In claiming the Hulu is safe from potential fees, Burke is speaking of behalf of the Comcast's recently absorbed NBC Universal, which has a 27% stake in the Hulu venture—the same as News Corp and ABC. In other words, while Comcast execs are now privy to whatever discussions are going inside Hulu, they can't really guarantee anything without cooperation from the site's other partners. Including the one that's loudly demanding that Hulu develop some kind of pay service, soon.

In other words, Burke's answer assures one thing: that nobody, especially Hulu, knows exactly how the site will change over the next year. [Silicon Alley Insider]

On December 27th, 1996, Apple had $1.8 billion in cash and securities. Today it has $34 billion.

(Thanks to reader Cory Padfield for this chart idea.)

Last May, CNN Money estimated that due to inflation, that $6 million surgery would cost slightly over $26 million. But obviously the surgery in the original TV show wasn't quite medically accurate, and creating those bionic parts from scratch would actually cost somewhere between $50 and 100 million today—although after one successful prototype is completed, it could cost far less.

However, CNN Money posted this article in May 2008, before the world economy exploded. My learned estimate for how much the Six Million Dollar Man's surgery would cost today? Twelve bucks, and a hoagie. [CNN]

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It's about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature's ultimate machine.

7:12 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Man it's early. About 3 hours left to go. More expect more updates from now until then, as usual.

7:20 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Schiller NEEDS to do today's presentation with the I am T-Pain app.

7:53 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Sitting on public transportation is a lot like sitting on the toilet. Reading makes the time go by faster, but eventually you're going to get hit in the face with the smell of urine. If you're lucky it'll just be the smell.

7:57 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
What does everyone think about the Palm Pixi? I like it. Even if it's slightly less powerful than the Pre, the size and the better keyboard make up for the losses, somewhat.

8:01 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
If Apple's inevitable tablet has ebook reading functionality I will personally shake the hand of everyone who worked on that team. Having to switch back and forth between reading a book on the kindle and reading a website on a laptop makes me feel like I'm getting a workout, sure, but if I wanted to exercise I wouldn't have thrown out all those 24 hour fitness fliers.

8:09 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Oh and I probably wouldn't personally shake their hands–I'd send an intern to do it. Gotta watch out for that piggy flu.

8:14 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
I'm wondering what "rock" songs will be playing before the event starts today, seeing as it's a "rock" theme. Rock Lobster? Schoolhouse Rock? Rachmaninoff?

8:18 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
I think sitting down on a train while someone is standing right in front of you is one of the few times where you can stare intently into a person's crotch without other people hassling you about it.

8:18 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

8:20 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:
OH HELLO! Good morning. Dan Nosowitz, Apple liveblog virgin, and I are at the Yerba Buena center downtown. Nothing starts for 1 hour and 40 minutes but we thought we'd get here early.

8:21 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Nice of you to qualify that last statement with "Apple liveblog."

8:22 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
There's someone pointing a video camera at me right now. Little does he know I'm just catching up on last night's celebrity gossip.

8:23 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:
Just waiting for Jason to get here. Wonder how traffic is coming from the east bay…probably bad, as usual.

8:30 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:
Everyone's talking about iPods but I think it makes sense to see new iTunes today, too. I mean, that's no revelation but I did notice when reviewing snow leopard that iTunes was not rewritten in 64-bits. One of the few apps still native to os x in 32 bits.

8:33 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
Everyone thinks Apple's going to add a camera onto the Nano and Touch but, especially for the Nano, I think it's kind of a dumb idea. Maybe it's just me but I don't need another crappy camera in my life.

8:40 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:
Hey Guys, turning off the live blog poll for for now. I'll let you know when its back on, so you can vote on the news. You can do it by clicking on the love/hate buttons, as many times as you want–it'll count each vote and chart it with the rest of the votes from other readers–or hit H or L keys while focused on the flash widget. But that's later. Oh, also, I forgot what the event is called "Only Rock and Roll", not Let's Rock. I get these damn events confused now.

8:41 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
I'd love to see a major iTunes refresh. Maybe we could finally get a "play next" function, like Winamp's had since about the last Ice Age.

8:49 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
On Apple event mornings I like to try to guess which indie band Apple's going to feature. My bet/hope for today: Discovery. You know, just indie enough to be hip but not so much they'll be scary to old folks.

8:50 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There's a crew of 20 old people with swords around the corner.

8:53 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

its cold but sunny. The crowd is dressed in suits, generally.

8:54 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
Brian and I are liveblogging in sunglasses, because 1) we're cool rebels and 2) the sun hurts our frail blogger eyes.

8:58 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
That treadmill shelf for laptops really works. I walked three blocks and was not winded.

9:01 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Someone asked me if there are going to be any surprises. I think it's going to be Grey's Anatomy in space. (The seven of you who got that joke are high fiving yourselves now.)

9:02 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
My press pass says "9.09.09″ but if I look down at it it looks like "06.06.6," THE MARK OF THE BEAST. What are you trying to tell me, Apple?

9:13 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The usual people are here–analysts, media and other people who I don't recognize. Bald count stands at about 8.

9:13 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:

9:15 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
Catering update: Apple's spread of fruits and breads is totally pedestrian. Does this have an implication for the event to come? Discuss. At length.

9:16 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Wilson Rothman:

9:17 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
40 minutes left. Greg Grunberg is here, and I hope I spelled his name right. Nice guy, and looks exactly like he does on TV. It's like the makeup department said "meh" and moved on.

9:20 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
Every time I see the tagline "It's Only Rock and Roll" I start humming Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me." Please tell me I'm not the only one.

9:20 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
I don't know why, but someone is eating a banana and it is hilarious to me.

9:22 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There is a 13-year-old boy here. I hope for his sale he doesn't do like I did when I was 13 and get inappropriate erections.

9:22 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Wilson Rothman:

9:26 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Think about the person in your life that doesn't have an iPod already. Think about the last time he or she offered to pay for dinner. YOU CAN'T CAN YOU?!

9:27 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Wilson Rothman:

9:30 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Oh and if you want to follow us on Twitter, our names are on the masthead on the main Gizmodo.com page. And mine is @diskopo .

9:32 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
I want to display my Zune in a prominent place so everyone knows my commitment to objective journalism (and to buying shit on Woot).

9:34 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Wilson Rothman:

9:35 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
What are your 3 predictions for announcements today? Mine are iPods, iPods and more iPods. But also a new version of iTunes that forces your musical tastes upon Twitter and facebook.

9:40 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Wilson Rothman:

9:47 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Wilson Rothman:

9:48 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

9:49 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
We're inside. People are scrambling for seats, and I'm hungry.

9:50 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
First three songs: Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" and Green Day's "When I Come Around." Didn't Apple used to be cool?

9:51 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Thanks to the guys at Hypermac for their awesome external batteries. Saves us a lot of battery switching/worrying.

9:53 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Eight minutes left. Put your phones on vibrate and tell your coworkers you're going to be in a meeting.

9:54 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Eric Schmidt is here, despite having been kicked off the Apple board. It's like attending your old high school's prom after you were expelled for vandalism and sent to the other high school under the bridge.

9:55 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Definitely "rock" songs playing today. No Coldplay or John Mayer. The rift between Mayer and Apple has never been bigger. Please, someone just apologize already.

9:56 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Dan Nosowitz:
I guess they're doing different decades with the music, since Hendrix is playing now. Super boring stuff though. If Steve wants to borrow my Zune I can show him some good tunes.

9:57 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:
Hey, I'm having some image difficulty, but we'll be back in a minute, before things start.

9:58 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Nevermind, that was just a bad transition. Another song's up now.

10:00 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The Stones are playing.

