Bits & Pieces

Featuring none other than Steve Jobs.

The winner of the $10,000 iTunes gift card (received for downloading the 10 Billions song from iTunes) got a personal call from Steve Jobs. The winner didn’t believe it, at first.

When Steve Jobs personally called Woodstock, Georgia native Louie Sulcer to tell him he’d won Apple’s iTunes Store 10 Billion Song Sold contest, Sulcer first thought was that he was being pranked. “He called me and said, ‘This is Steve Jobs from Apple.’ I said, ‘Yeah right,’ ” Sulcer tells Rolling Stone.

That’s billion with a “b.” Today, around 4:30 pm, Apple sold its 10 billionth song from its iTunes store. As Steve Jobs would say, amazing. Whoever downloaded that song won a $10,000 iTunes gift certificate.

It wasn’t me.

Oh, and happy birthday Steve.

(from Hoggworks Studios)

This will be the most important thing I’ve ever done.

–Steve Jobs, speaking about the rumored tablet as reported by Michael Arrington.

And, speaking of Apple, there is a rumor circulating that it will announce the end of AT&T exclusivity for the iPhone on Wednesday.

Steve Jobs is famous for his ability to give presentations of new Apple products. He is so good he is often considered to deploy what is called a “reality distortion field” that can convince anyone near him to believe anything he says.  Gallo Communications explains how he does it.

Update: Fake Steve Jobs is not at all pleased by this.

The Harvard Business Review has just published a list of the top 100 CEOs in the world, based on their full tenures (or through September, 2009 if they are still CEOs). Who is number 1? Bet you’re not surprised to learn it is Steve Jobs.

Michael Arrington has a great essay up highlighting the enormous impact that Steve Jobs has had on multiple industries since his return to Apple in 1997.

Fortune recently named Steve Jobs the CEO of the Decade, and with good reason. Not only has Apple performed financially – it’s worth about as much as Google, and has a larger market cap than AT&T, HP, Intel, Dell and countless other huge tech companies.

But forget all that. What would our world look like without him? We’d likely still be in mobile phone hell. Chances are we still wouldn’t have a decent browsing experience on the phone, and we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying third party apps like Pandora or Skype on whatever clunker the carriers handed us. Even if you use an Android, Palm Pre or newer Blackberry today, you must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom.

Fortune Magazine has named Steve Jobs CEO of the decade.  And he certainly deserves the title.

How’s this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

Sound too far-fetched to be true? Perhaps. Yet it happens to be the real-life story of Steve Jobs and his outsize impact on everything he touches.

Not really, but this is pretty cute. (via Fake Steve Jobs via iPhoneSavior)

Steve Jobs opened the Apple music event today. While sounding a bit weak and looking very thin, he nonetheless appears to be back in control.

David Carr, a New York Times columnist, writes that the real motivation for the calls for details on Steve Jobs’ health is simple voyeurism.

But last week, Mr. Jobs returned to work on a part-time basis, precisely when he said he would. Experts with only a general knowledge of his treatment suggest his prognosis is good.

That did not stop the keening on the blogs, in the news media and in the investment community that he and Apple needed to do a medical full monty to explain his conditions because they believe they are material to the company’s future and should be reported as such.

To which I, and not many others, say: Is anyone really confused about Mr. Jobs’s health status? I remain unconvinced, in part because I believe that prurience, not legitimate financial concerns, drives most people’s interest in the illness of others.

David Carr, a New York Times columnist, writes that the real motivation for the calls for details on Steve Jobs’ health is simple voyeurism.
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But last week, Mr. Jobs returned to work on a part-time basis, precisely when he said he would. Experts with only a general knowledge of his treatment suggest his prognosis is good.
\

\
That did not stop the keening on the blogs, in the news media and in the investment community that he and Apple needed to do a medical full monty to explain his conditions because they believe they are material to the company\’92s future and should be reported as such.
\

\
To which I, and not many others, say: Is anyone really confused about Mr. Jobs\’92s health status? I remain unconvinced, in part because I believe that prurience, not legitimate financial concerns, drives most people\’92s interest in the illness of others.