Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"The D: All Things Digital conference kicks off Tuesday night with an appearance by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. CNET's Ina Fried will cover the event live, with additional coverage from Josh Lowensohn and Apple watcher Erica Ogg."

The 2010 All Things Digital conference starts today and opens with a bang as Steve Jobs will be participating. CNET will cover it live here, and it begins at 6pm Pacific time in case you want to participate or just observe.

"All Things Digital reports that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, will appear on stage at this years D8 Conference. This conference is hosted by the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital and typically interviews well-known executives from major technology and media companies."

And with him will be, among others, Microsoft's Steve Balmer and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The conference is set for June 1st, and you can find out more info at the All Things Digital site. If you can't wait, watch Steve above at the 2007 D5 Conference.

"At age 28, Steven P. Jobs, Chairman of Apple Computer, was on top of his game-rich, famous, spoiled, and seemingly unrestrained by the usual social mores. He had the chiseled face, jutting jaw and thick black hair of a typical matinee idol."

Before you worry too much, the rest of the story doesn't read like it's coming from an Apple fan boy meeting Steve Jobs for the first time. I found the stories interesting, especially coming from Dave Bunnell, co-creator of Macworld, and he has ten installments about what it was like in the early days before, during and after Macworld (the magazine) was born.

"Tomorrow Today the California State Senate's health committee will review a bill that, if passed, will make California the first state in the nation to create a live donor registry for kidney transplants. The bill will also require California drivers to decide whether they want to be organ donors when they renew their drivers' licenses."

Always good to hear about the positive uses of one's celebrity such as this case with Steve Jobs, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger. What is annoying to me, however, is that it took them to push this idea through the political process. An idea such as this, that is a benefit with no downside that I can see, and it was stalled? Perhaps it was one of those bills they always expected to get to once they finished up some other agenda items. Who knows, just glad it is moving through the process now. 

"Apple chief executive Steve Jobs this week continued to showcase his own flavor of public relations management, asking one supporter if he was insane to suggest the company had mislead international customers with regard to iPad availability."

It could be they ran out of parts, or they wanted to delay to work on the Wi-Fi issue, or it could be planned. Who knows. But I always enjoy reading about this email responses that he sends out, and he doesn't mince words. Not the best for PR I suppose but at least you know where he stands.

"This could be bad news for owners of the original iPhone: Steve Jobs told an inquiring customer over e-mail that the first-gen iPhone (the EDGE-only model with the aluminum back) will not be compatible with iPhone OS 4, Engadget reports."

Image Credit: www.tolainibaldwin.com

What are your thoughts? Is this too soon to cut off updates for a product that has been out for three years? I'm of the opinion that it isn't based on the advances to the hardware itself.

"Steve Jobs has responded to a couple more emails -- this time questions about the new iPhone developer rules, which prevent anyone from using Adobe's Flash on the iPhone (and have infuriated many developers and Adobe employees.)"

Greg at Tao Effect has been communicating with Steve Jobs over the Flash issue, you can read them all here. Seems like we see more and more stories about Jobs tossing out a reply to an email from the public.

"A new list of the 30 "most respected" chief executives across the world has named Apple co-founder Steve Jobs the most valuable of all, noting that 'America could use 1,000 more like him.'"

They also noted that the Apple Employees "revere but fear him" in the last line of the image above. Regardless, he did bring Apple back from the brink and into success and amazing profitability. I'd say well deserved, what are your thoughts?

"Paper dolls aren't exactly the macho-must have accessory, but you'd be forgiven for one of these gracing your cubicle.Steve Jobs in paper dolly form comes with standard issue black turtleneck, jeans, wire-rimmed glasses and carries an iPhone. (Maybe in version 2.0 he'll sport an iPad?)"

You can download the cut out here, and have your very own Steve Jobs doll. And no, I won't be making one in case you were wondering.

"In its annual list of the world's billionaires, Forbes this year ranked Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a tie with six others for 136th place with a net worth of $5.5 billion. Jobs' net worth is up from $5.1 billion in an October 2009 Forbes ranking of richest Americans and up from $3.4 billion and 178th place in last year's world ranking."