10:01 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:01 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The lights are dimming, and something is happening soon. Get ready.

10:02 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Steve Jobs is on stage and is getting a standing ovation.

10:02 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:02 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Applause, applause, sustained applause.

10:03 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"I'm very happy to be here with you all. As some of you might know, I had a liver transplant." He said he now has the liver of a 20 year old who died in a car crash, and he thanks him for his generosity.

10:03 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Steve also wants to thank everyone in the Apple community for the "heartfelt support", and thank Tim Cook and all the other execs at Apple.

10:04 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Steve's voice seems a little bit softer than we remember, a little bit of a hoarse whisper, but all in all he seems able-bodied (if still skinny).

10:05 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
He's going to have Phil Schiller join him for part of the presentation. In 2+ years, Apple's sold 30 million iPhones.

10:05 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"One of the reasons for that is the remarkable app store." They have more than 75,000 apps, and users have downloaded 1.8 billion apps. That does not include updates (obviously).

10:06 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"Today we have something new for iPhone and iPod Touch owners." It's iPhone 3.1.

10:06 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Now, Genius makes application suggestions based on the apps you own in order–just like Genius for iTunes music.

10:09 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The second thing is ringtones to the iTunes store. They have 30,000 ringtones from the majors, and will be $1.29.

10:09 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:09 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
iTunes is the number one music retailer in the world. They've sold 8.5 billion songs, and there are 100 million accounts in iTunes. This leads up to iTunes 9.

10:10 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Something else new: Genius mixes–Genius applied to another area. 54 billion songs submitted and analyzed since the Genius feature launched.

10:10 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:11 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Genius mixes is a Genius DJ playing songs from your library that it thinks will go well together. iTunes will make 12 by default, and all you have to do is click on one and it'll start playing indefinitely.

10:12 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Also new: improved syncing. So when you sync now you can sync these playlists, but you can now also select genres or artists directly from the Music sync tab.

10:12 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:12 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
This applies to Photos as well, selecting Events, people as well as albums that you've already set up.

10:13 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Or movies, syncing the most recent movies or something, and always having one movie.

10:13 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
What's even better is better app syncing for the iPhone, allowing you to manage pages and app locations on iTunes directly.

10:13 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
New "home sharing" in iTunes lets you copy songs, movies and TV shows among the 5 authorized computers in your house.

10:13 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:14 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Now you can drag songs from other libraries into YOUR library and it will copy it.

10:15 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Also, a redesigned iTunes store that's better looking (but not all that different from what you've seen before). It's "cleaner", says Steve, but it doesn't seem like a huge jump.

10:15 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Lastly, iTunes LP.

10:16 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
For iTunes LP, it'll include videos, liner notes, credits and other customized content that you used to get when you bought LPs in the past, except now it's digital.

10:16 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:17 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
And now, Jeff Robin comes up for a demo of iTunes 9.

10:18 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
First he's going to show App Organization (the rearranging of your apps on iTunes). Click on Applications and you'll get all the apps and pages. You can click and drag apps from one page to another, or deselect apps from the left hand side and not sync them. You can also drag multiple items at once.

10:18 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:18 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:23 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
First he's going to show App Organization (the rearranging of your apps on iTunes). Click on Applications and you'll get all the apps and pages. You can click and drag apps from one page to another, or deselect apps from the left hand side and not sync them. You can also drag multiple items at once.

10:23 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Double-clicking an app on the left-hand side will take you directly to the page that it's on. There's search (type in the name and it'll show the app), and page rearranging, meaning you can move whole pages up or down the queue.

10:23 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Next, home sharing. You can view other people's libraries, as you can now, and just select and drag songs to your library. It'll disappear from the list of other people's libraries if you select to only show "items not in my library."

He's demoing the iTunes store now, and all pages have been redesigned to match the new style. There are also quick-view popups for albums, allowing you to see the entire album from wherever you are, instead of having to go into the album page.

Oh and Facebook/Twitter sharing: you can now click on content and share links directly to them from the store.

10:24 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
As for iTunes LP, you can flip through photos and individual songs, which displays lyrics directly in iTunes for you to Karaoke along with.

10:26 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There can also be custom interviews (in video) that comes with the iTunes LP purchases.

10:26 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:26 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:26 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There are iTunes Extras for movies as well, giving you extra features (think DVD extras) but more interactive. And different.

10:27 AM ON Sep 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:27 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
iTunes demo over. Steve Jobs is coming back on stage.

10:27 AM ON Sep 9 2009
Jason Chen:
iTunes 9 is available today.

10:28 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Now, the iPod. Phil Schiller is coming up and taking over.

10:28 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:28 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Apple's sold 225 million iPods to date.

10:28 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
I think our server troubles are over? Let's hope!

10:29 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
As for Marketshare, iPod's got 73.8%, Sandisk has 7.2%, and Microsoft has around 1%. The rest is "other".

10:29 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:29 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The fastest growing iPod is the iPod Touch.

10:30 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:30 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Apple's sold 20 million iPod touches. Add that to the iPhone number and you'll get a big number of devices that can run your apps.

10:30 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:
Hey, we disabled the poll. Looks like you guys really liked clicking on it. Caused some problems with the servers.

10:31 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Phil is going over the talking points of the iPod Touch; the same things you already know. It runs apps, playing music and watching video.

10:32 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:32 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
You can also use Genius Mixes (the feature introduced in iTunes 9) on the iPod Touch, with the songs you've already loaded onto there.

10:33 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:33 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Phil, the consummate salesman, is going through the features of the iPod Touch as if it hasn't been available for 2 years now.

10:33 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:34 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"Not everybody's computer fits in your pocket", Phil says, as he points to a photo of a dude shoving a Dell laptop into his ass pocket.

10:35 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:35 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Phil is comparing games on the PSP to the DS, saying they have no multitouch and that they're expensive. You even have to GO TO A STORE TO BUY A GAME. Nobody ever says Phil doesn't have the balls to say things like this on stage with a straight face.

10:36 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:36 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:36 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Here's an image of the comparison between the amount of iPhone games vs. the amount of PSP and DS games. Misleading graph if anything, seeing as the amount of games doesn't indicate that they are all GOOD games.

10:37 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:37 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
And now a montage of games from various iPod Touch Action Titles.

10:38 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Phil's inviting up Ubisoft to demo Assassin's Creed. It's NOT Jade Raymond, unfortunately.

10:39 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Assassin's Creed 2 is being demoed now. It's a sidescrolling game, and has some pretty decent graphics.

10:39 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:39 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
You can even put your face into the wanted posters with the camera. Does this mean that the iPod Touch is getting a camera??

10:39 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:40 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Ubisoft is releasing this app on the same day as the Assassin's Creed game for consoles.

10:40 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Ubisoft is releasing this app on the same day as the Assassin's Creed game for consoles.

10:40 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:41 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Their latest game mixes music and racing.

10:41 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Next up, Tapulous, which makes Tap Tap Revenge.

10:42 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:43 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Riddim Ribbon is their latest game, making you a "DJ". You're "racing" down a track by tilting the phone, and you can choose different remixes of the current song you're on. You can flick the phone up to jump and add custom sounds. The guy playing the game is really into it.

10:43 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
After you're done playing the game you'll have made your own "mix" of the song, which you can share.

10:43 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:44 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Next is Gameloft. They're shipping 35 gaming titles in the App Store right now, with 20 million downloads.

10:44 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:44 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Nova, a first person shooter, puts you into the shoes of a space marine. SPACE MARINE, how come nobody's come up with this before?

10:45 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The HUD looks a lot like Halo, and it feels quite a bit like Halo.

10:45 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:45 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:45 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
You use the left side of the screen for the analog stick, and the right side to shoot. Plus the middle for changing weapons.

