Apple

Last month Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his first public appearance since coming back from medical leave after receiving a liver transplant earlier this year.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has had a helluva decade.

Consider that, under his helm, Apple defined the portable music player market with the iPod, has shaken up the mobile industry with the iPhone, rocked the retail music business with iTunes, and re-invented the computing business with OS X in a way that the PC business--with less than 10 percent of market share--is no longer the bread-and-butter of the company.

Add to that the brilliant marketing behind Apple and the loyal, almost cult-like following of Apple's fans, and it's no wonder that Fortune Magazine today named him the CEO of the decade. The opening lines of a story written by Fortune editor-at-large Adam Lashinsky (which also includes a nice video segment) explain it nicely:

How's this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley. Sound too far-fetched to be true? Perhaps. Yet it happens to be the real-life story of Steve Jobs and his outsize impact on everything he touches.

Read more of "Congratulations to Steve Jobs, Fortune's CEO of the decade" at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Steve Jobs is a hit with teens--even bigger than Oprah or the Olsen twins.

The Apple co-founder and CEO is the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers, according to the results of a survey released Tuesday by Junior Achievement, an organization that educates students on matters related to future employment.

Being "funnest" apparently has little to do with Apple CEO Steve Jobs' popularity.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Of 1,000 teens queried, Jobs garnered 35 percent of the vote, beating out a list of predetermined celebrities that included Oprah Winfrey (25 percent), skateboarder Tony Hawk (16 percent), and Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (10 percent). Rounding out the list were Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen with 7 percent and fashion model Kimora Lee Simmons with 4 percent.

Of those who chose Jobs, 61 percent selected the iPod god because he "made a difference in/improved people's lives or made the world a better place." An overwhelming 85 percent who selected Winfrey cited the same reason.

Another 33 percent chose Jobs because of his "success in multiple fields," presumably his success at Apple and animation studio Pixar.

Apparently, wealth and fame played a minimal role for the 12- to 17-year-olds polled, garnering just 4 percent for Jobs and 3 percent for Winfrey.

"We live in a celebrity-obsessed culture, so it's no surprise that teens admire famous entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey, who have built brands around their personas as well as around their products," Jack Kosakowski, president of Junior Achievement USA, said in a statement.

However, what is surprising is that Zuckerberg rated so low. One would think his popularity with the teens would parallel the explosive growth of his social network. Perhaps Facebook's popularity with baby boomers is keeping kids on MySpace, which begs the question: how would Rupert Murdoch have scored if he had been included?

Our cameras were rolling Wednesday morning at Apple's San Francisco press conference as the company played up iTunes 9, iPod price cuts, games for the Touch, a video camera for the iPod Nano, and much more.

But the real spotlight was on Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who made his first public appearance since returning from medical leave after receiving a liver transplant earlier this year.

Here's a roundup of our video coverage, beginning with Jobs' standing ovation and opening speech.

Steve Jobs takes the stage Wednesday at Apple's music event.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--Though technically he returned to work two months ago, it was as the host of Wednesday's Apple music event that Steve Jobs publicly retook the reins of the company he founded.

Jobs was the first person to emerge on stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts here to open the now-annual September iPod introduction. Appearing notably thin, he received a prolonged standing ovation from the audience, much of it composed of members of the media, but also a range of guests including app developers, entertainers, and music industry types. Jobs quietly took in the applause and then began to speak fairly candidly about the well-known medical problems that kept him away from work for the first half of the year.

"I'm very happy to be here today with you all," he said. "As you may know, I had a liver transplant. So I have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash, and was generous enough to donate their organs. And I wouldn't be here without such generosity."

He used the moment to encourage more people to do the same, calling on everyone to be an organ donor. He also thanked everyone at Apple and the Apple community for the support he received while he was gone.

At that point, it wasn't yet clear whether this was a farewell or a welcome home event for Jobs. But it became very apparent soon after, when he thanked the man who had taken over day-to-day duties running Apple between January and June, COO Tim Cook, and all of the Apple executive team.

"They really ran the company very ably during that time," Jobs said. "So, I'm vertical, I'm back at Apple, and loving every day of it."

The statement was clearly Jobs' way of saying that he's reassumed full responsibility as the leader of his company. There had been speculation that, though he was back at work, if he did appear at the event Wednesday he would use it as a way to say goodbye and step into the background while a new successor began to be groomed. That was not what happened.

Jobs was the host of the entire 75-minute event, just as he always had been at similar events in years past. Though other executives joined him, including Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, and Jeff Robbin, lead iTunes software designer, it was clearly his show. He also revived two well-known trademarks of his public appearances: his outfit of black turtleneck, jeans, and white tennis shoes, and his "one more thing" phrase.

