Despite Apple’s recent slide in the market, one analyst believes the company’s consistent earnings will force the stock price up to $2,000 by the end of 2015. The claim comes from independent analyst Andy M. Zaky, whose estimates over the past four years have been considerably more accurate than the average Wall Street analyst, according to Fortune. Unlike most analysts, Zaky has projected the Cupertino-company’s growth over a number of years, rather than for relevant quarters. Apple is roughly trading at 14 times its current earnings, if that trend were to continue until the fourth quarter of 2015, the company’s individual shares will have risen to $2,000, Zaky claims.

“I’m fairly confident about these numbers,” Zaky said. The analyst projects Apple will ship 55 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2013, 80 million in the first quarter of 2014 and 110 million a year later in the first quarter of 2015.

“2014 is the golden age of Apple and the peak growth year,” he said. “After 2015, growth will stall and Apple will become a mature company — at least for this era.” Zaky believes Apple will need to come up with new innovation in the years following 2015 to continue its growth and enter into another golden age.

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AllThingsD on Tuesday announced that Apple CEO Tim Cook will be the keynote speaker on the opening night of its D10 conference. It will be Cook’s first appearance at the conference. Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs spoke at the event numerous times, last appearing at the D8 conference two years ago. Cook will join the likes of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, entrepreneur Sean Parker, Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek, Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus, as well as many others who will be speaking at the event. The D10 conference will run from May 29th to May 31st at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

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Walter Isaacson, the man behind the authorized Steve Jobs biography, said while speaking at the Royal Institution on Wednesday that he disagreed with Google CEO Larry Page, and Jobs’s hatred for Android was real, Macworld reported. In an earlier interview, Page indicated that the Android, Apple feud was just “for show” and merely a way to rally the troops. The CEO mentioned how he “had a relationship with Steve” and despite his declining health at the time, Apple’s co-founder reached out to him for a casual talk. Isaacson, however, outlined why Jobs felt such “thermonuclear” anger towards Google’s “stolen product.”

Isaacson explained that Jobs believed in a closed system, where Apple controls the hardware along with the software. When Microsoft founder Bill Gates took Apple’s graphical user interface and licensed it out “promiscuously,” Jobs was livid and as a result, “Microsoft ended up being dominant.” When Jobs returned to Apple as its CEO, he again focused on a closed system, which found success with the iPod, iPhone and iPad, “but what happens? Google rips it off,” Isaacson said.

The biographer continued, “It’s almost copied verbatim by Android. And then they licence it around promiscuously. And then Android starts surpassing Apple in market share, and this totally infuriated him. It wasn’t a matter of money. He said: ‘You can’t pay me off, I’m here to destroy you.’ ”

Isaacson believes that Apple CEO Tim Cook will handle things differently than Jobs would have. “Tim Cook will settle that lawsuit,” he concluded.

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Steve Jobs famously vowed to spend his dying breath and all of Apple’s cash to destroy Google’s Android operating system. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Google CEO Larry Page said that despite Jobs’s rather public hatred, “the Android differences were actually for show.” Page claimed that, “For a lot of companies, it’s useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe that it’s better to shoot higher. You don’t want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what’s possible and how to make the world better.” The CEO shot down rumors that the two were bitter rivals, instead noting that “I had a relationship with Steve.” Despite Jobs’s ailing health at the time, Apple’s co-founder reached out to Page for a casual talk. “He was quite sick. I took it as an honor that he wanted to spend some time with me,” Page said. “I figured he wanted to spend time with his family at that point. He had a lot of interesting insights about how to run a company and that was pretty much what we discussed.”

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Glassdoor on Friday revealed its latest list of the “Top 25 Highest Rated CEOs of 2012.” Apple’s Tim Cook took the top spot with a 97% approval rating, leading Ernst & Young’s Jim Turley, Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs and Google’s Larry Page. “I think leadership is doing an amazing job,” said one Apple employee. “We have the best management team anywhere.” When Steve Jobs stepped down in August 2011, the late Apple co-founder garnered a cumulative approval rating of 97%, however Cook leads Jobs’s rating of 95% from March 2010 to March 2011. While it has been a tough year for Hewlett-Packard, the company’s new CEO Meg Whitman also made the list with an 80% approval rating, placing her in the  No. 24 spot. Glassdoor bases the list entirely on feedback from anonymous employees who were asked one question — do they approve of the way their CEO is leading the company?

