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Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said Monday that doctors may have discovered the cause of the weight loss that has caused speculation about his health, adding that he will continue to serve as the computer maker's CEO.

In a letter to the "Apple community," Jobs said the cause appears to be "a hormone imbalance that has been 'robbing' me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis."

Investors were relieved to hear that Jobs' condition is improving. Stock of Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., rose about 3% in early Monday trading.

"Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed," Jobs said in the letter.

What will future Macworld Conference & Expos be like without the presence of Apple?

Whatever you want them to be, says IDG. The company that organizes the yearly conference announced today that next week's Expo will feature a Town Hall meeting, which will be open to all attendees who want to help "shape Macworld in 2010 and beyond." The forum-style meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 7 at 5pm Pacific Time in Moscone's Gateway Ballroom (room 102).

Don't go thinking that just because Apple won't be there doesn't mean that, at least in 2010, the Expo won't go on. "While there is no question that Macworld is going to evolve and change in 2010, the fundamental importance of the event remains the same: the unique ability to put exciting new Apple-related products directly into the hands of users and to inspire those users to put their products to work in new and innovative ways," Macworld Conference & Expo president and general manager Paul Kent said in a statement sent to Ars.

"Macworld will continue to foster the deep sense of community that has been at the heart of the show for the last 25 years. As part of this commitment to the community, we look forward to sharing our thoughts and ideas for future Macworld events, as well as hearing ideas and suggestions from the community."

Two men broke into the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto early Sunday morning and made off with $10,000 in high-tech gear, police reported.

The thieves triggered an alarm at the University Avenue store at 4:11 a.m. Sunday by breaking a glass front door, police Agent Dan Ryan said. They then grabbed six laptops and two iPhones and were gone by the time police arrived just two minutes later.

"They were in and out in under a minute," said Ryan, who pegged the value of the electronics at about $10,000.

A similar burglary was reported about an hour later at an Apple store in Los Gatos, according to Ryan. Laptops and iPhones were also stolen.

Police believe the burglaries are connected. In both incidents, the suspects were a 6-foot-tall white man weighing about 250 pounds and a black man weighing about 180 pounds, Ryan said. The suspects in both burglaries wore beanies and dark-colored jackets and pants.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Friday it will start selling Apple Inc's iPhone on Sunday, but the popular cell phones that can surf the web will not be priced as low as some anticipated.

Wal-Mart plans to sell the black 8-gigabyte iPhone 3G model, which also holds about 2,000 songs, for $197. The 16-gigabyte model, in black or white, will be priced at $297. All of the phones require a new two-year service agreement from AT&T Inc or a qualified upgrade, Wal-Mart said.

The move gives Apple the chance to reach millions of Wal-Mart shoppers who may not be as familiar with the company's products.

iPhone and iPod touch users planning on attending Macworld Conference & Expo should take note of iMacworld, a new application that lets you get information about the show. It’s available for free download from the App Store.

iMacworld provides exhibitor information and product information, and also integrates a messaging service. It lets you browse exhibitor lists, looking at vendors by name, hall and aisle number. You can also check exhibited products by name, category and exhibitor.

The software checks the Web for new information about Macworld Expo exhibitors and events and saves the data locally, so you don’t need network or cell phone access to check.

It's official - AT&T sealed the deal Monday and will acquire Unicel.

It means dozens of new jobs in Vermont and that the heavily-hyped iPhone will soon be here in Vermont. The Apple iPhone is available only from AT&T and until now, Vermont did not have that service.

The company cleared the final regulatory hurdle just last week and Monday announced it will add nearly 75 new jobs.

The makers of the Modbook, Axiotrom, announced that the other co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak, has joined the company's Board of Advisors. The board consists of both sales and industry professionals, including the CEOs of Other Wold Computing and Gravis AG, and the Vice President of Business Development at Cicor Technologies. The Woz makes the eighth member of the board advising this relatively young company.

Currently, the company's sole offering is their Modbook, a modified MacBook made into a keyboardless tablet computer that fills what some see as a void in Apple's current product line. Additionally, the company offers to transform owners current MacBooks into Modbooks for a sum that starts at $1,299. The Modbook has met with some success, as it won Macworld's Best of Show in 2007.

After Ars contacted Wozniak for comment, he answered concisely, "the founder approached me and told me about it. I admired his passion and entrepreneurship."

In his place, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, will deliver the keynote on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at the Moscone West hall. That, said Apple, will be the company's last keynote at the annual trade show.

“I think its the end of Macworld Expo,” Michael Gartenberg, vice president of market research firm JupiterMedia and editor of the MobileDevicesToday blog, told Macworld. “It’s the end of an era.”

