Computer History Museum Opens New Online Exhibit Dedicated to Steve Jobs

In what is perhaps the biggest show of remembrance for him since his death, the Computer History Museum has just launched an online exhibit completely dedicated to former Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs, as many of you know, passed away back in October, a great loss for Apple and the world.

The exhibit, known as "Steve Jobs: From Garage to World's Most Valuable Company", features a plethora of photos and descriptions of objects from the museum's permanent collection. In addition to that, visitors will find vintage footage of Jobs from his younger years and Apple's humble beginnings.

One thing of particular interest in the exhibit is a 22 minute video of Jobs from 1980. In the video Jobs talks about the early days of Apple and, at one point, after citing some examples of how Apple computers were being used in agriculture and schools, Jobs confesses that he and co-founder Steve Wozniak "had absolutely no idea what people were going to do with these things when we started out. As a matter of fact, the two people it was designed for was Woz and myself because we couldn't afford to buy a computer kit on the market."

In a statement from the Computer History Museum's Senior Curator Dag Spicer, "In Jobs' own words, we hear how luck as well as skill played big roles in Apple's founding. We also see how focused, articulate and convincing Jobs could be, even at this early stage."

The story also runs through Jobs' entire life via pictures and allows visitors to see historic documents like one of the newsletters of Jobs and Wozniak's famed Homebrew Computer Club. Visitors are also able to look through confidential memorandum outlining Apple's public offering plans, as well as its original business plan for the Macintosh.

There are quite of few gems in this little collection for you to look around at, especially if reading Steve Jobs' biography didn't fully satisfy you. I highly recommend checking it out if you are a fan of Apple, Jobs himself or simply the story of what two ambitious minds can accomplish.

Source: PC World - Computer History Museum Launches Online Steve Jobs Exhibit

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Wozjob Apple 1 sells for Nearly a Quarter of a Million USD

Wiki Photo: The Hand built Apple-1

The Apple-1 computer was hand build in Steve Wozniak's parents garage. Steve Job's came up with the idea of selling it. The Apple-1 was first demonstrated in April 1976 at the HomeBrew Computer Club in Palo Alto.

Originally, the Apple 1 sold for $500 when it was sold to a reseller 1976. It was made out of wood and was billed as the first "personal computer." The retailer marked up the Apple-1 by 33% giving it a price of $666.66.

An Apple I reportedly sold for $50,000 USD at auction in 1999, with another apparently selling in 2009 for $17,500.

Fast forward to November 2010. This same Apple I (with serial number 82) sold for $178,000 ($213,600 including the 'buyer's premium') at Christie's auction house in London , making it by far the highest price paid for this model to date, at £133,250 ($210,000).

The high value of this particular example is likely due to the rare documents and packaging offered in the sale rather than the computer itself; namely (and amongst others) the original packaging (with the return label showing Steve Jobs' parents address, the original Apple Computer Inc 'headquarters' being their garage), a personally typed and signed letter from Jobs (answering technical questions about the computer) and the original invoice showing 'Steven' as the salesman.

Story Sources: EpochTimes, Wiki, Gather

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TV Could Come to iTunes

So the big question here is…would you pay $30 a month to watch TV through iTunes?

This is Apple’s most recent endeavor to further expand their world-wide utilized program iTunes. They have been pitching this new idea to a variety of TV networks during the past few weeks. The company is trying to rally support for a service that would provide a monthly subscription that would bring users a variety of TV programs via the easy to use iTunes multimedia program that over a 100 million customers already use.

Apple has said that they would like to be able to offer this service sometime early next year, but as of right now, there is no news of any programmer that has made a definite commitment to the company. It is suspected that if anyone commits to Apple the first would most likely be Disney. In the past, Disney has been ready and willing to support Apple and iTunes in their endeavors. In 2005, Disney CEO Bob Iger was the first to sell their programming via a la carte downloads through iTunes. Also, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder in Disney stock.