10:46 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There will be multiplayer over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

10:46 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Last is EA.

10:47 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:47 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Here's a game that's been around "for over 20 years." It's Madden, which has been announced already, and looks like PlayStation 1 graphics.

10:48 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:48 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:49 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The analog stick controls motion, just like the normal Madden, and John Madden gives super obvious advice, again, just like the normal Madden.

10:49 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"Usually the team that makes the least mistakes will win the game," declares Madden.

10:49 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Need For Speed Shift, Command and Conquer and NBA Live are also coming to the App Store.

10:50 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Phil says the iPod Touch is the "most affordable gateway to the App Store," which is true.

10:51 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Phil says "$199 is a magic price point in the iPod market." So, they're lowering the iPod Touch price to $199 for the 8GB version.

10:52 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
The 32GB will be $299 and 64GB will be $399.

10:52 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:52 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Also, the $299 and $399 versions of the iPod Touch will be 50% faster, and run OpenGL ES 2.0–the same as the iPhone 3GS.

10:53 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:53 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
So, the 8GB version is running the older processor and the 32 and 64GB are running the newer one.

10:54 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There's an iPod Touch ad showing off multiplayer by having multiple people play at the same time, showing off interactions.

10:54 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:54 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Next up is the iPod Classic. Today, there's a 120GB version for $249. They're going to raise the size to 160GB for the same $249.

10:54 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B.Lam:

10:54 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Then, the iPod Shuffle.

10:55 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:55 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:55 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Customers wanted to "expand" the range of headphones that work for the iPod Shuffle, which include Beats by Dre.

10:56 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:57 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:57 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
What's new? New colors that's what. Black, silver, pink, green and blue. A lower price of $59 for 2GB, in addition to the $79 at 4GB.

10:57 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
All these ship today.

10:57 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There's also a $99 special 4GB model made of polished steel. Special Edition.

10:57 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
And here's Steve again.

10:57 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:58 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
One more thing…

10:58 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
A video camera?

10:58 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:58 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
My guess is a camera on the iPod Touch. But we'll see in a second.

10:59 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:59 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
He's comparing a Flip at $149 with 4GB of memory. "So what are we gonna do?" They're going to use an 8GB model, and it will be "free". Yep, it's going to be on the iPod Nano. There's a camera and a microphone.

10:59 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

10:59 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There will be a speaker as well, for playback.

11:00 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:00 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:01 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"So how good is it?" Steve shows a demo video shot with the Nano.

11:01 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
He's making us watch the same lame video twice.

11:01 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:02 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:02 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Apple's sold 100 million iPod nanos to make it the "most popular music player in the world." They're adding voiceover, a genius mix feature, and FM radio.

11:03 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Also, a pedometer and a voice recorder. You can sync the pedometer directly to Nike+ as well, to keep track of your steps.

11:03 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam

11:03 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:03 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
And, new colors. "We've finally figured out how to do colors that are unimaginably beautiful. They're polished anodized aluminum."

11:03 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
There are two models. 8GB for $149 and 16GB for $179. They're available today.

11:04 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:04 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Here's an ad for it.

11:04 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
We're turning off live refresh, so you'll have to click refresh to get new updates. Please, refresh!

11:05 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:05 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:05 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Now the obligatory Environmental Checklist. Arsenic, BFR, Mercury, PVC-free.

11:06 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
That's not it, Steve has some more to say.

11:06 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
"Like you, we love music. There's no better way to remind us all than to have a live performance. We are really lucky today that Norah Jones is joining us." Norah Jones yay!

11:06 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:07 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Norah Jones is coming up on stage, and she looks Norah Jonesey. Very nice.

11:07 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:08 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:08 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Not only is she a great singer, she was good in the Wong Kar Wai movie as well. The movie itself wasn't all that fantastic, but SHE was good in it.

11:09 AM ON SEP 9 2009
B. Lam:

11:10 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
My knee hurts like a mofo from sitting so long. I am officially an old man.

11:11 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Here's a new song that they're going to release this November.

11:13 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Here's a new song that they're going to release this November.

11:14 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
So to recap, no real new "designs" in any of the iPods, but there are some lower prices and new features. No camera for the iPod Touch, but there is one for the Nano.

11:14 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Steve Jobs is coming back on stage to thank Norah Jones.

11:15 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
I feel like he's gonna say "Goodnight everybody, stay tuned for Craig Ferguson."

11:16 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Steve thanks everyone for coming, and Brian, Dan and I thank you all for reading!

11:16 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
You guys really loved pushing that button so much that it crashed our machines, so we'll make sure to put more button-handling in there for next time. October, maybe? There's always the tablet.

11:17 AM ON SEP 9 2009
Jason Chen:
Time to get some hands-on with the new iPods. See you all soon on the main Gizmodo page. BYE!

Foreword (It's long. You can skip this if you want.)
The timeline itself is made from a half dozen books, which I've listed below, and several websites. I'm sure there are some errors and missing parts, because the books often contradict each other. Also, I consider this timeline/biography to be in Alpha, so let me know if there's a mistake and send me a good piece of source material and I'll make corrections. Also, images are very welcome. Here's the bio in a single page.

When Bill Gates went into retirement, we threw him a week-long celebration and wished him well on his journey through philanthropy at his foundation. The comings and goings of Steve Jobs have been less ceremonious. He's been sick and Apple's tried to down play that and his importance to the company so the company, his life's work, can go on after he retires. And having to do it without much fanfare so the company doesn't seem too reliant on him. Look: Last Monday the first press release came out in months with a Steve quote in it, and he was seen on campus. But no one at Cupertino is making a big deal of it. Here's the thing: None of us really want to believe that he's not important. It's total bullshit to think that, if you look at his life and where his work fits in history. I mean, this is the co-founder of Apple getting sick, and slowly leaving behind his 30 year legacy in computing to the next generation. That deserves more respect, as it did in the case of Gates stepping down. Not many news pieces were written in this context.

As I was doing some background reporting, digging up pieces I hoped would give stronger context to the current events, I realized there wasn't a good reference for all the little stories collected from the Valley and beyond about Steve Jobs' life. The best information comes from books and quotes in magazine articles here and there, not the web. And so, it was hard to find a frame of reference online that would give better context to all that was happening today.

So I started collecting a lot of it here, and found it enjoyable to document this notable life, rather than tear it down one hospital or liver transplant rumor at a time. In some ways, it dissolved away some of the guilt I felt about writing about tracking someone's health as if it were merely a piece of news. And so I kept going, until it was a somewhat presentable record of what we know about Jobs. From what I've seen, it's the most complete online.

Before we go, I'd like to eschew the custom of linking to sources at the end and place them here because all these books are pretty amazing and worth checking out if you have the inclination. The three notables are Owen Linzmayer's Apple Confidential 2.0 which has exactly levels of detail in regard to dates, times, etc, although less on Jobs personal life. And VC and former Time Valley reporter Michael Moritz's out of print The Little Kingdom, which is out of print and I paid handsomely for on ebay. Lastly, Andy Hertzfeld, one of the creators of the Mac, created Revolution in the Valley (also available in website form at folklore.org), a telling of maybe 100 personal anecdotes from the development of the Mac. It will make you think you were there. I'm not done with the pile below, but I'll keep updating this timeline as more bits come up.

So, without further delay, here are the books this timeline is based on, and here's a link to a single page if you don't want to read the timeline in gallery format.