Doesn't hurt that Apple stock is up more than 150% from last year. But he still has a ways to go to catch up to number one on the list, Carlos "Slim" Helú, who has net worth of $53.5 billion, bumping out Bill Gates. Just so you know, "Slim" was able to build up his wealth in the telecom industry and he takes in roughly $33 million....PER DAY! 

"Not content with answering tech questions from Americans, Steve Jobs this week answered a question from all the way over in Sweden."

So Jezper asks via email if he will be able to tether his iPhone and his iPad, to which Steve replies via email from his iphone... No. 

"Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was in attendance at the Oscars Sunday night, and during the telecast the first iPad ad revealed, upon closer look, prices for some titles in the new iBookstore."

So some eagle eyes out there watching the first commercial noticed prices on some of the books, ranging from $7.99 USD to $14.99 USD. Jobs was also on hand, in his words, "To see Up win," which it did, so perhaps he was good luck.

"When Steve Jobs personally called Woodstock, Georgia native Louie Sulcer to tell him he'd won Apple's iTunes Store 10 Billion Song Sold contest, Sulcer first thought was that he was being pranked. "He called me and said, ‘This is Steve Jobs from Apple.' I said, ‘Yeah right,' " Sulcer tells Rolling Stone."

I don't blame him, I think I'd be a little hesitant to believe that Steve Jobs was calling me. Fitting choice for winning though, as the winner picked a Johnny Cash song called "Guess Things Happen That Way."

"Macworld is reporting that Steve Jobs is one of the recipients of the Jim Henson Celebration Honor - one of four Jim Henson Honors. Established in 2005, the awards program acknowledges organizations, individuals, or products that reflect the core values and philosophy of Jim Henson and the company he founded."

Jobs was one of four honored this year, the other three being 826 National, Neill Blomkamp and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The criteria used to evaluate the honorees includes creativity, innovative applications of art and technology and inspiration of others.

"Steve Jobs unloaded on Flash during a meeting with Wall Street Journal executives last week, according to Gawker.Jobs met with editors of the Journal to show them the new iPad. The Journal make widespread use of Flash on its website for video, infographics, etc., and editors raised concerns about the absence of Adobe's plug-in."

No surprise here I guess, we all know how much Steve Jobs hates Flash, and I'm not such a big fan myself. It does make me curious though as to how many sites currently using Flash will adapt in order to work effectively with the iPad. I'm hoping for as many as possible, what are your thoughts on Flash?

"What will Macworld 2010 look like without Steve Jobs? For starters, the annual gathering of Mac fans will see less than half as many exhibitors Feb. 9-13: 220 this year versus 500 in 2009, the last year Apple said it would officially support the San Francisco event."

I was hoping they would have more exhibitors than what they are expecting so they might be around for a few years. But I imagine the Apple faithful will show their support in order to keep this show going. They moved it to February (this week in fact) so that it didn't conflict with CES, of which Apple was a part. What are your thoughts? Anyone out there attending?

"The formidable Economist magazine has blessed Steve Jobs with a rare cover story examining the potential impact of the Jesus tablet. Even rarer, the iPad story is mostly positive, even if the religious imagery is over the top."

Yes, it is a little over the top in my opinion. You can read the story here.

"Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been named the world's best-performing CEO by the prestigious Harvard Business Review. The publication conducted a study regarding 2,000 CEOs worldwide, choosing a sample group consisting of 48 nationalities from companies based in 33 countries."

You can read the article here and see who else was in the running, but it only considered those who took on the job between January 1995 and December 2007 so some long-time CEOs weren't considered, such as Ellison and Gates. For his part, Jobs has delivered, on average, an annual 30% shareholder return since he came back, as well as helping to add $150 billion USD to the market cap.

"The impassioned pleas of one developer e-mailed to Steve Jobs resulted in a quick reversal of his app's rejection. The launch of the app today is the first known approved app that can stream live video directly from one iPhone to another, and the first approval for an app with known use of private APIs. Apple's change of heart came "directly from the top," and is a sign that real change in the App Store approval process is in the works."

He must have really written a good email to get Jobs involved. Either that, or in combination with that, Jobs liked the app and wanted to see it succeed. I don't know how much of this can be attributed to a "real change" in the App Store approval process though, sounds to me like an isolated incident. What are your thoughts?

"We spotted this license plate outside Apple's HQ in Cupertino. How long till they start selling bracelets?"

Funny.