He also hinted there'd be more public appearances to come, signing off the event by thanking everyone for coming and promising, "See you all again soon."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs' liver transplant earlier this year was the work of a surgeon who treats recurrences of the rare cancer Jobs had five years ago, according to a Bloomberg profile of the doctor.

Dr. James Eason

(Credit: UT Medical Group)

In his first interview since performing Jobs' transplant in the spring, Dr. James Eason told Bloomberg this week that he has replaced the livers of about 10 people with a neuroendocrine tumor. Jobs was treated for that cancer in his pancreas back in 2004, but he hasn't said whether this year's liver transplant was related to a recurrence of the cancer.

Jobs returned to work in June after a medical leave of absence that started in January.

Eason, who trained at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is head of transplants at the Methodist University Hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

The surgeon said he couldn't comment on the details of Jobs' health, though he did tell Bloomberg that Jobs is "really a genuinely nice person."

Eason did deny that Jobs, who lives in Silicon Valley, bypassed any transplant waiting list by relocating to Tennessee.

"It's not gaming the system," he told Bloomberg. "It's people choosing where they want their health care. Some people would leave Tennessee to go to California or somewhere else to seek treatment. Now we have people coming from California to Tennessee."

Eason said he will only undertake a liver transplant on a neuroendocrine tumor patient when he is certain that he can completely rid someone of all the spreading cancer. According to what he told Bloomberg, his results with such patients are about the same as those of other liver-cancer sufferers--about 70 percent have healthy organs five years post-transplant.

Two years ago, Palm's then CEO, Ed Colligan, rejected a proposal from Apple chief Steve Jobs to promise not to hire each other's employees, according to Bloomberg News.

According to Thursday's Bloomberg story, which cited unspecified "communications" between the two executives, Colligan in August 2007 said that Jobs' proposal was ill-considered. Jobs was worried about losing key Apple employees to Palm and said "we must do whatever we can to stop this," reported Bloomberg.

"Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other's employees, regardless of the individual's desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal," Colligan told Jobs, according to the communications reviewed by Bloomberg.

A number of top figures at Palm once worked at Apple. Two months before the August 2007 communications cited by Bloomberg, Palm had announced that former Apple CFO Fred Anderson would be joining its board of directors and that Jon Rubenstein, who retired as head of Apple's iPod division in 2005, would join as executive chairman of the board.

In June of this year, Palm named Rubenstein as its CEO, replacing Colligan.

In August, former Apple staffer Jeff Zwerner became Palm's brand design chief. Other Apple execs who have jumped ship to Palm in recent months include Senior VP of Product Development Mike Bell and PR head Lynn Fox.

There's no love lost of late between the companies, with the Palm Pre a new up-and-comer for smartphone market share against the Apple iPhone. The two have most recently been squabbling over the Pre's compatibility with iTunes.

The Bloomberg story comes as the Justice Department is reportedly checking into possible hiring collusion among leading technology companies.

Tensions often run high between tech companies over executives moving between potential competitors. Apple last year got into a high-profile scrape with IBM over its hiring of Mark Papermaster from Big Blue.

commentary As Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs has transformed the way we think about computers, portable music, and mobile phones. So I read with great interest a profile of Jobs in the Sunday Times of the United Kingdom this morning.

Reality distortion field: To Air is human.

(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

While there are a few interesting bits of information about how hard Jobs is to get along with and how driven he is, the piece missed the boat on a couple of very important points.

The story labels Apple's secrecy as "the mafia code of silence" that is "ruthlessly enforced, with employees sacked for leaks and careless talk. Executives feed deliberate misinformation into one part of the company so that any leak can be traced back to its source."

The Times piece correctly surmises that Apple's secrecy is "all about preserving the magic of each new product." Part of the magic of Apple, of course, is the constant buzz that surrounds the company.

Other companies in the tech market would give almost anything to have a small percentage of the buzz that Apple is able to create. Public-relations firms are hired to raise the profile of executives and have reporters write stories on all their clients' latest gadgets.

That works, to a certain degree. But as soon as something breaks that concerns Apple, every major publication in the world drops everything and starts writing.

The interesting thing is that Apple does it all without saying a word. That is part of the magic. It is the mystique that surrounds Jobs and the entire company. Take the buzz surrounding the rumored music event in September. There are hundreds of stories, but Apple hasn't even confirmed that there will be an event.

Jobs could announce a press event tomorrow, and the world's press would jump through hoops to get there. Why? Because they know that whatever Jobs is going to talk about is likely to be game-changing. No other executive has that reputation.

The secrecy of Apple is definitely put in place to protect the company's product development. If history is any indication, it needs that protection.

As soon as Apple releases a new product, the market scrambles to either denounce it as trivial, copy it as best they can, or in some cases, do both. The iPhone is a perfect example of that.

I don't see any company racing to copy a new Dell product. Why? Because it generally misses the innovation mark. When is the last time the world's press swarmed to see Michael Dell introduce something? I have no idea, either.

