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.

During the Law Seminars International event in Seattle on Tuesday, Trilogy Partners chairman John Stanton said he spoke frequently with Steve Jobs about Jobs’s dream to create a wireless network owned and operated by Apple. “He wanted to replace carriers,” Stanton explained. “He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision,” Stanton added, noting that he worked with Steve Jobs from 2005 through 2007. Jobs originally wanted to take advantage of unlicensed spectrum that Wi-Fi networks use, although it is unclear how advanced his plans or intentions for such a project were. Jobs reportedly nixed the idea in 2007 and, four years later, the iPhone is now available on three major U.S. wireless carriers and one regional carrier. IDG, which first reported the story, said Stanton was the former head of Voicestream before it became T-Mobile, and he also worked for McCaw Cellular, which later became AT&T.

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During a memorial service for Steve Jobs that took place on October 16th, his sister Mona Simpson delivered a touching eulogy that was published in today’s New York Times. Follow the link below to read it in its entirety.

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Apple has been planning to redesign the television since 2007 and when it finally launches the new set, it will replace the age-old remote control with Siri voice commands, The New York Times reported on Thursday. A recent quote from Steve Jobs’s biography — “I finally cracked it” —  began circulating recently and, for many, it seemed to solidify rumors that Apple was going to enter the television market. The New York Times believes that quote was actually in reference to Jobs’s realization that Siri could be used to control a TV much better than a remote or a combination of a mouse and keyboard. You might be able to say “Play Arrested Development,” or “turn on the weather” from the comfort of your couch, for example. “Absolutely, it is a guaranteed product for Apple,” one source told the The New York Times. “Steve thinks the industry is totally broken.” Apple is reportedly waiting for the price of displays to fall before it introduces the product to consumers, but an official announcement could come as soon as late-2012.

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Steve Jobs’s biography, written by Walter Isaacson and due on store shelves on Monday, has a passage that suggests Apple has a TV up its sleeves. The Washington Post published a small excerpt on Friday that reveals a conversation Jobs had with Isaacson in which he says he has already created a product that could change the television industry much like the iPhone changed the mobile landscape and the iPod re-sculpted the music industry. “He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson said in the book. Here’s an excerpt:

“I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” he told me. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.” No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. “It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”

Rumors that Apple has plans to enter the TV market have swirled for years now. In March, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said checks in Asia suggested that Apple was already working on a smart TV. Earlier this summer, another rumor started by a former Apple employee said customers will soon be able to walk into an Apple Store and leave with an Apple-branded TV.

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Apple co-Founder and former chief executive Steve Jobs vowed to devote his life and all of Apple’s cash to destroying Google’s Android operating system, which he believed to be an outright ripoff of Apple’s iPhone platform. Pulling quotes from an advance copy of Steve Jobs’s authorized biography by Walter Isaacson, The Associated Press reports that Jobs was furious in January 2010 when HTC launched a phone that appeared to copy many key features from the iPhone. Read on for more.

“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 Isaacson’s book. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Jobs would later meet with Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt to discuss settling the lawsuit. That meeting, according to the book, did not go well. ”I don’t want your money,” Jobs is said to have told Schmidt. “If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.”

Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook has made clear his intention to continue running Apple as Jobs did, and it appears a major part of his legacy is the fight against Google’s actions with Android, which Jabs said amount to “grand theft.”

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As Apple holds a memorial on Wednesday at its Cupertino, California campus to honor the life of co-Founder Steve Jobs, the company will close its U.S. retail stores for at least an hour. Employees of several Apple Stores were informed of the closures at a private company event or by phone, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The exact duration of the closures is unknown, however one employee told the paper they could last up to three hours. Apple Store employees noted that closings of this kind typically only happen ahead of product launches. Steve Jobs’s funeral was held on October 7th, and a larger memorial event for friends, family, Apple employees and industry executives took place this past Sunday. Tomorrow’s event in Cupertino is for Apple employees only.

Apple customers are just now getting the iPhone 4S into their hands, however, the company’s highly anticipated (and rumored) iPhone 5 may hit the market sooner than later. According to report from 9to5 Mac, Apple is on schedule to ship the iPhone 5 in the summer of 2012. Why didn’t Apple release it earlier, as rumored? CNET said in a recent story that Steve Jobs was heading up the iPhone 5 project, which was met with delays in February, while the iPhone 4S was developed by another team. The iPhone 5 production delays would have made a holiday deadline impossible. As such, Apple was forced to make the final decision to hold the iPhone 5 until kinks in the production line were ironed out. The iPhone 4S team moved forward and released the phone on schedule and in time for the holidays. Rumors still suggest the iPhone 5 will be thinner, lighter and will have a teardrop form factor.

Read [CNET] Read [9to5 Mac]

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Monday that Apple will hold a special event on October 19th at 10:00 a.m. PST in the Apple’s outdoor amphitheater to celebrate the life of Apple co-Founder Steve Jobs. “Although many of our hearts are still heavy, we are planning a celebration of his life for Apple employees to take time to remember the incredible things Steve achieved in his life and the many ways he made our world a better place,” Cook said in a letter. The event is open to all Apple employees and Cook said more information will be made available through the company’s internal AppleWeb system. Steve Jobs passed away on October 5th from complications related to pancreatic cancer. Read on for the full letter from Tim Cook.

Team,

Like many of you, I have experienced the saddest days of my lifetime and shed many tears during the past week. But I’ve found some comfort in the extraordinary number of tributes and condolences from people all over the world who were touched by Steve and his genius. And I’ve found comfort in both telling and listening to stories about Steve.

Although many of our hearts are still heavy, we are planning a celebration of his life for Apple employees to take time to remember the incredible things Steve achieved in his life and the many ways he made our world a better place. The celebration will be held on Wednesday, October 19, at 10am in the outdoor amphitheater on the Infinite Loop campus. We’ll have more details on AppleWeb closer to the date, including arrangements for employees outside of Cupertino.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Tim

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