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs approached CBS approximately one year ago in an attempt to secure a content deal for a streaming television service that was in development at the time. CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves publicly spoke of the negotiations once before during an earnings call late last year, and now he is quoted again after having reportedly discussed the matter on stage during a presentation at the UCLA Entertainment Symposium. ”I told Steve, ‘You know more than me about 99 percent of things but I know more about the television business,’ ” Moonves said according to Hollywood Reporter. Moonves said he denied Jobs access to CBS content for the service out of fear it might disrupt CBS’s existing revenue streams. Apple is reportedly still working on a unique streaming TV service that it intends to launch alongside an Apple-branded HDTV later this year. Some reports suggest the service may treat channels like apps, allowing users to subscribe to individual channels or groups of channels a la carte.

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Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was no stranger to legal battles involving the patent system. Apple is currently waging war on a number of Android vendors and the company’s former CEO vowed to crush Google’s mobile platform before his untimely passing last year. ”I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple boss. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” But more than a decade before the iPhone even existed, Apple was locked in patent battles with Microsoft that would end up saving the company from the brink of bankruptcy. Read on for more.

Microsoft’s 1997 investment in Apple is now a major bullet point in Apple’s history that is known the world over. As Apple struggled to stay alive, Jobs and his team managed to secure a $150 million investment that ended up helping to keep the company afloat long enough to begin a climb that would eventually see it become the most valuable company in the world.

An important piece of the story that often isn’t discussed, however, is that Jobs used the legal battles in which Apple and Microsoft were engaged at the time to convince Gates to work out a new software deal and, ultimately, to make a $150 million investment in Apple. From Walter Isaacson’s Jobs biography, as quoted by Forbes:

I called up Bill and said, “I’m going to turn this thing around.” Bill always had a soft spot for Apple. We got him into the application software business. The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. So I called him and said, “I need help.” Microsoft was walking over Apple’s patents. I said, “If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple’s not going to survive that long if we’re at war. I know that. So let’s figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

Whether you’re fan of Apple products or not, there is no denying the influence Steve Jobs had on the world. Simon Lau — a freelance Web, iPhone and iPad developer — built a tribute to Mr. Jobs using Facebook’s Timeline feature. Facebook’s Timeline replaces a user’s traditional profile page with life events, check-ins, new friends additions, photos and more, all listed in chronological order. Lau’s Timeline of Jobs, which was promptly removed by Facebook only to later be restored, features an array of photos and life events that highlight the Apple co-founder’s time on Earth. Hit the break for a video showcasing Steve Jobs’s Timeline.

[Via Gizmodo]

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In 1991, Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs was considered for a sensitive position in the Bush Administration, according to a recently released FBI dossier. The 191-page file reveals a background investigation conducted on Jobs when he was being considered for the President’s Export Council. When the Bureau spoke with individuals who knew Jobs, it received a large number of negative feedback with many saying that “Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals.” The FBI was also concerned about Jobs’s prior drug usage and estranged relationship with his daughter, Lisa, who was born out of wedlock. There were a large number of people who praised his upstanding moral character, however, and recommended him for the appointment. The material also contains previously unknown details about Jobs, such as a 1985 threat made against his life.

[Via Gawker]

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A Virgin America Airbus A320 now features the quote, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” directly beneath the cockpit in tribute to the late Steve Jobs, reports CNET. The quote is taken from Jobs’s 2005 Stanford commencement speech and was suggest by a Virgin America employee. ”The ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’ aircraft name was actually submitted as a tribute to Mr. Jobs by one of our employees in an internal plane naming competition,” said Virgin America spokesperson Abby Lunardini. Virgin has always looked to innovate the industry and it was the first airline company to offer fleet-wide Wi-Fi. It is also the only airline based in Silicon Valley, and the company likens itself to the late Apple co-founder. “The idea behind Virgin America was to reinvent the travel experience by thinking differently about design and service–we are known for the tech-forward amenities we offer onboard,” Lunardini said.

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In the upcoming book “Inside Apple,” it is explained that Steve Jobs expressed great interest in light field camera maker Lytro. The late Apple co-founder even met with the company’s CEO Ren Ng, who after finding out Jobs wanted to meet, rushed to his home to discuss product design and photography according to an “Inside Apple” passage obtained by 9to5mac. “The company’s CEO, Ren Ng, a brilliant computer scientist with a PhD from Stanford, immediately called Jobs, who picked up the phone and quickly said, ‘if you’re free this afternoon maybe we would could get together,’ ” the book reads. “Ng, who is thirty-two, hurried to Palo Alto, showed Jobs a demo of Lytro’s technology, discussed cameras and product design with him, and, at Jobs’s request, agreed to send him an email outlining three things he’d like Lytro to do with Apple.” Read on for more.

Intrigued by the technology, Jobs asked the CEO to outline three specific things that the company would want to work on with Apple. Lytro cameras can capture “all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space,” also known as “the entire light field.” Afterwards, users can edit the photo and choose which area should be the focal point of the image, with the ability to refocus it later using a special file format with an integrated viewer.