• Apple Confidential 2.0 by Owen Linzmayer
• The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer by Michael Moritz
• Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertzfeld
• Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Lahney
• iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Businessby Jeffrey Young
• The Perfect Thing by Steven Levy
• The Journey is the Reward by Jeffrey Young
• West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer by Frank Rose

Websites:
• Apple 2 History
• Apple Turns 30 Timeline at CNet
• Wikipedia on Lisa, the Mac and Steve Jobs
• YouTube, Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005
• Folklore.org, homepage of Revolution in the Valley
• NY Times interview with Jobs during the NeXT era
• Businessweek, 1988 Steve Jobs profile

1955
Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24th, 1955. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, where they lived on 45th avenue in San Francisco. His father was of "imposing demeanor" and before he was a repo man, he was an engine room machinist in the Coast guard. He'd tinker with cars and sell them for a profit.

Steve was a hyperactive child. Somewhere in his childhood, he ingested a bottle of ant poison and had to be brought to the emergency room.

Of being adopted, Steve would later say, "I think it's a natural curiosity for people to want to understand where certain traits come from." "But mostly, I'm an environmentalist. I think the way you are raised, your values, and most of your worldview come from the experiences you had growing up."

1963
Steve said this about his early school years, with a hint of pride: "You should have seen us in third grade." "We basically destroyed the teacher."

1965
Even at 10, Steve's attraction to electronics was becoming obvious to his parents. At one point in his childhood he got a bad shock when jamming a bobby pin into a wall socket. Paul moved with the family to Palo Alto, to handle the greater number of car repossessions that went with the greater of number of loans in the fast growing area known as Silicon Valley.




1970-1971
Steve Jobs discovers marijuana. (Note: That there is what we call a Photoshop.)



1970-1971 Part 2
Steve Jobs meets Steve Wozniak through a friend and they bonded quickly over electronics and pranks, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. They attempted and failed one particular prank, where a rigged sheet with the acronym SWAB JOB (The initals of the Steves' and Allen Baum's) was supposed to fall and cover a roof during graduation. The lesson Woz learned: Never brag about your pranks. Woz was the first person Jobs had ever met who knew more about electronics than he did; Woz admired Steve's confidence with people.

1970-1971 Part 3
After reading an article in Esquire about phone phreaking, they begin working on Blue Boxes used to crack codes on the public telephone systems for free calls. Steve Jobs was still a senior in high school. They sold these boxes for $150 on campus, spending $40 on parts. Woz prank-called the Pope as Henry Kissinger. They met Captain Crunch, the subject of the article, one night. After departing, their car broke down on the side of the road. Some police found them trying to make free calls and got suspicious. Woz and Jobs got out of trouble by telling the officers their Blue Box was a music synth.

1972
Jobs attends Reed college and drops out after one semester. (He stated in his Stanford commencement speech in 2005 that he went because his birth parents insisted to the Jobs that he go to college.)

Jobs and Woz take $3 an hour jobs at the Westgate Mall in San Jose, dressing up as Alice in Wonderland characters.




1973
Jobs remains in the Reed college area for 18 months dropping in random classes like calligraphy, which would later impact the typography on Macs.




1974
Returned to California and worked at Atari. He just showed up and said he wouldn't leave until they hired him.

Steve goes on a spiritual trip to India with his friend Dan Kottke, and paid for Dan's ticket. Upon wandering into a religious gathering, Jobs was taken away to the top of this mountain where the guru shaved his head. In India, Steve experimented with LSD. Dan shaved his head later, too, because he had lice. Steve left for California and gave Dan the rest of his money to continue his journey in India.

Back at Atari, Nolan Bushnell asked Jobs to work on a special project that would eventually become the game Break-Out. He made a deal to pay Jobs a certain amount if the machine had less than 40 chips. Woz, who was an expert at such things, helped Jobs complete the design in 48 hours, and Jobs got the bonus. The design was too complex to be manufactured. In 1985, Woz found out that his friend and partner had shorted him on that bonus, and is rumored to have been so hurt that he cried. When he was confronted at that time, Jobs is said to have repeated that he didn't remember that happening. If Woz had found out earlier, he may have never joined up with Jobs to create Apple.

1975
In the Homebrew Computer Club, Woz was showing off two printed circuit boards that were built to drive output to a TV. Jobs continued working at Atari while Woz continued at HP.

1976
Woz and Jobs start Apple. It wasn't a thrilling name, but it was functional, and it reminded Jobs of the time he spent on an apple farm in Oregon. On April 1st, they signed papers for equal ownership. To raise capital, Woz sold his HP 65 electronic calculator for $520 and Jobs sold his red-and-white VW bus for $1500—only half of which was ever paid, because the engine blew out soon after the sale. Their first order was for 50 Apple I computers, and Jobs made the sale barefoot. He confused the order and delivered circuitboards instead of finished machines with cases, and so had to take partial payment. By the end of the year, they shipped 150 computers.

1976 Part 2
Woz and Jobs decided the Apple II would load their OS from the circuit board, instead of needing to be loaded manually. It would also have a fanless power supply, something that needed to be designed from scratch using a switching model instead of a linear source.

Mike Markkula is their first investor. Seeing their work, he thinks he can put Apple on the Fortune 500 in 5 years (and he eventually does).

1977
Apple Computer becomes a corporation when Mike Markkula and Jobs and Woz sign papers at Mike's house, on January 3rd.

Mike Scott becomes Apple's president, and offends Jobs in two ways: First he awards Woz the position of being Employee #1 because his design was instrumental in the company's founding. Jobs would later insert himself as Employee #0. Later, he informs Jobs his body odor is stinking up the office.

Jobs begins leaving his mark on Apple's design by hiring Intel's ad agency, Regis McKenna, to redesign the logo to the rainbow-filled Apple, which would be easily recognizable when small, although expensive to reproduce with its many colors. The bite out of its side was a play on the word "byte" and kept it from being confused with a tomato.

The Apple II premieres at the West Coast Computer Faire on April 17th as the world's sleekest personal computer, in its plastic case. Woz developed the machine with only 62 chips and Jobs insisted they be neatly placed on the board. It has expansion slots but no visible screws (all were on the bottom).

Randy Wigginton, one of Apple's first programmers, said that during the development of the Apple II, Woz and Jobs' BFF friendship began to dissolve.

Jobs' girlfriend, Chris-Ann Brennan, becomes pregnant, and Steve denies being the father. She refuses to get an abortion and it ends their relationship.

1978
May 17th 1978, Jobs' daughter Lisa Nicole is born at the All-One farmhouse in Oregon, near apple orchards. Steve visited and helped name her but still denied paternity. At that time, Steve begins pitching a next generation business machine that will eventually be called the Lisa.

Steve Jobs designs a case for the Apple III, and builds it too small to fit the components the engineering team had constructed.

Apple moves into its Cupertino headquarters.

At the first Apple Halloween costume party, Jobs dresses up as Jesus Christ.

1979

He starts working on the Lisa project, rumored to be named after his then estranged daughter. They reversed engineered an acronym, "Local Integrated Software Architecture", and a joke at the time insisted it stood for "Let's Invent Some Acronym."

The computer would have a UI based on the windowed and mouse driven interfaces inspired by tech at Xerox PARC. At one of the meetings at PARC, where they showed Jobs the tech, he reportedly jumped around the room excited saying, "Why aren't you doing anything with this? This is the greatest thing! This is revolutionary!" He also said, to Rolling Stone magazine, " I don't think rational people could argue that every computer wouldn't work this way someday."

He bought a house in Los Gatos, and left it mostly undecorated. Only a painting by Maxfield Parrish, a mattresss and some cushions are noted as the major possessions in the home. (The photo above was taken by Diana Walker in 1982.)

Jobs is known for owning a Mercedes coupe. In this year he buys his first, along with a BMW motorcycle.

Jobs cuts his hair neatly and vows to become more business saavy. He started wearing suits, occassionally.

