IS Steve Jobs Coming Back? Ever?

Some time back I predicted Steve Jobs would “retire” across the board (Apple, Disney, etc). Kinda happy to have gotten that one a wee wrong.

Something’s really niggling me about his return though… I just don’t see it happening. It’s time to wonder now… will Steve Jobs return to the office off this most recent medical leave? I love to think he’s coming back. If for no other reason than to tell us all he’s licked the sicknesses plaguing him. To see his home built. To see old and new friends enjoying their lives. To build his “one more thing” that we fall in love with all over again.

Tim Cook has done a MARVELOUS job of showing Wall Street he’s not only capable of running the business. But that he’s capable of LEADING the business too! Which, let’s admit it… we fan boys love Steve for his charisma and chutzpah as much as anything he’s done on the business savvy side of things. In Tim we have another LEADER. Someone who gets the gestalt of design, business, supply-side. Someone who’s had his fill of the kool-aid alongside us. He’s as much a fanboy as the rest of us. He’s one amazingly driven gentleman.

Will the existing leadership take hills for him should his day come? Hell yes. Will the legion fanboy hang on his every word? You know?… I believe we will. It may take some getting used to him. Getting to know him. What makes him tick. But, I think all our love for Steve will be transferrable to Apple’s next full-time CEO. And I honestly think that’s Tim Cook. Retention of the existing talent set will be crucial. Forstall, Cue, Schiller, Ive, ALL the hardware and retail leadership, Serlet… Man, what a phenomenal bench! and that’s just the top of mind crowd. The veeps and directors and engineers and evangelists that bust their humps to get all this magical stuff done. Again, if anyone has the leadership chops to keep the house that Steve built together… It’s Tim.

An Apple, Inc. without Steve is a lesser place. To be sure. But, the Apple we all know and love is chock full of Steve-inspired, Steve-vetted goodness for many years to come. And, there’s no one better than Tim Cook to see that legacy executed and ultimately built upon and surpassed. I can think of no more appropriate homage to Steve Jobs than to take Apple Inc to the next level under able adult supervision WHILE he’s still kicking.

My hope is the AAPL board will name a successor while Jobs has the steam to bless the new Don.

Another Open Letter to Tim Cook, Apple

Mr. Cook, as one of your long standing Apple Developers in good standing and a former employee of Apple… Thank you!

Not only do I feel listened to (due to the very cordial contact from Mr. Ron Okamoto & the last open letter) but the recent decision to go forward with the Snow Leopard Developer Forum is a VERY welcome move. I’ve logged in and looked at the lay of the land and by the looks of it I’m most definitely not alone. LOTS of healthy participation going on.

Thanks again.

Very sincerely yours,

Gerald Buckley

Tim Cook, We Hardly Knew Ye

Unless you’ve been living under a rock all day… (and I was) The news du jour is Tim Cook, Apple’s COO, has the day to day while Steve Jobs is getting his shiz back together. Wish I could say, “Called that one back in 2007.” But, what were Apple’s options? REALLY?! Where did they have to turn? Lookit!…

• Meg Whitman’s off on a whiff to go all Gubernator 2.0 on us. So, she’s off the short list.
• Gates is too busy selling shoes with Jerry Seinfeld.
• Carol Bartz and Jerry Yang have new gigs.
• But, wait, Sue Decker came available… Hmmm…

Nah! Cook gets it. As much as I’d like to see Ive run the show… the professional manager Cook is the right call. Just so long as Ive gets all the aluminum his not-so-little CNC mill can munch, Phil Schiller is re-assigned to iChat evangelist and Bertrand Serlet is given the state of Oregon as his annual bonus for all the goodness we’re going to get in Snow Leopard.

And, you heard it here… Jobs ain’t coming back folks. He’s out. He just doesn’t acknowledge it (publicly) yet. He’s going to retire across the board – Apple and Disney – in one fell swoop. He’s earned his place in history plus some. Exit. Stage right.

Unofficial. Leopard Oct 26 (CNN)

Leopard… come out come out wherever you are.Gene Munster seems to be saying (on the record) that Leopard’s coming out party is October 26th. I don’t put a lot of faith in his estimates of added revenues for Apple though. Seems too high with too little fan fare and banner waving from out of Cupertino.

Installing Leopard 9A559

Wouldn’t it be fun for Apple to snooker us all and launch Leopard this Monday, October 1?

Hell, might as well fan the flames of desire here a bit. C’mon, dontcha think?!

They’re calculating like that. Take for instance, the iPhone. They deliberately launched it late 2Q2007. All just to get a pop for the quarter on ye olde stock ticker (AAPL) and punch up the Q2 results.

I can see them trying to milk Q4 for everything it’s got in it with an October 1 release. Yeah, I know, it’s all blue sky speculation and tin-foil-hat tom-foolery. But, still, they’re sly like a fox that way and I could totally see them kitting up the DVDs for the past two weeks while they feed us three or four week old images throwing us off and onto a cold trail. Why would dear old Apple do that pray tell? ‘Cause they can Timmy. Cause they can.

