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Filed under: Apple Corporate, Cult of Mac, Steve Jobs, Apple, One More Thing

WSJ: Steve Jobs return is on track for end of June

In its sometime role as a broadsheet hybrid of Us magazine and the New England Journal of Medicine, we have an update tonight from The Wall Street Journal on the condition of everyone's favorite iCEO. Steve Jobs, according to the story (subscription required on the web, free to read on your iPhone), is recovered from his health crisis and on track to return by the end of June. While some speculate that he might choose to surprise the audience at WWDC with a One More Thing moment, two sources for the WSJ story say that the plan is to wait a bit longer.

Steve's return is likely to be coordinated with a product launch or other public event later in June, say the sources. That event probably won't be the announcement of the next-gen iPhone, which the paper pinpoints for the keynote address on Monday with availability close to the two-year anniversary date for the original iPhone purchasers (pretty sensible; anyone who bought a first-gen for the premium price is a likely candidate to shell out for a replacement). The WSJ cites someone who has seen the new phone in person, reporting a faster processor and the expected video editing capabilities.

Equally importantly, the story points out that the long Steveless months with Tim Cook at the helm have shown investors and customers that the Apple train is still on track. AAPL is up 68% since Steve announced his leave of absence in January, vs. a 24% uptick for the NASDAQ index. Granted, Apple stock took a bit of a hit around the announcement of the leave, dipping to a low of 78.20 on 1/20, but it's up at 143.74 as of today's close.

[via Macrumors]

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Hardware

WSJ: Apple moving into chip design

Papermaster. Drebin. Koduri. A law firm specializing in intellectual property? The backcourt starters for the Toronto Raptors? Three key graphics-chip experts now all on the Apple payroll? If you had option C on your answer card, congratulations: now you get to join the WSJ and Forbes in reading the tea leaves about what Apple's dream team of silicon-savvy engineering talent will be building in the secure labs deep in the dwarven mines under 1 Infinite Loop.

Apple's body-snatching spree, particularly focused on veterans of the GPU team at processor maker AMD, aligns with the purchase of PA Semi last year in expanding the company's hardware design capabilities. While there's no Apple product yet on the market featuring chips designed by the new squadron, the expectation is that future iPhones and mobile devices will benefit from Apple-only silicon; graphics capabilities built into these new and exclusive chips would be, presumably, unmatchable by competitors in the mobile space.

The WSJ notes that over 100 LinkedIn profiles for chip engineers who recently worked at Samsung, Intel or other hardware companies now indicate they are sporting Apple employee badges (yay for transparency!). With the current economic climate triggering layoffs and shrinkage at many high-tech enterprises, Apple's combination of marketplace strength and Scrooge McDuck-esque giant pile of cash is allowing it to build a brain trust in hardware that rivals its legendary software expertise.

What kind of super iPhone or magic Mac do you think will be built around these chips and this team?

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

News apps for the iPhone span the political spectrum

Building a native app that aggregates and spruces up the content of a single news organ's website is all the rage, although it seems like overkill in some cases -- personally, I enjoy curating my own reading list with good old Instapaper, which also offers the advantage of clearing out most of the graphical cruft and leaving nothing but yummy text. Still, if you like having all the news that's fit to print in the palm of your hand (yes, the 2.0 version of the NY Times app is quite nice), there are two new choices of single-site apps (SSA) for your reading pleasure.

In the right corner, weighing in at four sections, it's the Wall Street Journal! Yes, the official newspaper of American business (whatever's left of it) has an iPhone app, and according to Silicon Alley Insider it's pretty good; the app lets you cache content for offline reading (similar to the NYT app), and offers audio and video content from the paper, along with stories and rich media from sister sites like Uncle Walt's hangout AllThingsD.

Most notably, using the iPhone version of the WSJ -- which is free -- you can read most or all the content from the daily paper... which, via the WSJ.com website, is not free (most full stories require a subscription). There's no way to know how long this workaround will be in place, but for now it's a great way to get access to the paper's stories.

And, in the opposite corner, weighing in at one home page and sporting a killer left hook, it's the Huffington Post! The HuffPo iPhone app has been in soft-launch mode for the past month and was just updated to version 1.1, quashing bugs and improving performance. It's not as polished as some of the other SSAs yet, but it gets the job done. The app is free.

