Jim Lynch: Off the Top of My Head…

I got two emails this morning from Apple PR. One is a letter from Steve Jobs and the other is from Apple’s Board of Directors. The one from Jobs indicates that a hormone imbalance has made him lose weight and that he is seeking treatment. The letter from the board expresses support for Jobs.

Here’s the letter from Jobs:

Letter From Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

SOURCE  Apple

-0-                             01/05/2009

/PRNewswire — Jan. 5/

/Web site:  http://www.apple.com /

(AAPL)

And here’s the letter from Apple’s board:

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors

CUPERTINO, Calif., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — It is widely recognized both inside and outside of Apple that Steve Jobs is one of the most talented and effective CEOs in the world.

As we have said before, if there ever comes a day when Steve wants to

retire or for other reasons cannot continue to fulfill his duties as Apple’s CEO, you will know it.

Apple is very lucky to have Steve as its leader and CEO, and he deserves our complete and unwavering support during his recuperation. He most certainly has that from Apple and its Board.

(C) 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE  Apple

-0-                             01/05/2009

/NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple’s PR website (www.apple.com/pr/), or call Apple’s Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042./

/CONTACT:  Press Contact, Steve Dowling of Apple, +1-408-974-1896, dowling@apple.com/

Wow. Well it should be very interesting to see how the market takes these two statements. Jobs has been extremely candid in this letter to Apple’s customers and stock holders. But is it going to make a difference? Well it certainly won’t to the media who will continue to speculate about Jobs’ health endlessly. But it might help calm the worries of Apple shareholders.

I give him kudos for coming out and letting people know exactly what has been going on with him with his health. He’s always struck me as a relatively private kind of guy so it must not have been particularly easy for him to issue this statement but he is Apple’s CEO so his heath is a legitimate issue.

Very interesting take on life inside of Apple from a former employee:

I went to work for Apple in February of 1989 for simple reasons: I loved the technology. It was a company that I felt could make a difference and improve society, and I wanted a chance to help make those changes. I think it’s safe to say that most people who go to work for Apple go for similar reasons; Apple is a rare breed of company, one not afraid to try to improve the world around it. It is constantly reinventing itself – five years ago, it was a computer company; today, it’s a consumer products company that also makes computers.

When I joined, John Sculley was CEO and the Macintosh II was the state of the art. Few people had heard of the internet, and nobody had URLs or web pages, because they weren’t invented until years later. Music came on CDs, videos came on VHS tapes, and the mobile phone was big, expensive and along with pagers more a sign of corporate servitude. Cable systems may have had 15, 20 channels. Your VCR probably had a clock flashing 12:00.

When I left, Steve Jobs was in charge and the Macbook Pro was the best of the best, the iPod was a global success and Apple was reshaping the music industry (much to that industry’s dismay).

Life there wasn’t always fun. Apple had its problems. I rode the rollercoaster through four different layoffs, and was laid off once in the summer of 1993 – but talked them out of it. I’ve never regretted that decision, even though I left a stack of money on the table to stay with a company whose future wasn’t certain at the time. Why? Because I still believed Apple was worth fighting for.

I like his take on Steve Jobs - that the company WILL go on when Jobs retires. I’ve found the deification of Jobs incredibly irritating. You’d think that he was the entire company and of course that’s not true. He’s had an amazing impact but Apple is far more than just him. But if you listen to the media you’d think that Jobs did every job in the company.

The bit about Jobs’ flamethrower is somewhat amusing:

But Apple doesn’t always get it right. Remember the launch of MobileMe in June 2008? It was that rare reminder that Apple could, in fact, royally screw up. When Apple released it, it simply wasn’t ready. Early users, myself included, suffered from committing to it before it was ready, and the Mac faithful had a field day complaining about it (legitimately) and using it to declare everything from the upcoming death of Apple to the impending nova of the sun and loss of all life in the solar system.

Not that it wouldn’t have felt like that internally. To people who wondered how what the atmosphere would be like inside 1 Infinite Loop, I said: “Just imagine Steve Jobs wandering the hall with a flame thrower in hand, asking random people ‘do you work on MobileMe?’”

I never had Steve’s flamethrower aimed at me, although I came close a couple of times; all in all, I was close to getting my butt fired three times – and all three times, I probably would have deserved it. I do know friends who did. It wasn’t always pleasant – but one thing I give Steve credit for is he held himself to the same high standards he held those around him. He is a perfectionist, and that’s what makes him successful and what made Apple succeed. But that kind of perfectionism isn’t easy, and isn’t done with gentle criticism.

