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Jobs On Track For June Return

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:02 PM
from the because-he-can dept.
nandemoari writes "On Tuesday, Apple shareholders gathered at Apple's Cupertino corporate campus continued their pursuit of details regarding Apple chief Steve Jobs' health. They didn't get a whole heck of a lot of information out of Apple's executives, but they did receive some encouraging news on Jobs' status. Timothy Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, assured shareholders that Jobs still planned to return to the company in June. Jobs obviously wasn't present at the meeting, which might have made it rather uncomfortable when several stockholders stood to sing 'Happy Birthday.' Jobs' 54th passed on Tuesday."
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story

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[+] iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice 379 comments
theodp writes "Steve Jobs wasn't around to convince you that you should be impressed, but on Wednesday Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that's half the size of its predecessor. Holding up to 1,000 songs, the pre-shrunk Shuffle sports a 10-hour battery life and also adds a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names, as well as provide status information. Even without a show from Steve, the new player is generally leaving folks dazzled, although there are some complaints." Update: 3/14 at 14:10 by SS: Reader Mike points out some disturbing news that the new Shuffle contains DRM which, according to a review at iLounge, prevents it from fully working with any headphones that don't have an Apple "authentication chip."
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  • Thank you Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)

    by MyLongNickName (822545) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:05PM (#26999817) Journal

    They sang Happy Birthday to Steve! My life is now complete that I got to hear this great news.

    But what happens when they get sued because they don't own the rights to that song....

    • by ColdWetDog (752185) * on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:08PM (#26999857) Homepage

      But what happens when they get sued because they don't own the rights to that song....

      Justice, I suppose. Who the hell sings happy birthday to a CEO???

      And I thought the fanbois here were bad.

      • by buswolley (591500) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:14PM (#26999957) Journal
        These aren't the jobs you're looking for.

        Seriously,

        We need jobs to return in June, not Jobs.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Yeah, the title was misleading. I thought it was about something actually important.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          Meh.

          I know my viewpoint is impopular. But I'm figuring the jobs that are lost are the kind of jobs that aren't needed anyway. Too long businesses could afford all kinds of superfluous jobs that didn't contribute to the bottom line.

          If you are a "telephone sanitizer" (RIP Douglas Adams) maybe you should have seen it coming.

          That said, I'm laid off as well, as I too had a non-essential job. It sucks (a lot) but somehow I can understand it as well. I'm now trying to get a job in an essential part of the
                • by cowscows (103644) on Thursday February 26 2009, @04:29PM (#27004017) Journal

                  According to this government website: ( http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/February08/DataFeature/ [usda.gov] ) the US imports about 15% of its food by volume. That's a far cry from importing most of our food.

                  I'm willing to bet that with the continuous increases in farming technology, the US produces more food today than it ever did in the past. It's just that consumption has gone way up (we're a nation of obese), and the demand for exotic and cheaply processed food has increased.

                  • That's a really unbalanced wager. If you win, you give away a loaf of bread you can easily afford. When parent wins, he has to give up a loaf while starving.

                    I wouldn't take that wager, no way.
            • "Sooo, where are those "tax cuts for 95% of Americans", anyway?"

              You didn't hear? They're all gonna get a whopping $16/mo (approx) off their paychecks.

              To be paid for by taxing couples making over $250K....raising them to about the 40% tax level.

              Sounds like a winning combo to me........? [rolls eyes]

              • by Achromatic1978 (916097) <robertNO@SPAMpennyonthesidewalk.com> on Thursday February 26 2009, @01:59PM (#27001723)

                $16/month

                No. At the mean income level, the average family will get about $70/month more, but for people surviving and raising families on $1500 a month, and many do, that equates to about a 7% pay rise. Just because you're rolling your eyes at the fact that the couples making $250K a year (which includes my family, just), will be paying approximately 0.75% more tax. Oh no! Our after tax income will change from $13,400 a month to $13,000! However will we cope?!?

                I know. Us horrible people, suffering the burden of this. You'd almost think that if it wasn't for things like people buying multiple investment properties, trying to 'flip' properties after 12 months, putting $100k in, and expecting a $400k profit, and pushing the prices of housing sky high, and so forth, we'd not be in a financial crisis...

    • IIRC copyright on Happy Birthday expired some time in the late 90's just before the copyright extension was passed.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        almost, unfortunately.

        from http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp [snopes.com]

        The Chicago-based music publisher Clayton F. Summy Company, working with Jessica Hill, published and copyrighted "Happy Birthday" in 1935. Under the laws in effect at the time, the Hills' copyright would have expired after one 28-year term and a renewal of similar length, falling into public domain by 1991. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 extended the term of copyright protection to 75 years from date of publication, and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added another 20 years, so under current law the copyright protection of "Happy Birthday" will remain intact until at least 2030.

