Anyone who believes the “private matter” line is a fool…including the board which issued the statement, thereby opening themselves up to suits for director liability in the event that Jobs actually is ill.

On the other hand, what would Apple be like without Jobs? While it is undeniable that Jobs performed a valuable function revitalizing Apple, is he actually the right person to lead Apple into the future? Is his management style is actually stifling creativity by the people who actually create products? The tradition of releasing hardware that is not right simply to coincide with a presentation may actually be damaging to the company’s reputation (and sales). Look at the iPhone. It lacks voice dialing, one of the most basic features of a decent voice device. (Even clunky old Motorolas have it.) What does this say about the “vision” of the product line…or the world of real users for that matter?

Although it would be unusual to publicly announce a succession plan, the board claims to have one. What is it? For Jobs to work forever? “The next era” is soon to be upon us one way or another. One that is unlikely to be a personality cult. The board had better be doing a better job than they publicly appear to be doing with regard to Jobs’ health.

P.S. Jobs and Apple got a big sloppy kiss from the Department of Justice when it closed the stock backdating investigation. There are any number of former CEOs who did what Jobs did.

From the ‘wishful thinking’ department, maybe that elusive minitower – the one that’ll be so aggressively priced with revamped displays – is finally on its way. Of course, it’ll be introduced alongside a refreshed laptop line featuring Toshibas latest SSD’s with product price drops across the board – all amidst a marketing campaign that’ll leave PC vendors out for the count. And to top it off, we’ll get a matte screen option for the new iMacs ;D

Then again, perhaps a touchscreen tablet is a little more on the cards – MBA style.

Prior to the release of iPhone 2.0, based on the increase in expenses related to Steve Jobs’ Jet, Steve Jobs must have travelled a lot to negotiate and sign iPhone contracts all over the world. It is quite possible that he could have a bug that resulted in his gaunt appearance at WWDC 2008!!!

Apple sell TVs, God forbid! Extremely doubtful due to very low margins on consumer electronics, no product exploration, i.e., monitors haven’t been updated for ages, and, most importantly, Apple hinted they were going somewhere their competition couldn’t go.

More likely, as they have pretty much locked up a large portion of the static RAM market and locked out just about everyone on price, we’re looking at a static RAM based product. Given the recent release of the MacBook Air,I’d suggest looking in that direction. Maybe a tablet with MBA father and iPhone mother, or a further iteration of the Air leading toward a tablet.

“While the departure of Bill Gates as a full-time employee of Microsoft was met with collective yawns”

Ouch, Gene. Actually there were a lot of tears shed during Gates ceremony, unfortunately they were all from Steve Ballmer. As he has to see the Microsoft ship all the way down to the bottom of the sea.