Tim Cook

Apple has posted the full video of the Steve Jobs memorial and celebration of his life at the Cupertino, California campus. The event was held on October 19th and was only streamed to Apple employees who were not physically attending the event. The full video can be viewed at Apple’s website.  Don’t come wearing any browser except for Safari.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vq993Td6ys]

Remember back in 2007 when Apple first told developers that to develop for the iPhone, they’d need to build WebApps for Safari? Well, that really was the plan. At the time, Jobs said:

The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps.

And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today.

The App Store came later and apparently as a reaction to jailbreakers and developer backlash.

The App Store nowadays is arguably the most vital app community on any platform, but Steve Jobs initially resisted the idea of users customizing their iPhones with third-party programs, later to become known as apps. The revelation is another of the many interesting nuggets to leak from the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, which goes on sale Monday. According to the Huffington Post which obtained an early copy of the book:

Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs “half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” but, according to Isaacson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.”

Some other tidbits: Jobs informed Cook on a flight to Japan that “I’ve decided to make you COO”. Also, the initial lukewarm reception to iPad “annoyed and depressed” Jobs.

As for Apple’s seemingly unstoppable mobile application bazaar, Jobs – of course – would later embrace the App Store fully as it had become the central theme around Apple’s famous iPhone commercials featuring the “There’s an app for that” tagline. Upon releasing, the original iPhone immediately captured attention of the hacking community which had begun tinkering with the product. Soon thereafter, popular tweaks ensued which added more functionality to the device despite the lack of the official software development kit.

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Apple’s homepage returned to normal with the iPhone 4S headlining last night (US only atm). Apple had the Steve Jobs memorial picture up for two weeks following his passing.

There is still a Remembering Steve link at the bottom of the page which leads to the thousands of words of condolence taken from the millions of submissions following his death. In fact, it appears that Apple has purchased the RememberingSteveJobs.com domain.

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Tommy Ljunggren is senior vice president of Swedish wireless operator TeliaSonera and he’s got some “nice” words about mobile prospects of his valued partner, Apple. Ljunggren told Telecoms.com that Apple is no longer as relevant a factor in mobile as it used to be, saying the company is set for failure unless the next iPhone adopts chips that support fourth-generation cellular networks based on Long Term Evolution radio technology, being deployed by carriers around the world:

If you asked me two years ago I would have said Apple would be very important. But now it will be a bad mistake not to include LTE in the iPhone 5 as otherwise they will really be run over by the others. Apple are not unique enough and there is disappointment over the 4S – it was too small step for them.

He then slammed Apple over LTE, admitting that the current batch of 4G LTE chips consume too much power:

I don’t think Apple will decide if LTE will fly or not. My expectation is that in 2013/14 we will really see low-end smartphones having LTE as well. The big question is what frequency bands they will put in for smartphones. They will be true LTE smartphones – not the ones that the US has right now with two radios. These drain the batteries flat very quickly as they have one LTE terminal for data and a CDMA voice terminal. It’s basically a dongle and phone that they glue together. They work – just not for long.

Interestingly, this is the very reason Apple CEO Tim Cook dismissed a 4G LTE iPhone. Ljunggren, of course, is confused and here’s why.

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Copyright © 2011 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

Apple has just posted the picture above from Apple’s event this afternoon. Apple’s CEO is on stage speaking about Steve Job’s impact on the world.

Here’s hoping they post the video (but understand if not).
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQcIRDUfmqQ]

CBS copters, captured by CNET, caught some of the Celebrate Steve program today put on by Apple.  As we’d been tweeting live, Tim Cook, Bill Campbell and Al Gore spoke and Norah Jones and ColdPlay played music (ending with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”).  Apple retail employees shut down Store operations from 12-3 ET to view a private screening of the event.

One of the touching moments was said to have been when they played Jobs’ rendition of “The Crazy Ones”, below:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOlf1uGBoCQ&feature=youtu.be]

With all the analyst rumors and reports of Steve Jobs working on yet to be released Apple products in the months prior to his death, until today we didn’t have many first hand accounts to support the theories. After learning over a million people wrote in to Apple to express their condolences, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son recalls a first hand account with CEO Tim Cook at the recent iPhone 4S launch where Cook apparently received a call from Jobs (via PCMag):

“I visited Apple for the announcement of the iPhone 4S. When I was having a meeting with Tim Cook, he said, ‘Oh Masa, sorry I have to quit our meeting.’ I said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘My boss is calling me.’ That was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. He said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died.”

What product could Jobs possibly have wanted to discuss? With the iPhone 4S being launched that day, it’s unlikely it was an iPhone 5. Perhaps an iPad 3? Could this also mean that Jobs was hopeful right until the end? One wouldn’t expect a man who knows he will pass the next day to continue working on a product. This could be a sign that Jobs passing was more of a surprise than much of the media will lead you to believe. However, it might also simply be a testament to just how passionate and dedicated Jobs was to changing the world through his work at Apple.