      • Under copyright law at the time it was copyrighted it would have entered the public domain in 1991. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 extended it to 75 years from the date of publication and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added 20 more years. It is now due to enter the public domain in 2030. http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp [snopes.com]
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2009, @01:03PM (#27000833)

      My dad died from pancreatic cancer earlier this year, and even if Jobs has the 'less bad' version, the facts are that the pancreas is an energy producing organ and it takes a while to get your diet right so that you have energy.

      Secondly, it's tied to the digestive system and, while sparing you the details, 'uncontrolled digestive events' are a fact of life. I can entirely understand if Jobs really doesn't want to discuss sudden sprints to the lavatory in the press particularly since the output is uhh, evil. Remember, the digestive enzymes are not normal at this stage of the game and the scent sticks to the walls for weeks.

      Let him keep his dignity and privacy.

    • Is this a company or a cult following? This thing really will blow up when Teh Steve parts ways.
  • Mac World (Score:5, Funny)

    by MindlessAutomata (1282944) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:10PM (#26999907)

    I've always been a PC at heart.

    Not like the rest, the others. Everyone around me. I was at odds with my society and knew it early since birth. Unlike them, I did not "Think Different!"--the mantra of the Macs around me, the phrase on all the billboards in the city that served as a reminder to its citizenry. Sameness pervaded the essence of my being and no amount of self-conditioning I did could change that. Eventually, I gave up and isolated myself emotionally from society.

    I gaze at the faces going by, the white earphones contrasting their black turtlenecks, connecting their ears to their pockets, their blank faces engrossed in hip Indie rock music and various garage bands. I envied them for their perfection against my flaws and my compulsive nature to expand, to burden my life with troubles instead of remaining, like them, simple and easy to deal with. The grandest of virtues, simplicity... the philosophy by our loyal benefactor Steve Jobs, who descended from the heavens, creating the Earth, the iron, the wind and the rain. Steve Jobs, who defined the parameters of existence, the one who set about the patterns of reality, the constants, the variables. He who made gravity, electromagnetic energy, and shaped atomic structures and brought forth motion. From these things, he crafted the elements, processed them, refined them, and from these things engineered Apple products through the purity of his mind. Each Apple product was individually crafted by his own hands with the programming code used to run each device having being compiled in his brain and uploaded to each device telepathically, breathing life and perfection into each and every unit.

    Except, it seems, for me, for I was not among the many. I was a PC. They were Macs. I've always been a cold, stiff person. I got by, disguising myself by keeping my non-Ipod music player safely out of sight, which I use because of my depraved nature demanding more functionality than the simple and easy-to-use Ipods have to offer... In the safety of my own home, behind locked doors, I ran a Forbidden, a contraband computer from more depraved, earlier days that was not given the love and blessing of being birthed by Steve Jobs. I dual booted, out of the great sin of curiosity-- curiosity, a shameful value of a PC, as curiosity has no place where simplicity matters most--using two of the great unutterable blasphemies-- something called "Windows Vista" and something else called "Linux." Although, as I mentioned before, although my tendency to be a PC and towards conformity has always been inherent to me, I was truly transformed when I found these old things in a hidden cache of computer parts predating The Purging. Perhaps the greatest sin of all, the single evil that, if discovered, would damn me forever, was the fact that my mouse had more than one button.

    As I walked on among the Macs on the streets, passing the Starbuckses as I went along, I wondered how it all came to this. I glanced at The Holy Marks on the foreheads as the people wandered down the streets, the Bitten Apple tattooed on all our of us at birth, and wondered if, perhaps, there could be something more to life. But again, this was a PC's thought, and not, like everyone elses', a Mac's. We were to hold ourselves to the philosophy of Steve Jobs--so as his products were designed for idiots, so too were we to be idiots. But I was not a Mac--I was not an idiot. I was simply too complicated to be a worthwhile person.

    Nature called. I found a nearby public iPoo--squeaky clean and sparkly white, things weren't all bad--and let myself go, expelling the waste that had accumulated inside me. After relieving myself and committing the overly-complicated and thus illegal act of wiping my ass (I did not flush as iPoos, designed to be idiot-proof, did not flush) I left and once again wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping to find some meaning in a world where I simply did not belong, a world where if my true nature was discovered, I would be endlessly persecuted by smug, self-righteous sons of bitches.

    • Is this the part where John Hodgman runs in, wearing red Dolphin shorts and hurls a 10 kilo bag of churros at the 29-foot iMax iMac?

      <voiceover>"One reason that 2112 won't be like 2112"</voiceover>
    • For words can not express my thoughts on the parent post.

    • Loved your epos. Laughed out loud on "Starbuckses".

