failings are that you can’t do quite as much with them since you can’t really tinker easily with them AND that it’s not so much about your experience in the end but about Apple controlling your experience, which is also wrong. And by the way, for all the nice look and feel, my own experience as a tech person is that their personal computer equipment and I suspect much else has an higher than normal failure rate, making their stuff junk compared to Dell, for example, not that Dell is a clean living bunch either (remember their bad cap denials).
14.8 million iPads sold in 2010. Yup, they’re dissolving into insignificance.
I suspect that Apple’s bench is deeper than people give them credit for.