I don’t think I’d like to have it aimed at me either.

But, hey, you really can’t argue with the guy’s results. He brought the company back from the brink of death.

I wasn’t too worried about the MobileMe problems. I have the service and I found them annoying but it wasn’t all that big of a deal for me because I don’t use MobileMe for email. So having it down or otherwise messed up didn’t affect me too much. It was a big goof on Apple’s part though.

Hat Tip: MDN

The developer of iFart Mobile for the iPhone and iPod Touch is making money hand over fist:

Fart, therefore I am (the #1 iPhone app).  Or something like that.  iFart is fast becoming one of the most popular iPhone/iPod Touch applications out there.  The developer of iFart, Joel Comm, has been pretty forthcoming with sales figures, and on his blog he noted that over Christmas Eve and Christmas day, more than 58,000 people purchased a copy of iFart, netting him over $40,000 dollars in just two days.

iFart, as the name suggests, is a $.99 novelty iPhone app that plays a wide variety of fart sounds.  It was initially released on December 12th, and has since skyrocketed up the app store charts, and is now the #1 paid program in the app store.  In the two weeks following its release, it’s been downloaded 113,865 times, netting the creators $78,908 in the process.  78 grand is higher than the average income per capita for every country in the world - and this guy surpassed that in two weeks.  Incredible.

I did a full (and I hope funny) review of it for my iPhone Software Reviews Blog. It’s a hilarious app. I’ve grossed out a few people with it. It’s great for dinner parties. Put your iPhone on your lap while seated at the table and make it fart every once in a while. Your friends will get a good laugh once they realize that it’s not actually somebody farting in the middle of dinner. Heh.

Apparently the latest beta of Windows 7 has leaked onto BitTorrent. I checked over at the Pirate Bay and sure enough it was there. Note that I do not condone downloading it as it is not an official release by Microsoft. But there are people who are going to do it no matter what anybody says.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Microsoft wanted the Windows 7 Beta to leak out this way. Hey what better way to get it tested and beat on then letting it “leak” out onto the file sharing sites? It serves Microsoft’s short-term interests to have it “accidentally” released into the wild via BitTorrent.

If you aren’t familiar with what’s in Windows 7 then you can check out a long analysis of the pre-beta build from ActiveWin.com.

And so it is with this new venture called Windows 7 we arrive at the opportunity to fix the past and right the future. Company CEO Steve Ballmer has described the release of Windows 7, as ‘a better Vista’. Interestingly enough, a lot of the folks who were behind the Windows Vista Project are no longer with Microsoft, most notable are Jim Allchin, Brian Valentine and William H. Gates (former Chief Software Architect and Chairman of the Board). Familiar faces from different territories in the Microsoft platform now lead the development of Vista’s successor; some of them include Steven Sinofsky, Joe DeVaan and Julie Larson Green VP of Program Management for the Windows Experience (of Microsoft Office Fluent fame).

To understand Windows 7, one needs to understand the goals behind the Project. In early August of 2008, an online journal ‘The Engineering 7’ blog was started by Steven Sinofsky and Joe DeVaan to start early communication with developers, enthusiast and end users around the next release. The site has primarily focused on reasons for what was done in Vista with little substance on how Windows 7 would improve the experience.

So, this is where we at ActiveWin.com come in, we are here to give a personal, human hands on experience with this early glimpse of Windows 7 and what it means to you, me and the Windows platform in general. We do understand this is an early preview which is not even representative of BETA 1 which should be arriving sometime soon. So, if we do assume things, please forgive us.

I guess today is the day they go on sale at Walmart.

Wal-Mart officially announced that the company will start selling Apple’s iPhone on Sunday, December 28th. The news confirms multiple reports about the impending sale. The report also confirms that rumors of a $99 Wal-Mart iPhone were incorrect.

Wal-Mart will sell the iPhone for only $2 less than the regular price with a two-year contract: $197 for the 8 GB model, or $297 for the 16GB model.

While I’m sure some Apple cultists and/or status symbol iPhone owners are horrified, I think it’s a great idea. Walmart will vastly increase the distribution of the iPhone into places where there are no Apple retail stores or even AT&T stores.

It’s a smart move on Apple’s part.

Wow. Well maybe Steve Jobs really did create something divine.

The Vatican has lent its approval to an iPhone application – with the iBreviary bringing the book of daily prayers to Apple’s handset.