A word processor called AppleWriter was released. It worked with Apple's first printer, Silenttype.

He takes a paternity test and it is 94.97% certain that Lisa Nicole is his daughter. He still denies that he is her father and Chris-Ann goes on welfare. A court order forces him to pay child support.

1980
Apple stock goes public. Jobs is worth $217 million by the end of the first day of trading.

Jobs' friend and India travel partner Dan Kottke, received no stock at all, despite being employee #11. It is rumored that Jobs denied him stock because he felt betrayed that Kottke offered Chris-Ann a shoulder to cry on after her split with Jobs. Other early employees received little or no stock. Woz, on the other hand, offered stock to many who Apple did not provide for, giving away 1/3 worth of his shares under his Wozplan.

1980's
Sometime in the '80s, Jobs had this moustache. Related: Magnum PI aired first in December 1980.



1981
Mike Scott leaves post as CEO, unhappy with the job, but happy about the stock. Jobs takes over as president.

Booted from the Lisa team by management that disagreed with his tactics and doubted his leadership abilities beyond his vision, Jobs gets involved with the Jef Raskin's Macintosh project, named after the McIntosh apple, with a typo. It was designed to be a $1000 appliance computer that would turn on and just work. Eventually, Jobs would take the project away from Raskin. At one meeting, Jobs threw a telephone book on the table and insisted it be no longer than that, and vertical standing. He commissioned frogdesign and Hartmut Esslinger to come up with the design language for the Mac, called Snow White.

Unlike Woz's Apple II, it had no expansion cards. While much of Apple was becoming more straight laced, some credit Burrell Smith, a wildly creative tech who's talent was being wasted in the service department, for creating a brilliant digital board that the rest of the team could build around. It was also notable, because unlike the Lisa project and others that were usually named after females (wives, girlfriends, daughters) the Mac was purposely named by Raskin to buck the sexist trend. (The project was originally called Annie.) Before much of this, in 1979, Jobs asked Raskin to come up with the specs before the price. And Raskin wrote a list of outrageous features meant to mock the idea. The list would, years later, describe most of the machine, vidicating Jobs' method.

The Mac team defines the "reality distortion field" as different from how we describe it today: An engineer would mention an idea to Jobs, who would call it stupid, and weeks later he'd bring it up as his own, knowingly or not.

Jobs describes the case design of the Mac needing to be more like a Porsche than a VW. (He drove a Porsche 928 at the time.) He spoke design-ese and said this when judging a prototype coming from the car conversation: "It's way too boxy, it's got to be more curvaceous. The radius of the first chamfer [a beveled edge connecting two surfaces, says Wikipedia] needs to be bigger, and I don't like the size of the bezel. But it's a start."

1981 Part 2
Jobs gives Bill Gates a demo of the Macintosh, and Gates agrees to develop software for it. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs disagree on the future of the computer, Gates believing in its business utility and Jobs believing in its benefit to common people. In the dramatized movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley, Gates uses this demo to kickstart Windows development, behind Jobs' back. Apple engineers were to avoid showing Gates the Lisa, though, and were very secretive about what they demoed. Jobs cuts off Andy Hertzfeld, engineer and presenter, by shouting "Shut Up!" when he thought Andy was getting too close to revealing a secret.

When the first IBM PC came out, Apple took out a cocky ad in the Wall Street Journal led with the text "Welcome IBM. Seriously." Jobs was quoted as saying that if IBM were to win, there would be a sort of "computer dark ages for about 20 years". Steve also said, "We're going to out-market IBM. We've got our shit together." 20 years later, the heirs of the IBM PC, running Microsoft's Windows, would have over 90% market share.

1981 Part 3
Here's another photo of Jobs saying hello to IBM.

1982
Jobs makes Bill Gates and Microsoft promise to never work on any business software that would use a mouse unless it was for Apple. The fact that they did not exclude them from developing a competing operating system would allow Gates to develop Windows alongside the Mac software Microsoft was developing.

The Mac team's building had a security system that would arm itself at 5:30PM, far too early for programmers who tended to come back to work after dinner. It went off every day, or at least plenty of times. Finally, Steve yelled for someone to destroy it. Andy Hertzfeld drove a screwdriver into the alarm and when a security guard showed up and yelled at them, Jobs took responsibility for the destruction. Obviously, he didn't get in trouble.

Jobs is dating singer Joan Baez. Some say Jobs' fascination with Bob Dylan, a former lover of Baez's, is part of the attraction.

Jobs buys an apartment in NYC in the San Remo building over looking Central Park. He had it renovated by architect I.M. Pei, but would never move in and eventually sells it to U2's Bono decades later.

1983
Steve Capps of the Macintosh team hoists a pirate flag above their building. The Lisa team steals it, but it is retrieved and stands for over a year.

Early in the year, a Time magazine cover story written by Michael Moritz (today a venture capitalist who was on the board of Google) began to reveal the darker side of Jobs to the public. It had quotes by Woz claiming he didn't design much tech in the Apple II, and lots of snipes by anonymous sources. Jobs cancelled his new year's plans and thought about the article.

People could tell when Steve was in the office, because he parked in the handicapped spot out front in his blue Mercedes. People think he did it because he was a dick, but David Bunnell has been quoted as saying it was because disgruntled Lisa or Apple II employees would come by and scratch it with their keys.

"It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy," said Steve. The Mac project stole more and more technology from the Lisa project, especially after Burrell Smith figured out how to get the same processor as the Lisa, the Moto 68000, into the Mac. Jobs refused to make the two machines code compatible, however.

The final Lisa product would be released years later for $10K, 5 times the original project's cost. It would tank, competing with IBM's $3K machine.

Jobs hires John Scully to be CEO, from Pepsi, with the line, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?" Others considered Scully's lack of tech knowledge a drawback; Jobs saw it as an opportunity to guide the man who would be his boss.

Gates unveils Windows, claiming over 90% of the IBM machines on the market would run the software by the end of 1984.

1984
Jobs meets Lee Clow, creative director at ad agency Chiat/Day. He says, "Am I getting anything I should give a shit about?"

Jobs presents the famous "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott (of Blade Runner), to the board. They absolutely hate it and vote to sell back the Super Bowl air time they'd bought (which cost more than the commercial's production costs of $750K). They couldn't sell the space, and they decided to run the ad, which pictured a dystopian world like that in Orwell's novel, implicitly run by IBM and shattered by the coming arrival of the new Mac. The ad went on to win awards. Jobs said, "Luck is a force of nature...Using the 1984 theme was such an obvious idea that I worried that someone else would beat us to it, but nobody did."

The Mac launches on January 24th. Jobs wore a polka dot bow tie and recited Bob Dylan lyrics from "The Times They Are A-Changin'." Then he unveiled the Mac, which began to speak using a voice synthesis program: "Hello, I am Macintosh", finishing with, "So it is with considerable pride that I introduce the man who's been like a father to me, Steve Jobs."

The Apple III, meant to replace the Apple II, is discontinued on the same day Jobs announces the Apple IIc, a compact version of the II meant to feel more appliance like, to Jobs' insistence. The celebration, called "Apple II Forever," was interrupted by a 6.2 richter scale earthquake in San Francisco.

1984 Part 2
The Mac initially sells well, but starts to falter in sales because of word of its bugginess and lack of competitive functionality. Programmers joke about the need to continuously swap disks for programs and saving files; they called it the "Disk Swap Olympics" or the resulting injury "Disk Swapper's Elbow." Microsoft's three programs, Paint, Word and Write, were some of the rare applications available. People start to blame Jobs for not doing any market testing beyond what he would want.

Jobs gains control of the Lisa team again and berates them as having "fucked up" in front of the newly combined Mac/Lisa team.