Apple at Expo: What went Wrong?
Tuesday’s news that Apple had announced that Steve Jobs wouldn’t be appearing at Macworld Expo and that the company would stop exhibiting at the show after 2009 came as a shock. I’m stunned that Apple has taken a 25-year-old event that has been the single best meeting place for the entire community of users and vendors of Apple-related products and treated it like a piece of garbage stuck to the bottom of its shoe. But I’m not really surprised: Apple has been leading up to this moment for a long time now.

Apple Expo Paris Cancelled
Reed Exhibitions will not hold Apple Expo Paris in 2009. The show organizers confirmed its plans for Macworld on Wednesday.

Apple has slowly been moving away from the Paris expo for the last several years. In 2005 Apple cancelled Steve Jobs’ keynote in Paris, although Apple, and Jobs, still attended the show. That was Jobs’ first appearance in Paris since undergoing pancreatic cancer in August 2004.

In 2008, Apple said it would not participate in the Paris expo at all, saying they were participating in fewer trade shows.

Yesterday, the makers of MacHEADS the movie sent out an e-mail announcement that the movie would be premiering at Moscone North hall on January 7 during Expo week. The special screening will be limited to Macworld Expo attendees only. The film is debuting almost a full year after the film's first preview, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Ars will have at least one lucky victim reporter there to let you know exactly how scary it is.

But that's not all! The Welcome to Macintosh documentary—which we recently wrote about due to its impending DVD release—will also be shown during Expo week at Sundance Cinemas Kabuki. This film screening will take place just one day after MacHEADS on January 8 at 7 PM, and as a special treat, the directors will be there to field questions after the film. This one isn't free for attendees, however—if you're interested in going, grab your $10 tickets via Brown Paper Tickets, and do so quickly if you want to beat out other folks as the theater space fills up.

Goldman Sachs Downgrade sends Apple Lower
Shares in Apple Inc. fell Monday after Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey downgraded the company to Neutral from a Buy. Mr. Bailey cited concerns of weakening consumer demand during the first half of 2009 that could slow sales of MacBooks, iPods, and iPhones. Mr. Bailey cut his profit estimates for 2009 to US$4.75 per share, down from $5.13 per share. He cut his target price for the stock to $115 per share, down from $125 per share, but still higher than the stock is trading currently.

The analyst also told investors that he felt Apple was no likely to introduce new products during Macworld 2009, which will be held early in January in San Francisco.

S&P Upgrades Apple to Strong Buy
Standard & Poor’s analyst Tom Smith today raised his rating on Apple (AAPL) to Strong Buy from Buy on a valuation basis, but cut his price target to $127, from $137 and trimmed estimates.

Smith cut his estimates today to reflect weaker technology spending trends: for the September 2009 fiscal year, he goes to $5.50, from $5.70, and for FY 2010 he goes to $6.75, from $7.30. But he asserts that “while most peers also face weak demand, we believe AAPL has better potential for market-share gains in PCs and smart phones.” He also notes that the company has over $24 billion in cash and investments and zero debt.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will give his usual keynote address at the MacWorld Expo next month, says the show’s general manager.

Paul Kent, VP at IDG World Expo and the general manager of the MacWorld show, set to start on Jan. 5, assured me in a phone conversation this morning that the joint announcement between IDG and Apple is due to come soon. “We haven’t made the announcement yet. We usually do this in concert with Apple…I have no reason to believe that plans are not moving ahead,” for Jobs to speak.

Update: 2:30 PM EST: Now Paul Kent is clarifying his statement. Here it is verbatim: “We haven’t made an announcement yet. We hope to in the next two weeks.” Rather than clearing the picture up, it just got muddy again.

Buzz is beginning to build that Jobs might not appear at the annual event. With only three weeks to go, Jobs is not confirmed as giving his annual keynote, and this has prompted some, including Daniel Steinberg over at O’Reilly Media to speculating that something’s up, especially in the wake of Adobe scaling back its presence at the show, and Belkin pulling out altogether. As yet the relevant page on the MacWorld Expo site mentions nothing about the Apple CEO.

Kent says despite the announcements from Adobe and Belkin, the show has more total exhibitors than in 2008, and that confirmed attendance is as about even from last year.

Engineers in the company's Live Labs have released the company's first application for Apple's popular smartphone--even before making it available on Microsoft's own mobile platform.

Seadragon Mobile, which was added to Apple's App Store on Saturday, is a free image-browsing app that allows users to quickly "deep zoom" images while online and is intended to demonstrate what is possible with a mobile platform.