The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications has given its seal of approval to the application, which was created by Italian priest Reverend Paolo Padrini with a little help from a web designer.

So what does iBreviary give (aside from a better chance of salvation)? Well it’s available in Italian, English, Spanish, French and, of course, Latin with Portuguese and German likely be included in version 1.1.

Well this makes me feel like a blog loser. I don’t have anything like this on any of my blogs.

Footers on web pages have evolved from being a simple section where you host your copyright information and additional links, to a multi-functional section where you can find a variety of site features such as twitter updates, a short bio of the author, and secondary navigation.

This collection aims to showcase just some of the ways talented web designers have decided to utilize their website footers to provide that extra bit of improvement in the user’s experience.

PCMag has a nice article about 21 cool iPhone apps:

So, you’ve got a gleaming new iPhone 3G. After you make a few calls to tell your friends, snap a few pictures, and try out the Web browser, it’s time to load that thing up with software. After all, this device lets you go way beyond the usual calling, texting, and surfing. Apple’s communicator extraordinaire knows how it’s moving in space, can tell where it is on the planet, and lets you control it with multi-finger gestures. Few desktop computers give programmers as many possibilities, and developers have responded with hundreds of applications. The 21 apps we’ve collected here will transform your new device into far more than a phone.

It should be a help to anybody looking for some quality iPhone apps. There are so many in the app store it’s hard to tell which is worth downloading.

I will be very happy indeed if DirectX is weakened by OpenCL and OpenGL.

OpenGL is now more competitive with DirectX than ever. Microsoft’s stumble with Vista and its DirectX/Direct3D version 10 has also helped to stall its momentum in the market. Microsoft plans to add OpenCL-like support for GPGPU computing into DirectX 11 in Windows 7, but Apple’s OpenCL, which is designed to work closely with OpenGL code, will arrive first and with broad industry support. Apple has also released OpenCL as a royalty-free, open standard anyone can implement on any platform.

The design similarities between OpenGL and OpenCL make it easy for developers to create code that, for example, calculates the data for a visualization in OpenCL and then uses the same objects to render graphics in OpenGL. Alternatively, graphics rendered in OpenGL can be processed and transformed using tasks built in OpenCL. The adoption and familiarity of each will support the other.

Support for open standards at GPU makers NVIDIA and AMD, as well as platform support from Apple, Sony, Nintendo, and for Linux and Windows appears ready to release direct graphics support and development from Microsoft’s Windows-only grasp and give developers from any company the ability to contribute toward driving ahead the state of the art in graphics.

I have been very irritated for years about the fact that most computer games use DirectX and are thus tied to Windows. Every game made for Windows should have a Mac and Linux version right on the same disc as the Windows version. Dumping DirectX would be a big help in achieving that as it would make it easier for developers to make their games run on other operating systems.

Smart gaming companies will begin abandoning DirectX as soon as possible. Why on earth would anybody want their games tied to a proprietary graphics standard that helps prevent additional sales on other computing platforms? The only company who’s interest it serves is Microsoft’s.

Infoworld has a look at both programs that Mac users who want to run Windows might find useful.

A little more than a year ago, I reviewed VMware’s Fusion 1.0 and Parallels Desktop 3.0 to see how they stacked up. Since then, both products have undergone major revisions, so I thought I’d see how this horse race is coming along. Both Fusion, now in Version 2.0.1, and Parallels, in Version 4.0, allow you to run another OS — Windows, Linux, and others — on your Mac as a guest of OS X. They provide what’s called a hypervisor, which can host multiple guest OSes running at the same time.

The most important thing about both of these products is what hasn’t changed: Pick either one, and you’ll get a solid performer that lets you run Windows or Linux on your Mac. Both systems offer easy Windows install, and both support even the most taxing Windows applications with aplomb. That said, there are differences between them, and depending on your exact needs, you might find one a better choice than the other.

The biggest change in these platforms since my last review is that both vendors have filled in glaring holes. Parallels now supports SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) and 64-bit operating systems. Fusion sports a completely redesigned, Cocoa-native interface and preference pane that makes it a more natural fit in the Mac environment.

VMWare Versus Parallels: Which One Should You Buy?

What’s my take on which is best? Well I have both of them on my Macs but don’t listen to me or anybody else, decide for yourself. VMWare lets you download a 30 day free evaluation and Parallels does the same.

Install both programs and see which one you like best before you buy either of them. Spend enough time to learn the ins and outs and see how each of the performs on your machine. Then buy the one that works best for you.

Hat Tip: MDN.