      I'm a lazy git, myself. Can't stand to do repetitive chores. And I'm not a people person. Well, I can be, I'm actually quite good with people. However, if you really want to know, I loathe most people. Ignorant bunch, people.

      I'm a BSD user. Not by choice, but because I have to. BSD is what I am, I am BSD. Efficient, dependable, a comfort in dire straits. That's me. That's BSD. We couldn't be any different if we tried.

      I don't care much about hardwar
  • Google Bait!? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by starglider29a (719559) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:11PM (#26999917)

    Jobs' 54th passed on Tuesday

    "Passed on", Gracie? Could you have chosen a worse phrase? Or where you trying to glom Google hits from the query: [jobs "passed on"]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Not to mention we're going to get lazy Newspaper editors who glance at the title and write stories about "The Job Market is looking to Return in June, According to Apple!"
    • ..truly an American icon.
    • Exactly. Am I the only one who first read this as "Jobs, 54, passed on Tuesday"? Yikes!

      • Actually, I thought it was talking about actual jobs (as in unemployment) at first... guess that was wishful thinking :(
    • Jobs' 54th passed on Tuesday

      "Passed on", Gracie? Could you have chosen a worse phrase? Or where you trying to glom Google hits from the query: [jobs "passed on"]

      Nah, he was just hacking the stock market again. Lord knows with an iCon like that at the helm, two words like "passed on" translates to a 500% "loss" reversed with a 600% "gain" on the day...

  • It says Jobs passed on Tuesday! : o
  • Thank goodness! Like everyone, I've felt the crunch since the economy's been in the tank but I knew that eventually the jobs would return.

  • Good: Steve Jobs will be back on June
    Bad: (American) Jobs won't
  • by OglinTatas (710589) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:26PM (#27000181)

    Oh thank God, you're talking about apple. For a minute there I thought it was about the economy.

  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:28PM (#27000219) Journal
    The Taxidermists are working night and day to have him ready for his triumphant return.
    • Oh lord...thats gold =D.
    • What will be the price per disk? [memory-alpha.org]

    • No need for a taxidermist. With motion capture and 3D modelign, Pixar already has the technology to make him live forever, as long as all his speeches are via videoconference. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain... I am the great and powerful Jobs!"
      • You know, that could be a good movie plot. A silicon valley company conceals the death of their reclusive but revered founder and CEO to prop up their stock price using high technology. Rather than "weekend and Bernie's" they could go more philosophical, like the substitution of brand identity for individual identity. In the end the secret is revealed but the public is so fond of the cgi character, they don't care, and true believers claim he obtained immortality by choosing to discard his body after upl
        • A silicon valley company conceals the death of their reclusive but revered founder and CEO to prop up their stock price using high technology.

          SPOILER ALERT

          This was the principle plot behind Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie, The 6th Day [imdb.com], although there it was cloning, not holograms.
  • It had be better a lot quicker than that, I'm running out of gas money.

  • Besides the summary making it seem like Steve Jobs is dead, the title made it seem like the economy was going to bounce back in less than 5 years.
  • by tool462 (677306) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:40PM (#27000425)

    Doesn't he usually arise on Easter Sunday?

  • It is "Jobs's health," not "Jobs' health." I am amazed at how many publications have gotten this wrong.

  • by immakiku (777365) on Thursday February 26 2009, @01:38PM (#27001393)
    Oh the CEO...
  • ... I thought this posting was about the economy.

  • by olddotter (638430) on Thursday February 26 2009, @02:21PM (#27002031) Homepage

    http://www.cringely.com/2009/02/wheres-steve/ [cringely.com]

    Cringely's new block has post claiming Steve has dropped off the internet.

    Read what you want into that or take it with a grain of salt.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      *sniff* Yes he does. He loves each and everyone of us, just as we are.
      • Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Funny)

        by Chris Burke (6130) on Thursday February 26 2009, @12:34PM (#27000335) Homepage

        Though he'd love you a bit more if you bought a Macbook and spent some more at the iTunes store.

      • *sniff* Yes he does. He loves each and everyone of us, just as we are.

        If you're referring to "we" as Apple stockholders, you've got every right to be sobbing...

        Better hope the Return of the almighty iYoda will bring the iForce(Feed) back.

    • A computer is just a computer. A corporation is just a corporation. Jesus Christ, people. Steve Jobs does not care about you. At all. At all. At ALL!

      Oh, he definitely cares about you. He cares that you buy his products, he cares that you like his products and he cares that you continue to spend money on his company.

      He does care - just like every other person who wants to make money.

    • I don't think it was uncomfortable to have "Happy Birthday" being sung to a person not present, but rather uncomfortable because you're trying to sing to the CEO of the company. Seems a little strange...

      If an iTree falls in the woods, and Steve is not around to hear it, does it still count for click revenue on iTunes?