If you have a preferred single-site app for news, let us know below.

Filed under: WWDC, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has a 'common bug'

Normally I wouldn't even post about this, but several people have commented on the way Steve Jobs looked during his keynote yesterday. Most folks seemed to think that he looked a little thinner than usual, which of course makes one think back to his battle with cancer. An Apple PR person assured the Wall Street Journal that Steve has been fighting a 'common bug' for the last few weeks, and he is on the mend.

Everyone here at TUAW hopes Steve feels better soon! We should probably send him an iCard before they go away.

Filed under: Macworld

TUAW interviews Walt Mossberg


We were lucky enough to run into Walt Mossberg, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, co-founder and host of D: All Things Digital. He shares his thoughts on the keynote and Apple's new products. What was the biggest surprise for him? Watch and learn.

Also available on:
YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv and Crackle

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs, Bad Apple, Apple

Fred Andersen pays fine, says he didn't do it

We've already mentioned that Fred Andersen has agree to pay $3.5 million in fines to SEC in regards to the Apple backdating scandal. However, he is not going quietly into that good night. Mr. Andersen has released a statement (requires a WSJ subscription) which emphasizes that he admits no wrong doing. He goes on to claim that he warned Steve Jobs that if this compensation business wasn't handled correctly there could be some fallout. Jobs assured Fred that it was all on the up and up.

I don't think this story will be going away any time soon.

Filed under: Apple TV

Uncle Walt gives Apple TV a thumbs-up


Our favorite 'dead tree media' technology columnist, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, has a review out today (available free at ptech.wsj.com or with subscription at the mothership) of the Apple TV -- the 6-min video above includes most of the high points. Mr. Mossberg praises the unit for its simplicity and ease of setup; he appreciates the fit and finish of the Apple TV and likes the fact that it doesn't try to be everything for everyone. He and co-author Katherine Boehret say the Apple TV is a "pleasure to use," and it "worked great, and we can easily recommend it for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped on their computers."

Walt thoughtfully points out that you don't need a Mac to use an Apple TV (XP or Vista with iTunes works fine), and that his unit performed perfectly skip- and stutter-free on his 802.11g network, even without the speed boost of 802.11n/Airport Extreme. Interestingly, Walt suggests the main competition for the Apple TV isn't a similar device from Sling, Belkin or other second-tier vendors: it's the big kahuna, the Xbox 360.

Thanks Ben!

Filed under: Macworld, iPod Family, Video, Apple, iPhone

iPhone video and Greg Joswiak interview from WSJ




Rex Crumb from MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal snagged an interview with Apple's Vice President of iPod marketing, Greg Joswiak. Greg talked about the iPhone and its awesomeness, of course, and Rex gets some rare hands-on video, too!

Although some of the footage is stock from the Keynote, there's also some real-live, hot hand-on-iPhone action. It's hard not to notice that while they are talking, Greg never lets the iPhone out of his own hands, whereas you'd normally expect to see the interviewer at least get to hold the thing. Clearly there are some pretty strict rules in place about who gets to touch one of the few demo units. Even Uncle Walt only got to handle it for a few minutes - but there's no video proof of that, so we'll have to take his word for it.

Thanks, Steve!

Filed under: Macworld, One More Thing

WSJ reporting Apple-Cingular deal on phone

A loyal friend of TUAW sent us the heads up that the Wall Street Journal is running with the story (subscribers only) confirming an Apple-branded phone featuring Cingular service, to be launched "as early as Tuesday." As soon as we get a look at the full story we'll summarize it up. Time to mark your bingo cards everyone...

Update: Reader Tony B. shot us the text of the full story. Aside from the confirmation of the deal, there's not much else that hasn't already been discussed. There is one paragraph that departs from the usual cautious and conservative WSJ style:

"Several recent analyst reports forecast that Apple would sell millions of phones within a few years, bringing in billions of dollars in revenue. Some analysts go even further, predicting the impact of an Apple cellphone on wireless carriers, chip makers and other parts suppliers."

Apparently this writer is confusing Steve Jobs with The Brain:
"What are we going to do this year, Steve?"
"The same thing we do every Macworld, Phil Schiller... try to take over the world!"

Thanks JMC!

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