The announcement was made at about 4pm Pacific time in a statement from Apple following a letter from Jobs, who said: “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.” He added: “I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as chairman of the board, director and Apple employee. As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple. “I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role. I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

In a statement on Wednesday night, Apple said that it had appointed Cook, who was recruited to the company by Jobs in 1998, and had elected Jobs chairman of the board.

Apple’s shares fell by 7% in after-hours trading, as market digested the impact of Apple losing its charismatic leader, who had led it back from near-bankruptcy after rejoining in 1996 to become the world’s most valuable company by market value earlier in August.

“Steve Jobs is not your typical CEO. He is both a visionary from a technology industry perspective as well as a micro-manager,” said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman and Renshaw. “To say that he is instrumental or key in the turnaround of Apple’s fortunes would be a gross understatement.”

Source: The Guardian

Support for the devices – which was announced in April – in Flash Builder 4.5.1 allows developers to create apps for a variety of popular devices and platforms without needing to recode large amounts of the software.

“The reaction from developers to the new mobile capabilities in Flash Builder 4.5 and the Flex 4.5 framework has been absolutely fantastic,” Ed Rowe, vice president of developer tooling at Adobe, said in a statement on Monday. “They are amazed by how easy it is to create great mobile apps for Android devices, BlackBerry PlayBook, iPhone and iPad.”

Support for building apps for Android devices has been present since the release of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 in April. The platform also allows the creation of web and desktop apps, as well as mobile. Apps created using the tools can then be distributed directly via the Android Market, Apple App Store and BlackBerry App World.

Adobe Flash Builder 4.5.1 can be downloaded as a stand-alone product or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium or Master Collections.

Source: ZDNet

As of last month, Microsoft’s latest Operating System has more than doubled its market share over 2010 and now sits on many more computers than its predecessor Vista, which holds only 12.11%, according to stats from Net Applications.

Long-standing favourite XP still has hold of 56.72% computers, however.

Overall, 90.29% of computers run a Windows OS around the world, down from 92% at the beginning of 2010.

Mac OS slid, from 5.16% in January 2010 to 5.02% last month, but Apple’s iOS – found on iPads and iPhones – gained from 0.59% to 1.69%, led by strong growth by the iPad.

Rival Android also had a strong year, growing from a 0.06% share at the start of the year to finish with 0.4% of all browsing devices.

Source: PC Pro

Apple says it will however continue to support the hardware, including warranties and customer service.

Close watchers of the company shouldn’t be too surprised about the sudden axing of the Xserve. Apple hadn’t updated the hardware since April 2009, which is a long time between updates for a company that keeps its hardware on a 9-month to a year update cycle.

In its place, Apple is offering a substitute. The Mac Pro will now come in a server edition, starting at $2,999. It comes with a 2.8 gigahertz quad-core Intel Xeon processor, but can be configured with up to two 2.93 gigahertz six-core Xeon processors, and up to 32GB of memory. It also has four hard drive bays, and will come with Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard.

Apple has made moves recently that show it is positioning itself to grow its small share of enterprise computing. According to IDC, Apple had 3.6 percent of all commercial computer sales during the third quarter of this year.

Apple has been pushing the iPhone and iPad as enterprise devices, and recently signed up contractor Unisys to sell its hardware to large companies and government agencies.

Source: CNET

The 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet, which is designed to surf the Web, play video and games, and read digital books, is the most anticipated product launch from Apple since the iPhone in 2007.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad in late January, but the company did not announce any international markets until Friday, when it said the tablet will go on sale in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Apple shares rose 3.1 percent in early trading on the Nasdaq to $217.20, an all-time high for the stock.

Apple is seeking to tap an unproven market for tablet computers. The iPad, while admired for its sleek design, will have to compete for consumer attention with a myriad of more established device categories, including smartphones, netbooks and dedicated e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle.

The U.S. launch date for the iPad model with short-range Wi-Fi wireless links, starting at a price tag of $499 (332 pounds), is slightly later than the previously expected late March launch. Customers looking for versions of the iPad with third-generation (3G) high-speed cellular data links will have to wait until late April, said Apple.

Apple’s iPhone app review process is inadequate to stop malicious apps from getting distributed to millions of users, according to Nicolas Seriot, a software engineer and scientific collaborator at the Swiss University of Applied Sciences (HEIG-VD).

Once they are downloaded, iPhone apps have unfettered access to a wide range of privacy-invasive information about the user’s device, location, activities, interests and friends, he said in an interview on Tuesday.

In a talk scheduled for Wednesday at the Black Hat DC security conference, Seriot will explain how an innocent-looking app could be designed to harvest personal data and send it to a remote server without the user knowing it.

Source: ZDNet

On the Apple site, the company revealed the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad will be available in the UK from March. The more expensive 3G version will follow in April.

In the US, Apple has struck a deal with mobile operator AT&T to provide two monthly data plans for the 3G iPad. While UK operators have expressed interest in the device, none have committed to carrying it at the moment.

Source: ZDNet News

On Wednesday, Apple chief Steve Jobs went on stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to introduce the device, which handles e-books and email, as well as images, music, video, games and web browsing.

In his presentation, Jobs described the iPad as “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smartphone”. He also derided the netbook phenomenon, saying the cheap mini-laptops “aren’t better than anything”.

Closely resembling a larger iPhone, the device is fully compatible with existing iPhone applications and is based on Apple’s own custom ARM-based processor, the A4, which runs at 1GHz.

The iPad has a high-definition, 9.7-inch in-plane switching (IPS) LCD touchscreen, which allows for a 178-degree viewing angle – wider than rival screen types – and has 1024×768 pixels resolution. It also supports multitouch input, and optional extras include a keyboard dock.

Two types of iPad will be available: one with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, and one with just Wi-Fi, Jobs said. The Wi-Fi-only model will ship globally in two months’ time. In the US, its price will range from $499 (£309) to $699, depending on the storage capacity, which ranges from 16GB to 64GB. Versions with added 3G will cost an extra $130 and will ship in 90 days’ time, Jobs said.

“We want to put this in the hands of lots of people,” Jobs said, referring to the pricing for the device.

For the launch, Apple has made a number of partnership deals for content applications. It has drafted in media firms who have created newspaper and magazine apps that can run in-page videos on their virtual pages for the iPad.

The device is also an e-reader, through a new application called iBooks. A new iBookstore lets users download e-books to their iPad, in much the same way as Amazon customers can do with the Kindle Reading Device.

In addition, Apple has introduced a version of its iWork productivity suite tailored to the iPad. Users can create presentations, spreadsheets and documents using a redesigned, gesture-based user interface.

So the iPad can be used for personal information management, virtual painting and for mapping services.

Source: ZDNet News