Apple without Steve
I was completely shocked to reach the end of the four-page article to find a prediction that when Jobs eventually leaves Apple, the company will seek a merger with Google.

That is flat-out wrong. Apple will not seek a merger with Google--or other company, for that matter--unless it is the dominant party.

The belief that Apple would shrivel up and die when Jobs leaves is giving no credit to what the man has spent the last 30-plus years building. Unlike chief executives who may fear being surrounded by other smart leaders, Jobs insists on it.

The executives at Apple could easily run most other companies, but they choose to stay with Apple. Take a few of the top names as examples: Tim Cook, chief operating officer; Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software; Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of industrial design; and Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. In addition to Greg Joswiak, vice president of worldwide iPod product marketing, and Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of software engineering, they are regarded by many as the best at what they do in the market.

With all of that talent, it's no wonder that Apple is an incredibly innovative company. And it's not just with hardware, either. Apple has taken some of most mundane but enjoyable tasks and made them easier.

Take as examples iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie. With a click of a button, you can make slideshows and movies, and then burn them to a DVD. One of the biggest Apple success stories over the last decade has to be iTunes. We buy our movies, songs, and apps for the iPhone, all without leaving the comfort of our homes.

Jobs doesn't do it alone. The iPod is a perfect example of this. Tony Fadell is the father of the iPod, a product he and his team began building in 2001 under Jobs' tutelage. Fadell brought the idea to Apple, and Jobs had the vision to understand how big it would be.

While Jobs is certainly the driving force behind the company, he doesn't spend all night dreaming up products, then sitting in his garage soldering chips and components together so he can walk into the engineering team and say, "This is what I want."

Although his style is not to everyone's liking, Jobs is a visionary who gives people great devices. He does it with the help of some of the smartest people in the technology market.

Apple is changing the way we think of how we do things. Whether that's on the computer, iPod, iPhone, or the rumored tablet, it is positioned to continue doing so for a long time to come.

Update, July 30, 10:28 a.m. PDT: The Wall Street Journal has now added a correction to its story: "Correction: It is not clear whether Apple will attend the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. This post previously stated that Apple would attend."

We've heard lots of speculation about the possibility of Apple attending the massive CES trade show in January, but The Wall Street Journal is reporting straight out that Apple plans to attend.

CES is devoting more floorspace to Apple this year. But will Apple attend? The Wall Street Journal is saying it will.

(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)

If true, this would seem a bit of a schizophrenic move. After all, Apple explained its decision to leave Macworld (which takes place around the same time as CES) by saying that it doesn't need trade shows anymore to get its message across, given its network of retail stores.

We've attempted to reach Apple for confirmation, even given the late hour, but haven't yet received a response.

Although the Journal blog post references a dinner with journalists and Gary Shapiro, who heads the organization that puts on CES in Las Vegas, it doesn't attribute Apple's move to Shapiro. "Apple plans to attend the show's 2010 version, marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there," the post reads.

And it goes on to talk about how Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association, has invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to give a keynote address at the show. "But nobody from Apple has gotten back to him," the Journal post says, citing Shapiro.

Meanwhile, while other bloggers have followed the Journal piece, Engadget's Ryan Block, who says he was at the same dinner with Shapiro, is challenging the report's accuracy. "At no point did Gary even remotely imply that Apple would be present at a future CES." That sentiment was echoed by Engadget founder Peter Rojas in a comment posted to the Journal story, addressing its author, Ben Charny. Shapiro "was very clear that Apple would not be exhibiting at CES 2010," wrote Rojas, who was also at the dinner with Shapiro. "I'm frankly a little shocked that anyone could have come out of the dinner with a post like this."

CNET Editor in Chief Scott Ard, who also was at the dinner, concurred that Shapiro didn't say anything that could be construed as definitive about Apple and CES 2010. He also noted that the Wall Street Journal story didn't attribute possible attendance by Apple to Shapiro.

"Shapiro didn't say anything at the dinner that could be taken as confirmation that Apple would attend," Ard said. "And it's hardly news that Jobs did not return an invite request."

Ard continued: "Ironically, much of the conversation Tuesday revolved around three topics: Apple's plans, CES 2010, and accuracy in journalism. We'll see how this story shakes out--at this point the Journal's post is hard to evaluate because it does not have any sourcing regarding Apple's supposed attendance."

"The good news in all this," Ard said, "is that Apple will likely have to declare one way or the other what its plans are very soon."

What we do know, however, is that with or without Apple, CES is planning to expand its Apple section from 4,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet. The venue will be called the iLounge Pavilion.

Anyone else having trouble envisioning Jobs in a Vegas lounge, albeit one that starts with the letter i?

This post was updated at 11:28 p.m. PDT with comments from Peter Rojas. It was updated again at 7:04 a.m. PDT on Thursday with comments from CNET's Scott Ard.