Steve Jobs Takes Leave of Absence From Apple 429
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.
WSJ on possible health reasons (Score:1, Informative)
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/01/05/steve-jobss-health-what-the-pancreas-has-to-do-with-weight-loss/
Re:June... (Score:5, Informative)
That's usually when WWDC happens. I think he's planning on doing that keynote.
-jcr
I don't think so. WWDC was June 9-13 last year, and Jobs' announcement [apple.com] specifically says "until the end of June." There will be tons of cool stuff to show off at WWDC this year, and it doesn't make sense to bet on Jobs' health improving enough to be able to do the keynote, especially if he won't be involved with operations beforehand.
Re:Pancreatic Cancer (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:On the upside... (Score:2, Informative)
Posting AC for obvious reasons:
http://xkcd.com/527/ [xkcd.com]
Re:On the upside... (Score:5, Informative)
Meh. XKCD did it first.
http://xkcd.com/527/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Python (Score:1, Informative)
No, I think the problem is that you're extremely late with that joke, and the circumstances don't actually add enough to it to justify including the entire sketch.
Re:Cancer (Score:1, Informative)
Honestly...if he's already been treated for pancreatic cancer, his chances of living much past this year are grim....
As of 1996-2001 [emedtv.com]:
Info is only a few minor percentage points different now, according to the American Cancer Society.
I am sorry to say it folks, but he's either had a re-occurrence or it had already spread to his lymph nodes before he was treated the first time around. Seeing as 2004 was when he got treated, 2009 is the 5-year mark. 5% survival rate at five years isn't too great. The rapid weight loss is very common with this particular form of cancer. Patrick Swayze is going through the same thing.
Re:Cancer (Score:5, Informative)
Your data is not relevant, and Jobs and Patrick Swayze are going throgh very different things. Jobs had/has a neuroendocrine tumor, which is much more survivable than the much more common adenocarcinoma that Swayze has, which has a 5% 5-year survival rate. Jobs basically has a completely different type of cancer than you usually think of when you hear the term pancreatic cancer.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
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?
In related news: apple stocks fell nearly 7% (Score:2, Informative)
Information on options (Score:2, Informative)
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)
Re:June... (Score:3, Informative)
To those who marked me troll.
It is a reference to the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"!
Re:As always, amatuers like you fail at stocks (Score:3, Informative)
Not really. I've found the old PPCs lack the ability to run any modern media center software. The new de facto standard for OS X is Plex [plexapp.com] and it's intel only. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with mt old G4 Dual 1ghz MDD.
Re:LOL, No... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:LOL, No... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:June... (Score:3, Informative)
Which is better known by the Movie title, an post-movie release book re-release title of: Blade Runner.
Re:As always, amatuers like you fail at stocks (Score:3, Informative)
Do you have a point? It's pretty easy to spin you argument around.
As far as being 'expensive', $199 -- hell, $99 -- with a contract too much for you? I didn't realize the N90 was a free phone... Of course it isn't, even though its from 2005, refurbished and used, it's selling north of $200... STILL [google.com]. The Nokia N90 MSRP was $799. [productwiki.com]
Re:Two words: Keith Richards (Score:4, Informative)
Smoking doesn't guarantee lung cancer either. That doesn't mean it's unrelated.
Re:Sell quick (Score:4, Informative)
try: Food (Even in a severe depression we still have to eat)
if you're concerned with longevity and business models, Consider:
There are many others. Do not get lulled into laissez-faire attitudes toward investment. You have to diversify outside of 'sexy' industry groups. When everyone heads for the exits the fundamentally sound companies get hammered, right along with the 'pretenders' and it is sad, brutal and devastating for a lot of people when that happens.
If I sound harsh, I'm sorry, but life and some of its lessons are far harsher than anything I could come up with. And no matter who you are, I don't like seeing people get hurt. I watched some very intelligent people as their retirement nest eggs got decimated, several times. It is not something I would wish on anyone.
Re:As always, amatuers like you fail at stocks (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. You're still wrong. Network unlocks are available from the networks themselves in most countries.
Again wrong. The jailbreak and unlock processes are practically single click now, and there's next to no risk of bricking. And if you do somehow manage to brick it you can always do a restore through iTunes, even getting your stored data back in the process.
Yep, you're still the prick and you still have a bee in your bonnet. You're no more locked in with an iPhone than you are with any other phone. You've got issues son, and I suggest you go cry them out in private. Your whinging and wining in public is embarrassing.