Dave Caolo

A study in contrasts.

If you, the casual consumer, send an email to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, you might receive a terse but thoughtful reply.

On the other hand, if you send an email to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, you’ll probably receive a cease and desist letter.

Same planet, different worlds.

Update: AT&T has officially apologized to the recipient of the C&D threat.

Great coverage and collection of videos.

Steve Jobs:

“Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”

You must admire Apple’s eagerness to abandon the past and disdain for those who won’t. Consider their history:

• SCSI: Gone
• Floppy drives: gone [1]
• Firewire: gone from consumer machines [2]
• Flash: gone
• Hardware keyboard and mouse: gone [3]

That takes forward thinking, confidence and a lot of nerve. When your business is change, resistance from everyone else is a part of your 9-5.

[1] Sony only announced their plans to stop making floppy disks this week.

[2] Apple kept FW800 for people who need that steady bandwidth on pro machines. FW bandwidth stays constant, making it better for video. USB bursts.

[3] Not completely gone, but the writing’s on the wall.

From Stephen Fry’s interview with Steve Jobs in the current issue of Time magazine, regarding the iPad:

“One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker’s Guide that humankind has yet devised.”

If you only read one article about the iPad, make it this one. It’s absolutely tremendous.

Steve and the iPad both appeared on TV during last night’s Oscar awards. The ad (above) simply demonstrates what the iPad can do from a first-person perspective. Perfect.

You’ll remember that the first iPhone ad also aired during an Academy Awards ceremony.

When you want to attend the Oscars, and your name is Steve Jobs, someone’s able to make that happen.

The Mac, Safari and iTunes make several appearances in the new Toy Story 3 trailer from Pixar. Not surprising since Apple CEO Steve Jobs was also the CEO and owner of Pixar for 2o years (he’s now the largest individual Disney shareholder with a seat on the company’s board of directors). Macinstein has a full run-down of all the Apple cameos.

[Via TUAW]

Earlier today, Apple published a letter from Steve Jobs, announcing his medical leave of absence, effective immediately until June of this year:

“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”

This letter is a sharp contrast from the one he published through Apple only nine days ago:

“…The remedy for [my newly diagnosed] nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.”

Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear pundits and other tech writers say things like, “Steve owes me/stockholders/you an update/explanation.” That’s BS. He’s the CEO of an influential, international tech company. But Steve Jobs is not Apple and Apple is not Steve Jobs. While the market might not see this distinction right away, it will eventually.

Steve is also a human being. I wish him and his family all that they need over the next few months. Good luck, Steve. I hope we see you soon.

Phil Schiller, while delivering this week’s Macworld keynote address

“…Each and every week now, 3.4 million customers visit an Apple Store around the world. That’s 100 Macworlds each and every week going on around the world in our Apple Stores.”

Phil doesn’t wear a black shirt and blue jeans, but he’s got Steve Jobs’ penchant for the subtle jab. As I said on TUAW, Apple is at the point where they don’t need an event like Macworld Expo to get their products in front of consumers’ eyes. That’s the real reason they’ve abandoned the show.

Yesterday, Apple announced that senior VP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller will give the Keynote speech at January’s Macworld Expo instead of CEO Steve Jobs, and that they wouldn’t participate in future events. The inevitable question is, “Why?”.

I’ve listed my five best guesses at TUAW

• Finances
• Rumor control
• Scheduling
• Timing
• The health issue

You can read the full post here.