Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO

from apple.com

The biggest news of the day in the techworld is the resignation of Steve Jobs as Chief Executive Officer of Apple.  Tim Cook who has heretofore served as Chief Operating Officer has been elected as Jobs's replacement.  Don't be sad though, Apple fans. Steve will stay on with the company as its "Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee."

In his resignation letter addressed to the Apple Board of Directors and Apple Community, Jobs wrote "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come."  

The online community believes that it has something to do with his health.  Jobs filed a medical leave of absence in January this year but has made an appearance at the WWDC in June to introduce the upcoming iCloud service.  He was also present during the event to introduce the iPad2 earlier this year.  In 2004, he took a 6-month leave of absence and underwent a liver transplant.

Although the shares of the company dived by as much as 7 percent after the announcement, industry analysts believe that the company will continue to dominate the IT industry under the helm of Tim Cook who has been considered heir apparent as Apple's top man.

Under Jobs stewardship, Apple released some of the most innovative products in the industry.  These include the iconic iPod and its companion application, iTunes which revolutionize the way we listen to and buy our music; the iPhone which raised the bar on what a smartphone should be; and of course the iPad, which still in unrivaled in the tablet industry.

Many IT experts also believe that the company will go ahead with Steve's plans for the company's hardware and software projects.  The iPhone 5 is scheduled to be released next month and the next generation iPad is expected to come out in 2012.  The iCloud service and the next iteration of the iOS is also due to debut this fall.

Steve's resignation letter is available here.

iPad Orientation Lock Switch to become Mute Switch with iOS 4.2

I just finished reading an article on 9to5Mac that says that when the iPad is upgraded to iOS 4.2, the orientation lock will become a mute switch.  As the article pointed out that since the change will be done through software, there will be a way to choose one or the other, or even both.

Well, think again.

The same article carried an email exchange between a 9to5Mac reader  and Steve Jobs where the latter confirmed the reconfiguration and that the switch will not do both functions; nor there is a way to choose which function to assign to the switch.  It will just be a mute switch. Period.

If you ask me, I would rather have the orientation lock function because I use my iPad a lot for reading books with iBooks or my PDF files with GoodReader.  I like reading on the bed and it would really be a challenge to do that when the screen would keep rotating.  Perhaps it's Jobs' way of telling me not to read on bed.

Why make it a mute switch when we could just adjust the volume to zero?