Jobs' Mac development team starts to discover that they, slaving under the motto of "working 90 hours a week and loving it" were grossly underpaid compared to the Lisa team's staff, and even compared to the junior engineers on the Mac team. Many feel betrayed by Jobs. Bonuses helped alleviate morale problems, but then the profitable Apple II team became resentful of the Mac team's privileges.

Jobs stars as President Roosevelt in a war-themed "1984" ad parody called "1944," where Macs waged war on IBM computers. It costs $50k to develop and is shown off to the international sales team at the annual meeting in Waikiki, HI. "IBM wants to wipe us off the face of the earth," said Jobs to Fortune magazine.

Vietnam Vet memorial artist Maya Lin is Steve's most recent flame.

Jobs buys Jackling House, a 1926 Woodside CA mansion, built for mining and metallurgical engineer Daniel Cowam Jackling in 1926 by famous architect George Washington Smith. Jobs lived in the 17,000-square-foot house for another 10 years, hardly furnishing it. He rented it out for a time after that.

1985
Jobs and Woz receive the first National Medal of Technology from Ronald Reagan.

Around this time, either before or after it, Jobs discovers that Woz has resigned. Woz would eventually going back to college under an alias, Rocky Clark. He earned a CS/EE bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley.

Ella Fitzgerald sings at Jobs' 30th birthday party at the St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, a black-tie dinner dance.

Jobs visits nerd and supermodel Bo Derek to convert her to a Mac user. She was unimpressed with both Jobs and the Mac.

Jobs says in a Playboy magazine interview that he was not happy that he learned, from a video tape he was not supposed to see, that every US nuke operated out of Europe was being aimed using an Apple II.

Apple executives start blaming him for the miscalculated forecasting of Mac sales and start to build up resentment of his management style. Mike Murray, Jobs' lieutenant in marketing, writes a memo summarizing the problems that Apple has, laying much blame on Steve Jobs. He shows it to Steve first and his reality distortion field begins to deflate. The board and Scully strip Jobs of his control of the Mac group and the Lisa product line is killed.

Scully is tipped off by a VP that Jobs will try to unseat him while Scully attends a a trip to China. When confronted, Jobs says, "I think you're bad for Apple and I think you're the wrong person to run this company." Scully calls an emergency meeting for the next morning. "I'm running this company, Steve, and I want you out for good. Now!" Scully made each man in the room pledge their alliance to Jobs or Scully. Jobs is quiet the entire time. Jobs goes to assure Scully again that he'd respect his leadership, but Jobs is plotting a final coup attempt behind his back. Tuesday evening, May 28th 1985, Jobs is stripped of all duties, but remains the chairman of the board. Friends worry he'll kill himself.

1985 Part 2
Jobs wanders for a bit; he tries to get NASA to let him ride the Space Shuttle, thinks about entering politics and learns about biotechnology. And then he recognizes that he loves creating innovative products and begins plotting a new venture. He informs Apple of his new venture, and his willingness to resign from the board. Apple considers keeping him on and investing in the new company, but realize that he's taking key Apple technologists with him and Jobs ends up resigning entirely from the company.

He resigns at sunset, by handing a letter to Mike Murray on his front lawn, with press in attendance. Dramatically, he told the press, "If Apple becomes a place where computers are a commodity item, where the romance is gone, and where people forget that computers are the most incredible invention that man has ever invented, I'll feel I have lost Apple." "But if I'm a million miles away, and all those people still feel those things...then I will feel that my genes are still there."

Jobs sells almost all his Apple stock, over 4 million shares ($11m), citing a lack of confidence in Apple's managment. He retains one. Some say for sentimental reasons, some say so he still receives quarterly reports.

Apple sues Jobs for using company research to launch a new company. Jobs responds, "It's hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300 plus people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans." The suit is dismissed before it could go to court.

Microsoft launches Windows 1.0, aping the look and feel of early Mac OS GUIs (which aped Xerox GUIs).

Scully allows Gates to use Mac tech in Windows if Microsoft would hold off on selling a Windows version of Excel, allowing Apple to get a foothold in the business market.

Jobs names his company NeXT. Their first project would be a workstation for higher education, inspired by his interest in biotech, that would be cheap enough for students, but powerful enough to run wet lab simulations. A Businessweek cover story at the time featured a quote by Andrea Cunningham, an ex publicist for NeXT, "Part of Steve wanted to prove to others and to himself that Apple wasn't just luck... He wanted to prove that Sculley should never have let him go.''

Sometime during this year, Apple discontinues the Lisa.

1986
Jobs spends $100K to have designer Paul Rand, creator of the IBM logo, among others, to create a brand identity for NeXT, including a logo.

Around this time, Jobs has begun to build his relationship with his daughter, Lisa, who is about 7.

Jobs finishes his sell-off of Apple stock.

Jobs buys Pixar out of Lucasfilm's computer graphics group for a discounted price of $10m—$5m of which will be used for operations—so that Lucas could finance his divorce without selling Star Wars stock. Jobs is quoted as saying, "If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt I would have bought the company."

1987
Ross Perot saw Jobs on TV, called him, and offered to be an investor. Jobs waited a week to play it cool. Perot gained 16% share of NeXT by investing $20m.

Jobs, sometime in his thirties, learns of his birth parents: Joanne Carole Schieble, a speech therapist, and Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian political science professor. He also finds out that they have a daughter—his birth sister—Mona Simpson, who is a novelist.

Mona, brings Jobs to a book party for her new novel, Anywhere But Here, revealing their relationship as siblings to those who attended the party. Some believe Jobs was the base from which Mona created her main character in a later book, A Regular Guy. Mona Simpson's husband, Richard Appel, was a writer for The Simpsons, and he named Marge's mother after his wife. His interactions with her, and upon learning how similar they were, impacted Steve Jobs. Steve Lohr wrote for the NY Times, "The effect of all this on Jobs seems to be a certain sense of calming fatalism—less urgency to control his immediate environment and a greater trust that life's outcomes are, to a certain degree, wired in the genes." Just years earlier, Jobs was firm on most of his character having been formed from his experiences, not his birth parents or genetics.

NeXT's robotic factory opens in Fremont, not to control labor costs but to use lasers to more accurately solder circuits for improved quality.

1988
Windows starts looking uncannily like Mac OS. Apple sues Microsoft for copying their GUI, claiming the earlier agreement to use Mac tech in Windows only extended itself only to Windows 1.0.

Jobs sells King Juan Carlos I of Spain a NeXT computer at a party, before it's even been released.

In October, the NeXT computer, nicknamed the Cube, was unveiled in a symphony hall, to show off the machine's stereo sound processing. The magnesium-cased machine had an ethernet port and inline graphics and audio in email (rare at the time), and a 17-inch black-and-white monitor. Most universities preferred color screens for workstations by this time. It also had a magnetic-optical disc that was a bit too slow and expensive. frogdesign's Esslinger works on the ID, but only on the terms that he has free reign.

The PR machine tells the press that Steve's mellowed out a bit, and gained some self awareness. One ex employee told an opposing story that ''everyone would put in their one vote. Then Steve would put in his 70 votes.''

Steve did change, though. One example is of the unusual pay scheme at NeXT. Up till the early '90s, there were only two tiers of pay, $50K and $75K, based on how early you started in the company. Pay day came once a month and the check was for the upcoming 4 weeks. Seniors who joined with NeXT were given 2% in company stock. The even handedness stood in stark contrast with the chaotic pay and reward schemes found early at Apple.

At a dinner with important representatives from universities, the major target buyers of NeXT machines, the staff neglected to prepare a vegetarian dish for Jobs. He canceled the entire entree portion of the meal for the room, leaving a room full of potential customers hungry.

