Apple

Apple shares rebound on Jobs news

Update with analysts comments and stock performance.

Shares of Apple rose as much as 5.63 percent in late morning trading Monday, following an announcement by co-founder Steve Jobs that he would remain as CEO while undergoing hormone therapy treatment.

Jobs' disclosure of a hormone imbalance as the reason for his health decline and that he would remain as CEO while recovering from therapy treatments propelled shares of Apple to as high as $95.86 during intraday trading.

That bump to the stock not only came on a day that the Dow Jones Industries were in the red, but also … Read more

Switcher's lament: The case against Mac

Think moving from a Windows PC to a Mac is easy? My experience, and my wife's, may encourage you to think differently. Here's the story:

When my latest Thinkpad began to get unreasonably slow, as Windows laptops often do after a year or so of use, I thought it'd be a good time to jump to the Mac platform for a while to see what the fuss was about. My wife's three-year-old laptop was running out of gas as well, so I thought she and I could make the change together. I was looking forward to an interesting period of learning a new platform, and I thought my wife, a heavy e-mail and Internet user but not someone who enjoys tinkering, would appreciate the fit and finish of products in the Apple ecosystem. I didn't think we'd have to give up much.

I bought a matched pair of MacBooks for us, and, over the holidays, we went cold turkey, leaving the Windows machines at home while we traveled to my wife Jennifer's parents for a 10-day-long holiday stay.

Technologically, it was not the happiest of vacations.

Before I get into the things that have been driving us batty, let me just say that the Apple hardware we moved to is gorgeous, and has been reliable. I'm enjoying the stability of OS X and the genius of the multitouch trackpad. And I love that fact that after I put the MacBook to sleep by closing the lid I don't have to worry about it not starting again when I open it.

But when it comes to the different applications my wife and I use, and to moving data from the Windows realm to the Mac, and to accessing hardware we already have, the process of switching continues to be rocky. Not all of the issues we have are with Apple products, and that's rather the point: No platform exists in a vacuum. People use other apps, and have their own training and preexisting hardware. Switching means overcoming a lot of technological inertia. … Read more

On eve of Macworld, Jobs talks health

Update 9:23 a.m. PST: This story was revised to clarify that Apple did not make any explicit connection between Steve Jobs' health and the decision for him not to give the Macworld keynote address.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is lying low rather than giving his traditional Macworld keynote speech Tuesday, with health issues apparently a partial factor in the decision even as he and the company avoid an explicit statement to that effect.

In letter to employees, Jobs wrote this Monday:

For the first time in a decade, I'm getting to spend the holiday season with my … Read more

Steve Jobs discloses 'hormone imbalance'

The health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been a topic of concern for some months now. On Monday, with the company's Macworld show getting under way, Apple and Jobs issued statements on Jobs' health. We'll be following this breaking story throughout the day.

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- 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 … Read more

Apple's last Macworld beginning of new era

Even though CEO Steve Jobs will not be playing his customary role, the last Macworld Expo with Apple's participation will still be interesting--for perhaps that exact reason.

Apple's decision to pull Jobs from Tuesday's Macworld keynote speech--and its announcement that 2009 would be its last year at the show--deflated much of the usual pre-Macworld speculation regarding the company's 2009 product plans. The show must go on, however; and Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller will likely have a few new products to show off, such as an iPhone Nano, a revamped 17-inch MacBook Pro, and … Read more

Unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro reportedly in works

It appears Apple is getting ready to expand its MacBook Pro lineup.

The Mac maker plans to unveil a 17-inch MacBook Pro, possibly as early as this week at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, according to reports on 9to5Mac and AppleInsider. Like the 13- and 15-inch models, the 17-incher is expected to sport a unibody construction. But unlike those smaller models, the new MacBook Pro will have a fixed internal battery, much like the MacBook Air's battery setup, according to the report.

The site also reported that we can expect a Mac Mini makeover that will include the … Read more

Unlocking the iPhone 3G - or maybe not

Gadget blogs on New Year's Day were aflutter with word that an application called Yellowsn0w was available for those who want to unlock the iPhone 3G.

CrunchGear, for one, posted a graphically enhanced, QuickPwn-focused spin on jailbreaking the iPhone and making use of the Yellowsn0w instructions from the Dev-Team Blog. Way at the bottom, though, it points out that "this is all in beta and there is no guarantee of success." It follows with this note:

UPDATE - I haven't been able to get it to work on two iPhone 3Gs, both with fresh 2.2 … Read more

Report: Apple's Internet presence grows

The Mac operating system in December made a stronger showing among users accessing the Web, according to preliminary figures from Net Applications.

For the month of December, the Mac OS accounted for 9.63 percent of what Net Applications calls market share of Internet usage, a second-place showing. The iPhone, broken out separately, logged 0.44 percent, good enough for fourth place, just ahead of the Sony's PlayStation. That puts the overall Apple share at just over 10 percent.

The percentage for Mac OS X is a record, up slightly from November but also up 32 percent from December … Read more

Macintosh at 25: Still the innovation leader

On January 24, 1984, the Macintosh came into the world, starting the second major revolution in the personal computer industry. Steve Jobs and team took some lessons from Xerox PARC and created the first user-friendly, mass market computer.

By today's standards, it wasn't that user-friendly (some will remember disk-swapping with the original Mac, which had 128KB of RAM and a 400KB 3.5-inch floppy disk drive), but compared with Microsoft's DOS operating system, it was a major technical innovation.

The 128K Mac version of the graphical user interface, with icons, fonts, folders, audio and a mouse, started … Read more