This release has been given the back seat while iPhone an AppleTV took center stage for the first half of 2007. As of 9A559 Leopard’s tight. REAL tight (especially Server). I’ve been using the latest greatest as my production machine for two solid weeks. So, it wouldn’t shock me in the least if Apple came out swinging for a full Fourth Quarter performance. Get this right and get it tight as a drum before the holiday season, gin up word of mouth and I see AAPL posting some mighty fine numbers on unit sales all the way around. Leopard has the teeth in it to drive some killer innovation across their product lineup (iPod, iTunes, iPhone and of course Macs).

Apple’s Next Gen Products

Apple flashed some guidance that has those of us in the contrails of the iPhone launch reading the tea leaves for heady news once again.

“Product transition” would normally not garner ANY press. But, it’s Apple after all. So, we’re all back to the guessing game of what, when, where and how (we don’t much care about Why: it’s Apple!).

Some speculation is the iMac is about to get an aluminum clad look. Others, the iPhone is about to go 6G and inherit multi-touch. Still others are going way out on a limb and suggesting Apple has an ultra secret UMPC up their sleeves. Whatever it is, it’s enough for Apple to suggest lowered guidance to the analysts in their last call (which I listened to while it was in progress). Total speculation here, but it might just be Apple is now tending toward pre-announcement of product and is wise enough to tell the analysts – in hushed tones – we’re going to announce stuff in one quarter that will tight-hole us till the next. One analyst (Bear Stearns I think) asked why they should put any credence in this guidance since last quarter was such a runaway miss. I love Apple’s answer which was basically, Go pound sand, it is what it is.

If the rumor mill is worth its salt (and often it’s not) then we should be getting a news of the new stuff in the August timeline. One thing is certain, Leopard is going golden master release one of the 31 days in October. The 9A499 seed from Tuesday is SWEET! and once again reminds me… for all the frustrations I have with Apple (there are many)… They have some of the coolest stuff under the hood I’ve ever had the privilege to bang on.

Technorati Tags: 9A466, Leopard, 9A499, UMPC

Get Your AAPL Jones On

The Q3 2007 webcast is about to start…

There Must Be a Full Moon

At least they were complimentary of one another. One might think they actually liked one another even! Is that possible?

Engadget’s Apple Kabob

Crap! Did Engadget skewer Apple (AAPL) yesterday or what!?

The inverted spike you see above means some people bailed on rumor. Some people wonder if there’s an Engadget lawsuit coming? Nah, too many people MADE a hell of a lot of money yesterday. Look at the elasticity of this thing! SHEESH!

Leopard Release Date October ’07

[FINAL: The above is, by far, the best public demo on YouTube of what Leopard brings to the table I've seen so far. There was no harming of my NDA in bringing this link to you.]

[NOT SO FINAL: October 23 it is. ]

[EDIT: Wanna see one of Leopard's new iTunes visualizers from the latest 9A559 build? Yeah, I thought you would.]

[EDIT: Leopard seeds are accelerating. We're now sitting at 9A559 as of last Friday night. This is rumored to be the final image. Frankly, I'm surprised we're this far into September with new seeds. They absolutely have to stop the seeds and start cutting DVDs... Yes, you're going to have to have a minimum config of a G4 with a DVD drive and better than 800MHz performance processor. It's not clear if Dual-Layer DVD is going to be used. It has been "required" with the seed installs if using optical media up to this point. More likely to be a two DVD install set. Thanks for the sharp tongued devil "foofoorabbit" I am now a much older and wiser blogger of things Apple (see comments below).]

Apple’s just postponed Leopard to October. Stock was only punished by 3% today. Watch the selloff tomorrow. I might actually want to get my position back into Apple in anticipation of another split before too long and the eventual ride back up the slope. At least iPhone is on track…

That’s going to lend more value to the shareholders than Leopard anyway.
BTW, the opening video for Leopard was posted to YouTube in the last couple of days. Watch it. Once you’ve installed Leopard you’ll see it’ll have set the tone for a few things. More I cannot say.

[EDIT: This post has obviously nabbed quite a lot of link love lately by the looks of the stats. So, I'll do right by those hoping to get an insight into the release date... The short answer is, no one knows what date Leopard is going to ship. Last word uttered on the matter is October 2007. So, that could be as late as October 31, 2007. It could be as early as Oct 1, 2007 (doubtful, but technically still doable). All of this is speculation. Apple (ie. Steve Jobs) could easily shift the date once again for any of a bazillion reasons. Trust me. What comes out is going to be BRILLIANT for sysadmins and programmers alike. The UI... well, folks, simply needs tweaking. At this point don't expect major developments to rock our world. Human to machine interface on the other hand is undergoing HUGE changes. Watch for those and how they can potentially affect the UI. That's where the action will be. Voice and touch input are going to be monsters.]

Technorati Tags: Leopard, OSX, Mac OSX