1989
Apple is sued by the Beatles' Apple Corp. Steve's a big Beatles fan, once even saying his model for business is the same as that the Beatles have, the sum of the parts being greater than the individuals involved.

Apple is sued by Xerox for the GUI.

The NeXT cube starts shipping to customers. When asked about the ship date's delay, Jobs responds that the computer is still five years ahead of its time, regardless.

In 1989, the last 2700 Lisa computers would be quietly dumped in a landfill in Logan, Utah, so Apple could collect a tax writeoff.

Mac Portable comes out.

1990
About this time, Jobs meets Laurene Powell, when he speaks at a class at Stanford business school. They exchange numbers. Jobs had a business dinner that night. ''I was in the parking lot, with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman? I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town and we've been together ever since.''

1991-1992
The PowerBook comes out.

Steven Jobs and Laurene Powell are married at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, on March 18th in a ceremony held by Buddhist monk Kobin Chino. Their first child, Reed Paul Smith is born later that year, named after Reed college and Jobs' father.

Around this time, daughter Lisa starts living with Jobs and continues to through her teenage years.

1993
The Newton Message Pad comes out.

The Macintosh TV comes out.

John Scully ousted by the board in June, replaced by Apple Europe head Michael Spindler.

After selling only 50,000 of their machines, NeXT exits the hardware game, focusing solely on software. They work on porting the NeXTSTEP OS to 486 intel processors.

1994
PowerMac 6100/60 comes out.
QuickTake Camera comes out.

1995
Jobs and his best friend Larry Ellison, of Oracle, are on vacation in Hawaii and they discuss the possibility of a hostile takeover of Apple while walking on the beach. They'd arranged for $3m in financing and to have Jobs take the helm. "We came very, very close to doing it,'' Ellison says to the NY Times, ''Steve is the one who decided against it.'' ''I decided I'm not a hostile-takeover kind of guy,'' Jobs says. ''If they had asked me to come back, it might have been different.''

Pixar releases Toy Story, Job's 80% stake in Pixar is worth $600m.

Mac clones live.

Erin Seinna, second child to Steve and Laurene Powell, is born.

The Microsoft/Apple cases are finally settled; Apple loses.

1996
"I am saddened by the fact...that Microsoft...makes really third rate products," said Jobs in an interview this year.

To Fortune magazine, Jobs says, "You know, I've got a plan that could rescue Apple. I can't say any more than that its the perfect product and the perfect strategy for Apple. But no body there will listen to me."

Gil Amelio replaces Michael Spindler as CEO of Apple, and the stock soon hit a 12-year low.

Apple's aging OS needs replacement. Apple considers buying BeOS, or even licensing Windows NT from Microsoft. But instead, they look to NeXT and the NeXTSTEP OS, which directly influenced Apple's modern OS X UI, architecture and multitasking abilities, which is used in the iPhone and all Macs today.

Apple announces intent to purchase of NeXT for $430 million to pay back investors, and 1.5m in Apple shares to Jobs. Jobs would also re-enter the company as an advisor, bringing "a lot of experience and scar tissue." He's also recognized as having mellowed out in his management, as one Pixar employee describes: "After the first three words out of your mouth, he'd interrupt you and say, 'O.K., here's how I see things.' It isn't like that anymore. He listens a lot more, and he's more relaxed, more mature.'' Jobs attributed the change to an increased faith in people: "'I trust people more.''

Jobs steps back onto the Apple campus, wildly changed since he'd last been there, for the first time since 1985.

1997
"Steve is going to fuck Gil so hard his eardrums will pop," says an anonymous ex Apple employee in regards to Jobs returning to Apple, to New Yorker magazine. Sure enough, Steve Jobs is swiftly installed as interim CEO after ousting Gil Amelio.

Jobs: "The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament."

Jobs calls Dell computers boring beige boxes; Michael Dell says if he ran Apple, he'd give the share holders back their money.

Jon Ive is hired, beginning a new era of Apple design.

The 20th Anniversary Mac, with a DVD player and TV tuner comes out as Ive's first piece of work.

1998
Jobs shuts down many projects, focusing on computers at Apple.

Eve Jobs born.

The first iMac is born.

1999
Pirates of Silicon Valley, the movie, comes out. Noah Wyle plays Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall plays Bill Gates. The film opens on the set of the 1984 Super Bowl ad for the Mac.

2000
Jobs is the permanent CEO of Apple again.

PowerMac Cube comes out.

Jobs stops maintaining the Jackling House mansion he bought in 1984.

2001
First Apple retail store opens in McLean, Virginia.

iPod comes out.

OS X 10.0 comes out.

2003
Power Mac G5 comes out in familiar all-aluminum case.

Al Gore joins Apple's Board.

Jobs discovers malignant tumor in his pancreas. It's a rare form of pancreatic cancer that can be cured. He tries 9 months of alternative medicine, unsuccessfully curing the cancer.

2004
Steve has a surgery to remove a tumor in July and takes a month off to recover. In a letter to Apple employees, he wrote from the hospital on a 17-inch PowerBook, "I have some personal news that I need to share with you, and I wanted you to hear it directly from me... This weekend I underwent a successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my pancreas."

Jobs receives permission to demolish the Jackling House and rebuild a smaller home on the land. Local preservationists veto the decision.

2005
Apple announces Intel inside of Macs, long culminating project "Star Trek", which was about running OS X on x86 Intel hardware. PCs and Macs are the same, essentially, component wise. Only software and design are their differences; Jobs' awareness of design, emphasized early on in his days at Apple, and the importance of software over hardware learned at NeXT, would help guide Apple through the coming years.

Jef Raskin, father of the Mac, dies of pancreatic cancer in his home in Pacifica, CA.

Jobs turns 50.

iPod Nano, Video iPod, iPod Shuffle come out.

Jobs gives the commencement speech at Stanford, telling three stories, one about intuition and how he went to college and what he learned from it despite dropping out. One was about his love for Apple and losing the company. And the last was about death and his experience with cancer. The video and transcript are widely available online and the most personal look we have at his life during his second era at Apple.

2007
The iPhone is announced in January, then launched in June.

Apple TV comes out.

2008
Macbook Air comes out. Rumors abound about Steve looking too thin to be healthy.

Psystar announces a $400 mac clone, using Hackintosh work arounds to get OS X on a clone PC.

Jobs beings to give keynotes by sharing the stage with other Apple executives.

Gizmodo runs a rumor that Steve is sick and will step down in the Spring; the mainstream press denies it, particularly CNBC bureau chief Jim Goldman and some WSJ reporters, until January.

2009
Steve Jobs takes a health related leave of absence in January, until June. Tim Cook takes over day to day responsibilities while Jobs retains the CEO title.

Jobs receives permission to tear down Jackling house and build a smaller home on the property.

Steve Jobs receives a liver transplant in Tennessee. The NY Times raises the question of how he received a transplant so quickly and the hospital releases a statement, with Jobs' permission, that he received it quickly because he was the most sick on the list of recipients.

Steve Jobs returns to Apple in June 2009, quietly, by appearing on campus, and by being quoted in a press release.

The rest has yet to be lived, or written. We will be updating, in real time, as his Third act at Apple begins.

Presumably in response to the New York Times' speculation that Jobs' wealth and influence helped him secure a liver sooner than he might otherwise have, the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee issued a statement with Jobs's consent that denied any such thing happened.

"He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available," the hospital said. In addition, Tennessee has a much smaller waiting list than a larger state, like California, which also expedited the process.

The statement does not go into any more detail on the subject, citing a respect for Jobs's privacy, but does note that Jobs is "recovering well and has an excellent prognosis." So that should put any ugly speculation to rest.