Lytro’s pictures are taken instantly, and the company claims its image capturing system is like no other. It is quite possible, theoretically, that a future iPhone could feature a high-powered Lytro sensor with built-in viewing software that could be used to refocus the image on the smartphone.

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In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple, a company that would grow into one of the most innovative and valuable in the world. With the iPhone, Apple brought smartphones into the mainstream and quickly turned into a mobile company. Soon after Google released the company’s Android operating system, which spread like wildfire, Jobs vowed to destroy Android and considered it a cheesy knockoff of his device, but a stolen product. However, Woz has taken an opposite approach and praised both operating systems. Read on for more.

Steve Wozniak still thinks Apple’s iPhone is the best overall smartphone, but he says there are ways in which Android has leapt ahead of Apple. “My primary phone is the iPhone,” said Woz. “I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do.” Woz believes that Android’s voice commands and built-in navigation system are a big advantage, and says that Android phones aren’t as simple to use as the iPhone, but not too complicated. “If you’re willing to do the work to understand it a little bit, well I hate to say it, but there’s more available in some ways,” said Woz.

Last Month, Woz showed up on Google’s campus and received the company’s latest flagship device, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, although he chooses to use the Motorola DROID RAZR instead. Apple’s co-founder believes Android’s voice commands are ahead of and more responsive than Siri’s. “I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me,” said Woz. “I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.”

While he does have his criticism, Woz still recommends the iPhone as the best choice for most users. “The people I recommend the iPhone 4S for are the ones who are already in the Mac world, because it’s so compatible, and people who are just scared of computers altogether and don’t want to use them,” said Woz. “The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here’s a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do.”

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Adam Lashinsky’s new book “Inside Apple” is expected to hit bookshelves on January 25th. The novel discusses the inner workings and secrets of Apple, including Apple University and a mysterious retreat that executives take each year. According to the book’s synopsis: “In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the ‘DRI’ (Apple’s practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).” The hardcover version of Inside Apple will cost $16.92 and a Kindle eBook edition will also be available for $12.99.

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Is Apple planning to launch the iPad 3 on Steve Jobs’s birthday next year? The idea might sound more like a conspiracy theory than a rumor but if you’re looking for an update on when Apple might be launching its iPad 3, a new report says late-February. According to Focus Taiwan, Apple’s component suppliers and manufacturing partners are hustling to build enough devices in time to get the tablet on store shelves by February 24th — Steve Jobs’s birthday. Foxconn, which is reportedly building between 9.5 million and 9.7 million units, has allegedly asked its workers to work through the Lunar New Year holiday. While anything is possible at this point, the date doesn’t quite match up with earlier rumors that suggested Apple will launch the device in March or April. The new iPad 3 is expected to offer a slightly revamped design and a high-resolution Retina Display, but Apple may have some competition right out of the gate this time around — BGR exclusively reported earlier this month that Samsung is planning to unveil a tablet with a Retina-like resolution in February.

[Via 9to5Mac]

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News emerged earlier this week that Apple had acquired Israel-based fabless chip maker Anobit for as much as $500 million. Beyond the team and flash memory technology Apple will gain from the acquisition, the company reportedly plans to use the Anobit’s facilities as a research and development center. The deal is big for Apple on several levels — Anobit’s class-leading flash memory chips are already used in the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air — but one former Apple executive believes fear was among the factors that motivated Apple to enter Israel, which is heralded by many as the “second Silicon Valley.” Read on for more.

“I think Apple is now entering Israel because of the loss of Jobs,” Eric Sirkin, a former senior director at Apple, told Israeli economic newspaper TheMarker in an interview. “Apple is afraid – it must be at the front of innovation. I believe that the company is now trying to inject innovation and Israel is part of the solution.”

Sirkin was with Apple for more than seven years in the nineties, having led a team within the company’s Macintosh unit. The executive managed the group responsible for creating FireWire technology as well as the Pippin, a low-cost computer designed to extend the Mac’s reach.

The former Apple director believes the company’s move into Israel is logical not only because of the country’s reputation as a technology hub, but also because the general mentality in the technology industry there is one that encourages innovation. ”The Israeli mentality fits with Apple thinking outside the box,” Sirkin said.

Anobit designs flash memory solutions for smartphones, tablets and other devices, and the company currently has contracts with a number of leading firms including Samsung, Intel and Hynix. Anobit’s website says that its proprietary technology “significantly improves endurance, performance and cost of flash storage products and systems.”

TheMarker notes that Apple’s acquisition of Anobit closed last Friday, and the deal is valued at between $300 million and $400 million according to the paper’s sources. Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist reported earlier that Apple spent between $400 million and $500 to acquire the fabless chip maker.