Seadragon is the backbone for Microsoft's Photosynth, which allows users to take a grouping of photographs and stitch them together into a faux 3D environment.

U.S. airlines are poised to push Internet access into hundreds of planes by the end of 2009, with service available via Wi-Fi as an aircraft rises above 10,000 feet. You'll never be out of touch again, for better or for worse.

Internet access has been available as a pilot test since August on 15 of American Airlines' planes, all cross-country Boeing 767-200s. Delta is planning a fleetwide launch soon, and Air Canada plans to install service that will work while in the U.S. Meanwhile, Alaska, Southwest, and JetBlue have services in various stages of testing or planning.

With the Net everywhere, the digerati may never be able get away from being connected, even if they want to be.

For now, early reviews are positive, even if early users are hard to find.

IBM plans to depose top Apple leaders in its legal quest to stop a former executive from jumping ship to Apple, according to filings in the case. Meanwhile, the former IBM executive is appealing a court injunction barring him from working at Apple while a court sorts through the legal battle IBM is waging to keep Apple from hiring the long-time exec.

Mark Papermaster, formerly vice president of blade development, has asked an appellate court to overturn New York Federal District Judge Kenneth Karas' injunction issued November 7 that prevents him from accepting a job running Apple's iPod and iPhone product development.

Papermaster filed his appeal November 20 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and requested an expedited review, according to an IBM court memo recently filed in the case. The memo also includes a request by IBM to temporarily suspended the initial lawsuit until the appeal decision is rendered. The appeal argument is slated to be heard January 12.

Apple has released several new firmware updates aimed at solving problems with its latest batch of notebooks.

Updates are available for all three Mac notebooks released in October: the new MacBook Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Air. In usual fashion, Apple didn't provide a whole lot of detail about the issues that are corrected by the EFI firmware updates, other than to note that they "improve the stability" of those new systems.

The company also released firmware updates for the SMC (system management controller) chip inside Mac notebooks, which helps regulate power consumption among other things. Those updates "improve the sensing and accuracy of the MagSafe Power Adapter indicator light, and the battery charge indicator lights" on the new MacBook Pro and MacBook. The SMC update for the MacBook Air tackles just the MagSafe issues.

The updates should be popping up in Software Update as you read this; let us know if you have any trouble applying the updates or notice any significant changes. Owners of laptops purchased before the major redesign in October need not worry about Wednesday's firmware releases.

Look at what just showed up in my mailbox: it's a last-second offer for Macworld Conference and Expo packages! If you've been dying to go, but your wallet has been hurting lately, these discounts may help tip the scales in favor of a little bit of "economy stimulation." The MWJOY priority code will get you $200 off Platinum Passes, $100 on MacIT and Power Tools Conference passes, and 20 percent off any other conference or expo hall package.

As we pointed out just a few days ago, Adobe has pulled out from Macworld Expo '09, and Steve Jobs has yet to be named as keynote speaker. That doesn't mean things won't be as as good as ever, though. Seriously, since this is the year when the Mac mini might gets its long, long overdue upgrade, who wouldn't want to go?

In the past two weeks, customers of iTunes and Netflix's streaming digital-movie service have noticed that a growing number of titles are disappearing from the sites or are scheduled to be removed. MacWorld wrote a story last week about how one of the site's contributors noticed that of the 15 films he bookmarked for future viewing at iTunes, nine were no longer available. Among the movies that vanished were Charlie Wilson's War, Eastern Promises, and Michael Clayton.

Normally, release windows don't affect retailers or video-rental services after they've begun selling or renting films. Warner Bros. doesn't go into Best Buy and pull DVDs off the shelf when Comcast airs Casablanca. The corner Mom and Pop video store doesn't surrender copies of Gladiator to Universal Studios when the film appears on ABC. But Internet stores are being treated differently. What this means for iTunes and Netflix customers is that movies will pop in and out of the services.

Spokesmen for Netflix and Apple confirmed that they pulled titles due to these licensing requirements.

The big question many Apple and Netflix fans will have is why are Web stores being treated as if they were entertainment companies instead of merchants?

It was 40 years ago that a San Francisco stage featured the first public glimpse of an invention that would revolutionize not only our daily lives, but also our ability to solve the world's problems.

The Dec. 9, 1968, unveiling of the primitive device with a mouse and interactive screen -- in a now-legendary demonstration by its inventor, Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute -- drew a rousing, standing ovation from the computing cognoscenti who recognized the significance of what they had just seen.

The machine raised hopes of solving a major modern quandary -- how to navigate the world's rapidly accumulating and increasingly complex store of information.

