Report: Steve Jobs Focusing Full Attention on Apple Tablet

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steve-jobs-parking
Now that he's back at work full time, Steve Jobs is focusing 100% on the upcoming tablet. He's also up to his old trick of parking in handicapped spaces. This picture was snapped a couple of weeks ago, on August 11, 2009, by Nicholas Brown, who has removed the original from his Flickr stream. There's a copy here though: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12905355@N05/3814193390/in/photostream/

Now that he’s back at work full-time, Steve Jobs is focusing his full attention on the Apple tablet, the Wall Street Journal reports. And he’s kickin ass!

“Mr. Jobs’s focus on the tablet has been jarring for some Apple employees, who had grown accustomed to a level of freedom over strategy and products while the CEO was on leave, said a person familiar with the matter. “People have had to readjust” to Mr. Jobs being back, this person said.”

This is excellent news. Nothing is better for Apple products than Jobs throwing a fit over them. It’s such an important part of the cooking process.

Also important is the ritual killing of the project during the development process. Almost every major project at Apple has been killed before it was started over, from the iMac to Apple’s retail stores. Killing a project and starting over is Jobs’s MO. The Journal says Jobs has already killed the tablet twice. The first time because the battery life was too short, and the second time because “there was insufficient memory,” the Journal says. (This last one’s a puzzler. Presumably it refers to solid-state memory (SSD hard drives), which until recently have been pricey. Perhaps earlier prototypes used SSD drives that were too small and crippled the device?)

Though the Journal report uncovers few new details, it does say that Jobs is currently working on the tablet’s advertising and marketing — which suggests the tablet’s launch is imminent. The Journal has no time line though: “The people familiar with the matter declined to give details on the tablet or disclose when the device would come out.

Also, it’s stating the obvious, but the Journal notes that Jobs’s focus on the tablet is a clear sign of its importance. Although Apple has released several important pieces of hardware recently, the last product to get Jobs’s full attention was the prototype iPhone back in 2006/2007.

The report doesn’t detail what OS the device will run, which is perhaps the key unanswered question. Nor does it name the price: It’s somewhere between $399 and $999, the Journal helpfully reports.

Jobs is also recovering well from his liver transplant, the Journal says. “People close to Apple said Mr. Jobs is still thin as he recovers from the liver transplant, but his health has improved significantly.”

Good news all round.

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