In his statement, Son continued:

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Live from Apple Q4 2011 earnings call, Tim Cook is answering questions from the press and just discussed, among other things, his thoughts on Siri, patents disputes, and the disaster in Thailand.

Of course Cook was asked to comment about Siri and did so using the words “amazing” and “incredible” calling it a “profound innovation” and saying, “over time…many, many people will use it in a substantial way”.

Talking on patent disputes, Cook of course wouldn’t discuss specific cases but did note:

“We spend a lot of time and money and resource on coming up with incredible innovation…we dont like it when someone else takes those”, he continued, “unfortunately we’ve been pushed into the court system as a remedy.”

When asked to talk about the potential unibody enclosure shortage we reported yesterday, he mentioned it’s being treated as a concern and that Apple is “currently investigating”. He also talked about the recent disaster in Thailand and its potential impact (quote via This is my next):

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ZDNet just published a story claiming Apple’s percentage of revenue has “been on the decline for years”. The story claims that percentage is currently 2.2 percent of sales which seems pretty low compared to other technology players (especially when Apple is so innovative).

But this isn’t factoring in how items such as a reported $200 million investment in Siri technology, a new CEO, and investments in the company’s 175-acre Spaceship campus contribute to overall growth…

Thanks to commenter Glenn who points out this perfect quote from Steve Jobs:

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” — Steve Jobs, Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998

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Businessweek’s lengthy profile on Apple’s youngest VP (of iOS software) Scott Forstall is full of little nuggets. Here are the best bits:

1. Forstall’s older brother, Bruce, has been a senior software design engineer at Microsoft for 20 years; imagine the Thanksgiving dinner conversations.
2. “He was as close to Steve as anybody at the company,” says Andy Miller, who headed Apple’s fledgling iAd group.
3. Insiders say he has such a fraught relationship with other members of the executive team—including lead designer Jony Ive and Mac hardware chief Bob Mansfield—that they avoid meetings with him unless Tim Cook is present.
4. He’s known to have a taste for the Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG, in silver, the same car Jobs drove and has a signature on-stage costume: black shoes, jeans, and a black zippered sweater. (He favors Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts for normal days at the office.)
5. “I once referred to Scott as Apple’s chief a–hole,” says former Apple software engineer Mike Lee, who left the company in 2010. “And I meant it as a compliment.”
6. “He knows what he wants, and he’s driven to get it,” says AT&T (T) Chief Technology Officer John Donovan. “He can be relentless about getting it.” “Scott’s a pretty amazing guy,” says Vic Gundotra, a senior vice-president at Google. “In terms of running an operating system team, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.”
7. According to the story, iPod godfather Tony Fadell and Jean-Marie Hullot CTO of Apple’s application division until 2005 left Apple after clashing repeatedly with Forstall. Jon Rubinstein, a former iPod chief who left for Palm in 2006, chatted amiably at a Silicon Valley party last month, until Forstall’s name came up. Then he turned away abruptly. “Goodbye!” he said.
8. He graduated high school as co-valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. (His high school sweatheart/future wife was the other co-valedictorian.)
9. Before the iPhone 4 went to market, Forstall persuaded Jobs to allow dozens of his engineers to carry prototypes of the device to better test its network performance and minimize dropped calls, says a former Apple employee who was a manager at the time. That’s how Gizmodo got ahold of it.
10. Forstall has cashed in over $40 million in Apple Stock. Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group, says that he would consider downgrading Apple stock if Forstall were to leave.

The idea is that Forstall isn’t quite a Steve Jobs, but he’s the closest all around package that Apple has.

Update: Fadell weighed in pretty much refuting BW’s portrayal of the situation

“I inherited the competitive iPhone OS project from Jon Rubenstein and Steve Sakoman when they left Apple. I quickly shuttered the project after assessing that a modified Mac OS was the right platform to build the iPhone upon. It was clear that to create the best smartphone product possible, we needed to leverage the decades of technology, tools and resources invested in Mac OS while avoiding the unnecessary competition of dueling projects.”

Steve Jobs was buried in the Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto, California Friday afternoon according to information discovered by Forbes. The memorial park where he was laid to rest includes many other technology greats like HP’s co-founder David Packard and engineer Lewis Terman who were partners with Walter Hewlett — who gave Jobs’ his first summer job at the age of 13.

The site might be a nice place to visit and pay your respects in the years ahead if you are into that sort of thing.

Apple plans on holding a company wide memorial event October 19th to celebrate Steve Jobs’ life, Tim Cook announced in a company wide email yesterday.

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Apple co-founder and visionary CEO Steve Jobs has passed away at the age of 56.

Apple posted the following statement on their website:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

Below are pieces of remembrance from some of the people surrounding Steve Jobs.

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Kill Apple’s streaming servers here.