That year's fledgling efforts to navigate the physical universe in spaceships seemed ponderous and slow compared with the prospect of speeding through the universe of information in the digital ships promised by the new computers.

The invention featured rudimentary windows and hyperlinks that allowed jumping from one document to another, as well as the ability to edit text and add graphics on a video monitor. The presentation offered a peek at future computer networks that would become the Internet.

"No one has ever before or since seen such a collection of great ideas in one demonstration," said Curt Carlson, SRI president and chief executive.

Microsoft Corp.'s presence at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January will be the same as in 2008, when it announced the release of Office 2008 for Mac, according to Amanda Lefebvre, the senior marketing manager for the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft.

The company's decision not to cut back from the major Apple Inc. trade show contrasts with that of several firms, which have decided to either pull out of Macworld or limit their presence there.

Neither Belkin nor Adobe is exhibiting this year, and there are reports that other companies, including Google, are scaling back.

The company also is sponsoring a blogger's lounge, which this year will be open to nonbloggers, too.

In an interview, Lefebvre said that for Microsoft, the show represented "a very unique opportunity to connect to customers."

Apple on Friday said 300 million iPhone apps have been downloaded from its App Store since it opened in July.

The news comes in the form of two ads placed in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The ads highlight some of the applications available for the iPhone, but the print on the bottom of the ads reveal some new, previously unreleased, information.

The App Store opened almost five months ago on July 11, 2008 with 500 apps available for download. As of the last earnings announcement, Apple reported 200 million downloads of its then 5,500 apps.

Since it went on sale this summer, Apple's iPhone 3G has proved a sensation, selling almost 5m handsets worldwide in just a few months and becoming the most popular mobile phone in America.

But, as the Californian company prepares to start selling the award-winning gadget in Egypt, thousands of users there will have to go without one of the gadget's star features: satellite navigation.

Thanks to strict rules on the use of GPS technology enforced by the Egyptian government, Apple is the latest company being forced to rip the ability to use satnav and mapping out of its gadget.

Last Friday, we told you about a report that some exhibitors (in addition to Adobe and Belkin) that had booths at Macworld 2008 weren't planning to have booths at Macworld 2009—a possible sign of the slow economic times. Despite this, however, IDG vice president and general manager of Macworld Expo Paul Kent told Ars that, in its 25th year, Macworld Expo 2009 will be "at least the same size as last year."

"Of course we are disappointed that two large exhibitors, Adobe and Belkin, won't have the presence they had last year," said Kent. "Every year, there is a little come and go from exhibitors as plans change, but this isn't a sign that anything is amiss. Adobe chose to participate in a full day of public presentations as opposed to having a booth."

"Despite the concerns with the economy, we're pushing forward and everything is really looking great," Kent assured us. "This really shows the strength of the Mac community."

This was a huge year for Apple.

With the launch of MacBook Air, an improved iPhone, and smashing sales in the App Store, Apple sliced through the global economic gloom of 2008 and turned in a solid year.

While there was no single triumphant product introduction, the company moved forward briskly on all fronts. It accelerated the iPhone's revolution of the smartphone industry by upgrading hardware and software and introducing the App Store. It reversed its previously poor record on environmentalism. It continued to be financially successful in an economy where blue-chip companies are failing. And it bolstered its notebook and desktop computer line, struggled with false rumors about Steve Jobs's health, fought a company looking to make Mac clones, and struggled with its MobileMe service.

It’s hard to deny the appeal of Apple. The Cupertino darling has the best brand image according to recent studies and its logo even has subliminal effects on viewers, according to one study. Some have criticized or merely analyzed the so-called "snob-effect" that comes with using Apple.

However, after years of ads attacking competitors that could easily be said to stretch the truth Apple's penchant for wild claims is finally catching up to it. Two iPhone commercials were taken off the air in the UK for false advertising, after claiming the iPhone could browse all the web (it can't) and showing it loading webpages faster than it really can.

Inspired by the UK rejections, William Gillis, a San Diego resident and disgruntled former iPhone user, has filed suit against Apple in Californian court over Apple's claims that the iPhone 3G ran "twice as fast for half the price". He says this is blatant false advertising.

Apple filed a nine-page legal response which contained a rather unusual passage, which basically equates those who believe its ads to fools.

Michael Ian Rott, Gillis's attorney points out that a company saying that you would have to be stupid to believe its ads is a rather strange tact. He says that there have been five lawsuits about the iPhone 3G's speed, which hope to gain possible class action, but his client's is the strongest, as evidenced by the fact that Apple has not filed to dismiss it, unlike the other suits.