The first and most obvious is that Woz is hurt from all those hours of dance practice. The second, and most plausible, is that Woz has installed some sort of bionic technology to improve his foot speed. The third is that he's had another right foot installed, for added coordination. All organic.

He's walking on it, so its not broken. Maybe its tendon damage or something. Dunno!

Woz, what happened, man? Are you ok? TALK TO US!

UPDATE: ABC confirms that Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles xrayed and found a fracture. BUT he'll be able to continue on the show.

[ABC Local, GEEKSUGAR]

The 17" MacBook Pro is basically a supersized 15" with an Air no battery bottom, which is at the least aesthetically pleasing. But with no battery compartment there is now no way to easily change Ram or Hard drive. So have your #00 Phillips ready.

The unibody construction makes the machine feel much more compact when picking up and overall condenses the already thin casing. It does indeed feel heavier than any other MacBook model but that's to be expected from a 17" casing. The trackpad has also been updated to the same no physical button pad found in the other MacBook models and even though the 17" MacBook Pro is bigger the trackpad has not grown.

The 17" Glossy LCD looks crisp as it did on the previous version but the new black plastic border makes colors pop just as it does on the 15" Pro and 13" MacBook. For some reason apple is only showing the regular glossy LCD model today so we can't yet report on the new anti-glare model.

Overall the new 17" MacBook Pro with unibody construction is nothing we haven't seen from the other models in the MacBook line. With the 15" MacBook Pro look and the Air's no battery bottom the new 17" MacBook pro can now stand proudly inline with its smaller siblings.

[iPhone Savior]

Steve Jobs Technological High School Center (Steve would NEVER have used that name!) is currently open, and apparently seeking applicants. Be mindful that there is a one in five chance that this is actually a horrible con, and that you'll immediately be shunted into an underground sweatshop where you'll sew exact replicas of out-of-production black turtle necks and Levi 501s. [Macenstein]

“This is Steve Jobs. You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.”

What followed was Jobs setting the record straight and spilling the beans about his health.

After agreeing to an off-the-record conversation, Jobs proceeded to tell Nocera that he didn't have cancer. All he had, what made him look thinner than usual, was something else that wasn't threatening his life. Nocera revealed this in an NYT article today, arguing that, while Jobs is not obligated by law to disclose his personal health as CEO of Apple, he should do it, for the interest of investors.

Should he really?

For sure, Steve Jobs' health is extremely important to Wall Street. After all, Jobs' unique vision is credited as the main factor of Apple's success. At least, that's the legend. A legend created by writers and analysts, who love to embellish history and make heroes (and villains) ignoring many other factors and actual history.

The truth is that, while there's no doubt that Steve Jobs is The Man, people should also look at all the facts. With any complex system, like Apple's, there are many variables that have contributed to the company's success during these years, starting with luck but, above all, the talent of the rest of the directors (Schiller, Rubinstein, Ive, to name a few) and, specially, the amazing engineers working at Apple, along with the hard work and dedication of the rest of the employees.

But let's forget about the pure facts. Let's trash any logical analysis and assume that Steve is the only guy responsible for Apple's success.

Should he disclose his health then, for the sake of the shareholders?

He doesn't have to.

His health doesn't have to be a public matter because he is perceived as the Hero who resurrected Apple. Not only because that's not entirely true, and Apple is not Steve, but "Steve + A Whole Lot More," but because private health is something that only concerns the individual and his freedom, independently of his role in companies and societies.

You don't have to go far to see clear examples of this, and how not disclosing a medical condition didn't affect the course of anything (actually, quite the contrary). Take US presidents, for example. Was FDR less of a president because he hid his medical condition from the American public? What about John F. Kennedy, who never disclosed his Addison's disease, even when asked specifically about it?

The answer is clear. FDR and JFK were in much higher positions, with much greater power, and in extremely difficult situations. Situations that would have really changed the world. Yet, they didn't disclose their medical conditions. They didn't make people lose. On the contrary, they made people win. One won a war and the other took us to the Moon. And what's more, it wasn't—and it isn't—illegal for them to hide it: It's not a crime for a president to withhold information about his or her health. In fact, it's their right not to disclose it.

So, if people with a lot more responsibility than Jobs kept their medical life secret, why should the Apple CEO disclose all the details about his, especially when these details are not about a life-threatening illness? Because of the investors? Because of a journalist who wants to tell a BIG story? Nocera argues, like some analysts, that it would be a disaster for Apple's stock and that's why people should be kept in the loop.

I disagree. And I think that anyone who values their private life, the most intimate part of themselves, their own bodies, would agree too, no matter if you are a fanboy, a hateboy, a journalist or an investor.

What's more: The fact is that I don't believe investors would leave Apple if Jobs leaves. Watching the people there now, watching how the iPhone steamrolls the competition, the iPod and iTunes and the Mac keep growing, people will stay. Probably some speculators will sell at first. After all, we are all human and have emotional reactions. But, after a while, it would be just fine. And one day, if the company as a whole fails, then the company will die. But many companies have survived the loss of CEOs as talented as Jobs. IBM didn't die. Disney didn't die. Sony didn't die.

As brilliant as Steve Jobs is, Apple will survive after he leaves. Personally, I just hope that he'll stay for as long as he wants. He's good for the industry and the world, because what Apple does keeps pushing technology forward. Hopefully he'll leave because he wants to, to live a long life, and not because of any illness.

But if he leaves because of a fatal illness, I'm positive that he'll step down and the board will elect someone else. Like they did before. That will be business as usual. Just like business was normal when he was off for cancer surgery and treatment. Nothing happened, everything worked as expected.

Until that day, Steve Jobs has the right to keep his medical records private for as long as he wants. Like FDR. Like JFK. Like any single person in this country and in the world. It's our right, as humans, to do so, as recognized by the United Nations.

And common sense. [NYT]

Our tipster Joco explains:

Microsoft has midterm contracts with the state in Hungary for "way cheaper than from the store" Campus-licences. This costs billions (in HUF, 160HUF=1USD) for the state and makes students stuck in the Microsoft-world, not knowing Linux etc.

It's not quite as violent as the Bill Gates encounter, but it still doesn't feel good. You know, when someone eggs you. Ballmer is not a house.

[Index.hu]

Editor's note: nothing to be surprised about here. Even if he was using a MacBook for his presentation, who cares? Macs run Windows just like any other PC laptop, and also PowerPoint for Mac OS X. Probably Ballmer doesn't give a damn about what computer is running his presentation, as long as it runs Microsoft's software. —JD

The futuristic device makes the touch UI revolution look like something from the era of the Flinstones. The gesture controls work by implementing a large projection screen and a "highly advanced piece of motion capture technology." What exactly is going on behind the scenes is not clear, but you can be assured I shall be going along for a hands-on waiving session soon. With tiny projectors in the making, it can't be too long before the gesture controlled iPhone comes out. Steve, that would be the best keynote, ever...you can't stop us from dreaming. [New Launches]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

The first assignment for jet packing team Giz would be CES 2008. Picture the scene; the whole squad lands right into the main hall, everyone gasps in amazement, people flock from all over, reporters would leave Steve's keynote to come and see us, Mark would launch us all into the excellent elf dance, we'd blog the bejeezus out of CES and then we'd power up our astro packs and fly right back to Giz HQ. We would probably have a race along the way, which, naturally, we would live blog for your pleasure. It would be awesome. Hey, it would beat my flight into CES—the 12-hour wait at Minneapolis airport I have to sit through is going to be a killer. If anyone is around, come and say hello. If anyone has a jetpack that will fly me from London to Las Vegas, thus negating the 12-hour wait, drop me a line.