Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave

Today Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs announced that he would be taking a medical leave of absence. Apple’s stock was halted from trading after the news broke. There has been a lot of speculation over the last month on his health, especially since he bowed out of MacWorld.

Many thought his pancreatic cancer had come back. But two weeks ago he tried to quell rumors about his health and said his weight loss was due to a hormone imbalance. Now he is being more definitive about how serious his health condition is. Below is the full text of his email.

 

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal
with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health
continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else
at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my
health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to
allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have
decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and
I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our
board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer

Steve Jobs Goes Missing From MacWorld

Apple announced today that Steve Jobs will not being doing the keynote at the much anticipated MacWorld in January. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will be taking his place. This news is certainly going to stir more speculation around Steve Jobs’s health concerns. Or its a tactic to clearly lower expectations on the show.

Apple also said they are no longer going to participate in MacWorld, which is in partnership with IDG. With consumer demand at an all time high for Apple products it seems they don’t think they need these types of industry events to build awareness of their products. Tomorrow wont be good for Apple’s stock (AAPL).

If I was Steve Ballmer I would be breathing a sigh of relief. Giving a keynote at CES two days after MacWorld would make anyone a little nervous.

There is No Money in iPhone Apps

Apple has created the new shareware marketplace with iPhone Apps. In August Steve Jobs was standing on his soap box and beating his chest because he claimed sales of iPhone Apps hit $30 million in the first 30 days. Jobs claimed that iPhone apps would be a billion dollar business.

Now 10K apps later the #1 “paid” app on iTunes is Koi Pond. This is a joke. Gizmodo gives an entire breakdown of the apps by category. The iPhone app marketplace has really blossomed into a freeware marketplace. The only really successful apps that will be high volume will be free. There is no money in building small little consumer apps.

The only reason Apple got 10K people to build apps was the hope it would lead to getting users. iPhone will create a concentrated set of users using a common platform. But similar to Facebook apps no one really looks at Facebook as a real application platform. It’s just a way to get access to a 120 million people that are all socially connected. And the only reason established companies will build apps is to stay relevant to iPhone users.

Developers are also constrained by Apple’s closed system approach. Similar to Chinese capitalism it looks and smells like a open marketplace but its not really open. I can’t wait until 2009 where Pong will be the #1 “paid” iPhone app.