Normally when we bestow our annual Editors’ Choice Awards—our way of honoring our favorite products from the past year—Apple dominates the proceedings. And for good reason: when it comes to the Mac market, all eyes are usually turned to Cupertino.

This year was different. When it came time to hand out awards for the hardware and software that shipped between November 1, 2007 and November 1, 2008, we bestowed only one Eddy statue on Apple—a well-deserved trophy for the iPhone 2.1 software update. While some might say that’s a reflection of what Apple did this past year—and there’s an argument to be made about that—we think it also speaks very highly of the work being done by third-party companies to help us get the most out of our Macs, iPhones, and iPods.

Follow the links below, as we fete 20 products (including the aforementioned iPhone software) that met our standards for quality, innovation, value, and usability—or some combination of those factors.

Apple removed an old item from its support site late Tuesday that urged Mac customers to use multiple antivirus utilities and now says the Mac is safe "out of the box."

"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesperson Bill Evans said. "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box," he said. "However, since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection."

Apple's previous security message in its KnowledgeBase, which serves as a tutorial for Mac users, was: "Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."

Security experts, while pleased that Apple would urge Mac users to install antivirus software, had warned that running multiple antivirus products could cause problems and recommended against it.

Apple's antivirus support note was initially published last year and was updated last month, despite reports that it was a new note.

Apple has now given developers the ability to use promo codes to give away copies of their applications on the App Store. Previously, developers had to build a special version of their application (i.e. Ad-hoc copy) that included a mobile provisioning file and the actual application. These two files were then dragged onto iTunes to install them.

With the Ad-hoc model, developers were limited to giving away 100 copies of their applications. Plus, users needed to find & supply the UDID information for their iPhone/iPod touch. With this change, developers can give away a special code that, when typed into the iTunes Store under the "Redeem" section, will give the user a free (or promotional) copy of the application.

Adobe will not be among the developers exhibiting on the show floor at next month's Macworld Conference & Expo. The company confirmed its Expo plans to Your Mac Life on Tuesday.

While Adobe won't have a booth on the show floor at the annual Mac trade show, a spokesman said it would still have a presence at the week-long event, which opens on January 5, 2009 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center.

“Adobe has decided to shift its focus at the Macworld trade show this year. While we will not be exhibiting at the show this year, we are fortunate to be aligned with a rich ecosystem of partners who will be showcasing our solutions in their booths. The Mac community is very important to us and we will continue our strong support for this platform.” the company said.

Andrew Shalat, Macworld Conference Speaker who teaches 2 classes at Expo on Adobe products says, "I don't think they need to show their stuff in a booth. It's left in the hands of us users to show their products. I think it's an economic issue."

Ed Prasek, Founder & CEO, Spin Studio, says, "It's a shame to see any developer step out of Macworld Expo, and that's especially true with a developer like Adobe. They're a staple of the Mac industry and, to a large degree, a staple of Macworld Expo ... I don't think I can remember a Macworld Expo they didn't have a big exhibit booth. However, whether Adobe has an exhibit booth at Macworld Expo 2009 or not, it's not going to affect their position in the industry or among customers. Professional and amateurs depend on products like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, and that's not going to change simply because Adobe doesn't exhibit at a tradeshow."

Nikon on Monday introduced the D3X, a new FX-format digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera with 24.5 megapixel resolution. It will be available this month for $7,999.95.

The D3X uses a CMOS sensor and a shooting speed of up to 5 frames per second. The D3X records in TIFF, JPEG or NEF (Nikon raw format) 12 or 14-bit compressed or uncompressed formats, and supports UDMA-compatible CompactFlash cards — the fastest cards available.

The D3X features an ISO range of 100 to 1600, with a startup time of 0.12 seconds and a shutter release lag time of 0.04 seconds. It also features a “Scene Recogition System” which can refine auto-exposure, auto-white balance and autofocus calculations; “3D Color Matrix Metering II;” and “Active D-Lighting,” which helps determine proper exposure and creates realistic contrast while simultaneously compensating for lost shadows and highlights.

Other features include 51-point auto focus, 15 cross-type sensors and 36 horizontal sensors that track and lock onto moving subjects.

Acclivity has announced the acquisition of MYOB US and its Mac and PC development team from MYOB Limited of Australia. Terms of the deal between the two companies were not disclosed.

Acclivity currently distributes MYOB software throughout the United States. The acquisition will allow Acclivity to manage development of MYOB's Mac business management software, including FirstEdge, AccountEdge and AccountEdgeNetwork Edition.

Current MYOB US customers, along with their Australian and New Zealand Mac customers, will continue to have access to the same products and support resources, according to Nash. "There will be no customer disruption," he said.