Getting the kind of information about Steve Jobs' health that Apple's (AAPL) investors and customers deserve is tricky, as tech reporters discovered to their peril this week.
The sources in the best position to talk about Jobs' medical condition -- which forced him to announce Wednesday that he taking a six-month medical leave -- are his physicians, and they're prevented by doctor-patient confidentiality from disclosing what they know.
Everybody else is MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 15, 2009 11:25 AM ET
Apple (AAPL) shares dropped 7.56% to $78.88 in after-hours trading in New York on news Wednesday that COO Tim Cook was taking over day-to-day operations -- a $6.7 billion hit on Apple's market capitalization.
This is not the first time Cook has stepped in while Steve Jobs dealt with a serious medical condition.
Cook ran the shop for a month in 2004 while Jobs recovered from surgery that removed a malignant tumor MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 15, 2009 8:05 AM ET
Steve Jobs in June
In his second public health update in as many weeks, Apple CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged Wednesday that his health problems are "more complex" than he thought and that he would be stepping down until the end of June to deal with them.
The news came in an e-mail sent to employees -- and released by Apple after the close of trading.
In the interim, chief operating officer Tim MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 14, 2009 4:55 PM ET
Two very different iPhone reports -- with very different perspectives -- were published this week.
One, from Citigroup's Richard Gardner, focused on the short-term. He looked at inventory levels in Apple's supplier channels, saw levels coming down, concluded that iPhone sales over the holidays were soft, and lowered his Apple (AAPL) price targets for the next three years.
The other, from Generator Research's Andrew Sheehy, took the long view. He reviewed Apple's MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 14, 2009 9:32 AM ET
The rise of the iPhone, like the course of true love, never did run smooth.
Quarterly sales last year varied widely, from a low of 720,000 in June to a high of 6,890,000 in September following the release of the iPhone 3G.
But that's nothing compared with the weird patterns that emerge from data collected by Net Applications, a Web metrics firm that tracks hits to its clients' websites on a daily MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 13, 2009 10:00 AM ET
Anticipating the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh -- unveiled by Apple (AAPL) in a Super Bowl ad on Jan. 22, 1984 -- AAPLinvestors has assembled some choice quotes from the first wave of critical reviews.
Below, a sample from their collection, to which we've added a few of our own (from Owen W. Linzmayer's Apple Confidential 2.0).
Our favorite: John Dvorak's blistering critique of that newfangled pointing device called a "mouse."
Byte, Gregg MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 12, 2009 10:10 AM ET
Did Apple's (AAPL) unrelenting advertising campaign for the iPod touch as a game machine ("The funnest iPod ever") pay off this holiday season?
Indirect data from two Web-based sources suggest it did -- big time.
Net Applications (a Web metrics firm), and AdMob (a mobile Web ad network) both produced graphs last week with sharp Christmas day spikes of the kind you usually see only from runaway hits.
"iPod Touch requests on MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 10, 2009 11:44 AM ET
David Pogue, New York Times tech columnist, creator of the Missing Manual series, and frustrated Broadway producer, led his Macworld Live! feature presentation in San Francisco Wednesday with a musical riff on Steve Jobs' non-attendance.
Playing the electric piano and accompanied by former Cirque de Soleil bassist J.F. Brisette, he sang, to the tune of Oliver's "Where is Love?"
"Where is Steve? Give us something to believe! Should we trust Apple's press MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 7, 2009 3:06 PM ET
When Apple announced Tuesday that it was finally lifting the so-called digital rights management (DRM) restrictions that iTunes music customers found so onerous, it left one thing out: the cost of doing so -- in money and, as we learned overnight, time.
"We are thrilled to be able to offer our iTunes customers DRM-free iTunes Plus songs in high quality audio," said Steve Jobs in a press release.
"It's really easy," said MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 7, 2009 11:21 AM ET
Boring is good, says Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster in a report from Macworld 2009.
"Today's Macworld keynote was underwhelming as expected," Munster wrote in a note to clients, a development he interprets as "a sign that Steve Jobs remains primary spokesman and active leader."
The biggest news at the show, he says, was the updated 17" MacBook Pro and two software updates: iLife and iWork. (See Live from Apple's last Macworld)
That's a MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 6, 2009 5:56 PM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
Receive Fortune's newsletter on all the deals that matter, from Wall Street to Sand Hill Road. SUBSCRIBE
Covering the digital giants of Silicon Valley and beyond, an in-depth look at enterprise companies, and the startups disrupting them. Written by Michal Lev-Ram and emailed twice weekly. SUBSCRIBE
Anne Fisher answers career-related questions and offers helpful advice for business professionals. SUBSCRIBE
| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.24 | -0.06 | -0.86% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.26 | -0.48 | -3.75% |
| Frontier Communicati... | 4.22 | -0.25 | -5.59% |
| Juniper Networks Inc... | 21.62 | -0.75 | -3.33% |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 19.59 | -0.24 | -1.21% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,663.49 | -71.14 | -0.56% |
| Nasdaq | 2,812.82 | 7.54 | 0.27% |
| S&P 500 | 1,315.83 | -2.60 | -0.20% |
| Treasuries | 1.91 | -0.02 | -1.09% |
.