Now there are several reasons as to why this may be difficult for Apple to work out. Different cable networks are not going to want to jeopardize their relationships and subscription fees with cable providers such as Comcast. Programmers are also afraid that the iTunes TV subscription could affect the advertising revenue. Even if iTunes didn’t offer TV programs until after their initial air date, there is still the risk that ratings would drop.

Past these factors, I’m sure that Apple is looking at how TV and movies over the Web is definitely on the rise. Netflix already offers a service with streaming movies and TV shows while also continuing disc-by-mail subscription service. iTunes and Amazon offer movie rental services, and YouTube is attempting to start up the same thing. Hulu is also trying to work out the details of a paid service that would offer rentals, downloads, or subscriptions.

So when considering all the facts, what Apple is trying to do is simply keep up with the times. TV and movies over the Web is a growing field that I would be shocked if Apple does not become involved with in the very near future. The question of the matter is…how quickly can they get the service set up and will it really take off like Apple believes? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, and for now we’ll have to depend on our other sources to watch our favorite shows.

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Steve Jobs Back At Apple

At the start of Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" event today, a standing ovation was given to the pioneer and father of Apple, Steve Jobs. Back in 2004, Jobs announced to his staff at Apple that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. Thankfully, Jobs was not seriously ill from it and continued working though signs if his illness were visible in his speeches and keynotes. In January 2009, Jobs alerted his staff that he had a physical ailment which didn't allow the his body to process hormones. Jobs learned that his problem was more complex than originally thought and decided to take a 5 month leave from Apple, feeling that his ailment was a distraction not only to him and his family but to the staff of Apple as well.

Jobs placed Tim Cook in charge of Apple in his absence as he had done in 2004. Although Jobs was not acting CEO, he still had involvement in major strategic decisions with Apple and it's products. In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee. Jobs received the liver from a young man in his 20's who was killed in a car accident. The young man had been an organ donor and, according to Jobs, his liver is what saved Jobs' life.

At Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" event, Jobs took a moment to thank everyone for their support and to thank the generosity of the young organ donor. Jobs then went on to encourage everybody there to be as generous as the young man and become organ donors. Jobs informed the crowd that he was "vertical" now and that he is happy to be back at Apple and loving every minuet of it. Jobs also discussed that he was already hard at work creating some "incredible new products" for the future. It is good to see that Steve Jobs is doing well and that he is already back on his feet and working hard at Apple. Watch the video of Steve Jobs' return below.

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Apple First Quater Results Turned In for 2009

Apple has announced their financial results for the fiscal 2009 first quater which ended on December 27, 2008. With these results Apple posted a record revenue of $10.17 billion and a record of$1.61 billion in net quarterly profit which comes out to $1.76 per diluted share. According to Apple these results match up against last years $9.6 billion in revenue and $1.58 billion in net quarterly profit, or $1.76 per diluted share. This years gross margain was 34.7 percent, equal to last years and International accounted for 46 percent of annual revenue.

Apple recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for the iPhone and the Apple t.v. over their economic lives in accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP. The corresponding non-GAAP measures for this quater $11.8 billion of Adjusted Sales and $2.3 billion of Adjusted Net Income due to Apple adjusting GAAP salesproduct costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting.

Representing 9 percent unit growth over the year-ago quater is the fact that Apple sold 2,524,000 Macintosh computers during the quater. Apple also sold a record 22,727,000 iPods during the quater which represented a 3 percent unit growth over the year-ago quater. And representing 88 percent of unit growth over the year-ago quater was the iPhone which sold 4,363,000 units.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated, "Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history, surpassing 10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever." Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer also had this to say, "Our outstanding results genertated $3.6 billion in cash during the quater. Looking ahead to the second fiscal quater of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of $7.6 billion to $8 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of $0.90 to $1.00."

Apple seems to be doing very well for themselves reporting record statistics. With the new year starting, a new President taking office, and Steve Jobs temporarily stepping down we can only speculate at what will happen next for Apple

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