Update: Now posted to iTunes.
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Image via Engadget

Another tidbit regarding the iPod. Apple’s music player brand still holds a 78 percent market share a decade since its launch. Quite impressive. They sold over 300 million iPods to date. “It took Sony 30 years to sell 220 million Walkman cassette players,” Apple CEO Tim Cook remarked. We take it that means the iPod classic isn’t going away.

The iPod family of music players still have a lot to offer, he said, noting that nearly half of sales are from users who already own one. Apple shipped 45 million iPods from July of last year to June of this year. As for iTunes, the online music store now commands a 20 million songs-strong catalog. Remember, iTunes Store launched with just 200,000 songs.

Related articles

• Report: iPod Shuffle and Classic are gonners (9to5mac.com)

Image via GDGT

Find below coverage that we’ll be pulling in live from around the web. You can find a roundup of our predictions here as well as a few last minute whispers here. The Liveblog post is sticky at the top and newer posts are below.

Event is over, Archive is below

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In case there was any question, we’ve heard directly from Apple PR that there won’t be a webcast of Apple’s iPhone launch event. Last Year’s September event was live streamed but for unspecified reasons, Apple has chosen to keep this one off the airwaves. They will provide a live closed feed to the UK for European journalists however.

We’ll still be covering the event as it unfolds so make sure to stop by at 10am PT, 1pm ET or your local varient.

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Remember when we brought you news way back in June that AT&T would be increasing its premiums on iPhone insurance on October 4th?  This was the very first indication that Apple’s iPhone launch event would be on October 4th.

Deductible: A tiered deductible per the terms of your Mobile Insurance Coverage Certificate, will apply as follows:

Now that is out in the open.  Prices for iPhones will increase from $4.99 to $6.99.  Such an arbitrary date may signal that the new iPhones may be ready sooner rather than later after the announcement.  Perhaps as early as October 7th.  See new screenie below
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Fortune does a nice look back on how long Apple has waited from announcement (which seems to be October 4th at this point) and actual launch of the iPhones and iPads. Initial launch windows are huge because there weren’t really competitors in the space quite yet.

Importantly, the general trend is towards a smaller window.

Ten days out, October 14th, seems like a reasonable projection, doesn’t it?

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Apple CEO Tim Cook at the January 11 Verizon iPhone presser

We received an interesting tip in July that AT&T would be changing its iPhone tiers on October 4th. At the time, we said,

AT&T raises iPhone device tier on October 4th, perhaps signaling launch date?

Fast forward to today. AllThingsD reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook will unveil a fifth-generation iPhone at a media event scheduled for Tuesday, October 4:

Tuesday, October 4. That’s the day Apple is currently expected to hold its next big media event, according to sources close to the situation, where the tech giant will unveil the next iteration of its popular iPhone.

Author John Paczkowski mentions Apple could change plans at any time. The time frame jibes with the publication’s previous report calling for a mid-October launch of the next iPhone. Kara Swisher, another author with AllThingsD, wrote on Twitter last month that there will be no iPhone event “until Oc … to … ber”.

This will obviously be a huge event for Tim Cook, his first in the CEO role. AllThingsD notes that pressure is on Tim Cook to perform well.

Cook is certain to preside over the iPhone 5 rollout. He has to, of course. To pass the presentation on to anyone else — even one of Apple’s key executives such as Phil Schiller, who has handled the Macworld and Worldwide Developers Conference keynotes in 2009 — would undercut Cook’s new role and reinforce public perception that its legendary outgoing CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs is Apple and that it will be a different company without him.

The Onion joked that Tim Cook’s first order of business as CEO would be to begin making printers again.  Of course that is a bad idea.  But, let’s say that we’re in some alternate reality.  The above SWYP: See What You Print concept created by Artefact is a very Apple-y solution to printers.  Perhaps the HP/Canon/Epsons of the world should take note.

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A frustration for many users in the past is the fact that Apple IDs are currently not able to be merged. As Apple’s iOS 5 and iCloud near launch, Apple might be taking an important step to allow the merging of Apple IDs. iOS 5 includes several services such as iMessage, iCloud integration, Game Center, FaceTime, iTunes, the App Store, and iBooks.

Some users are frustrated because all of those services are spread across multiple Apple IDs. For example, some people have a separate Apple ID for iCloud (especially migrators from MobileMe) and for iTunes/App Store/iMessage/FaceTime, etc. According to an answer from Apple’s executive relations team, as reported by MacRumors, Apple could be readying a solution that merges all of a user’s Apple IDs:

Tim Cook about the issue, and quickly received a phone call from an Apple executive relations employee. She had spoken to the team responsible for Apple IDs and acknowledged that they understood the issue and that more people would run into the problem with iCloud. She also repeated that there is no way yet to combine accounts but revealed they are working on it. In the meantime, she recommended picking a single account to plan on keeping indefinitely and to make all future purchases on that account.

There you have it.?
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