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Read that again with this in mind: These are the words from a man who has been near death at least two times in a very short period of time. A man who had to survive a traumatic transplant, with one foot in the grave. And yet, he doesn't close his letter saying "Thank you for your support" or some other generic phrase. The last message is to declare his true love.

It's very simple: What CEO in this world, facing the dramatic consequences of cancer and a scarring transplant, would end a letter declaring the love for his company in such a candid, absolute way?

None. Unless they have created that company from scratch and dedicate an entire life to it, nobody would.

With that in mind, investors, fanboys, journohacks, readers: Who cares who Apple's CEO could be? Have this clear in your mind: Nobody, absolutely nobody in the company or outside of it would be able to fill Steve's shoes. Not even Ive or Cook. They don't have the deep emotional link that Steve has. I doubt he even knows where he ends and the company starts.

This is not a matter of fanboyism. This is not a matter of making a god out of the man. No. It's just that nobody would be able to dedicate himself in flesh and soul to Apple in the same way that Steve Jobs does. Because he is in love with the company. The company is his kid. The company is himself at a very deep level. Not only because of his role in the decision making process—which is huge—but because it actually embodies his life. His birth, exile, and return. His ideas and his dreams. His glories and miseries, absolute successes and total failures. No matter how they try to stage it and pretend that everything would be fine, it will not be fine.

Apple will not be fine if he doesn't return. It will be OK for a few years, sure. The managers are good. The engineers are great. And I'm sure a new CEO would be very good too. But, if he doesn't return, they are bound to become a Sony in the long term. Because he is the force that makes the whole thing tick. Out of pure love for the company he made. [via Gizmodo]

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

We will update you once more information comes-in, stay tuned.

In case you are a Twitter user and Apple fan, you should be following @ceoSteveJobs parody account. The person behind the @ceoSteveJobs Twitter account contacted TechCrunch to let them know that Apple is requesting changes to be made to his Twitter account, citing requirements of a recently-passed California bill that criminalizes certain online impersonations.


The person behind this says that he has received a vaild report claiming that the account is in violation of the Twitter parody policy. This person included parody in his Twitter describtion to prevent further reports but Twitter asked him to add something like “Fake” or “Not” to his username to be in accordance with policy.

@ceoSteveJobs currently have about 270,000 followers (huge, eh?) and it's the most followed parody account on Twitter. Most of people think he is really is Steve Jobs because they don't read it's bio. If the changes are not made, Twitter will remove the account. Why? Let the time judge !

Here comes another one of Steve Job's emails! The news comes from an unnamed MacRumors reader that reports that the reader has contacted Steve Job about MobileMe.


The reader asked:

Q: I love my iPad and iPhone4 and am a huge fan of yours and all that Apple does. I desperately want to stay inside of Apple’e ecosystem as much as possible.

However, MobileMe is making it very difficult for me to do so. Unreliable/unpredictable syncing, creating duplicate entries (sometimes scores of them), etc. It’s almost unusable.

And I know from forums (including Apple’s own support boards) that I am not the only one experiencing these very real and frustrating problems.

Please tell me it will get better, and soon?

Our lovely Jobs said:

A: Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

Sent from my iPhone

Could this possibly mean new features in MobileMe? Could this possibly be a new style and touch to the new MobileMe in 2011? Let's wait and see. [via RazorianFly]

According to MacRumors, one of the readers emailed Steve Jobs if Apple was ever going to enable Airplay to stream videos from third party apps and Safari Pages. Surprisingly, Steve Jobs replied back!

Q: Hi, I recently updated both my iPhone 4 and iPad to 4.2. I think my favourite feature is airplay. This is seriously amazing and makes sharing content seamless. I just purchased Apple TV and was wondering are you ever going to make airplay video work for videos in safari and 3rd party apps? I hope to get a response. :)

A: Yep, hope to add these features to Airplay in 2011.

Airplay is the technology introduced in iOS 42 that lets users stream content from their iOS devices with iOS 4.2.1 to an Apple TV. Currently, Airplay can only be functional on Youtube, photos, and video apps that were part of the iOS but it has been extended to all apps thanks to AirVideoEnabler. It is assumed that Steve will be improving upon AirPlay in the new future.

Even though Airplay doesn't support third party apps, jailbroken device can stream content to other iOS devices or from iTunes if they are on the same network.