MacRumors

With WolframAlpha having just made a splash earlier this week for its role in the Siri personal assistant included in the forthcoming iPhone 4S, Stephen Wolfram's look back at how Steve Jobs influenced him over the course of 25 years is particularly relevant.

Wolfram, who gained fame for his development of the computational software Mathematica in the 1980s, was introduced to Jobs in 1987 when Jobs was at NeXT and Wolfram was developing his software. The two held a number of discussions, perhaps the most notable of which resulted in Jobs suggesting that the software be called Mathematica. Wolfram describes Jobs' approach to product naming:

I’d actually considered that name, but rejected it. I asked Steve why he thought it was good, and he told me his theory for a name was to start from the generic term for something, then romanticize it. His favorite example at the time was Sony’s Trinitron. Well, it went back and forth for a while. But in the end I agreed that, yes, Mathematica was a good name. And so it has been now for nearly 24 years.

But Jobs' contributions went well beyond the software's name, extending to a number of suggestions to improve its usability.

As Mathematica was being developed, we showed it to Steve Jobs quite often. He always claimed he didn’t understand the math of it (though I later learned from a good friend of mine who had known Steve in high school that Steve had definitely taken at least one calculus course). But he made all sorts of “make it simpler” suggestions about the interface and the documentation. With one slight exception, perhaps of at least curiosity interest to Mathematica aficionados: he suggested that cells in Mathematica notebook documents (now CDFs) should be indicated not by simple vertical lines—but instead by brackets with little serifs at their ends. And as it happens, that idea opened the way to thinking of hierarchies of cells, and ultimately to many features of symbolic documents.

Jobs and Wolfram continued their relationship, with Mathematica eventually being included with every NeXT computer, several of which made their way to Switzerland where Tim Berners-Lee used them to develop and launch the World Wide Web.

Wolfram goes on to discuss several other interactions with Jobs, including the dating advice Wolfram offered to Jobs after he met his future wife Laurene and the advice Wolfram received from Jobs questioning why Wolfram would include quotes from high-profile sources on the back cover of a book he was writing.

At the time, all sorts of people were telling me that I needed to put quotes on the back cover of the book. So I asked Steve Jobs if he’d give me one. Various questions came back. But eventually Steve said, “Isaac Newton didn’t have back-cover quotes; why do you want them?” And that’s how, at the last minute, the back cover of A New Kind of Science ended up with just a simple and elegant array of pictures.

Wolfram's summary of Jobs offers a similar take to that of others who have shared their perspectives on Jobs' life, citing his "clarity of thought" and willingness to take bold steps.

To me, Steve Jobs stands out most for his clarity of thought. Over and over again he took complex situations, understood their essence, and used that understanding to make a bold definitive move, often in a completely unexpected direction.

Steve Jobs died yesterday at the age of 56, and we've been collecting condolences and remembrances in our main article on his passing.

Time Magazine has cancelled its previously scheduled print run this week in order to put together a retrospective issue on Steve Jobs. In it, Walter Isaacson -- Steve Jobs' biographer -- writes a preview of what's to come, via Fortune.

In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from him. He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I'd worked. But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn't heard from him much. We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado. He'd be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted, instead, to take a walk so we could talk.

That seemed a bit odd. I didn't yet know that taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation. It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him. I had recently published one on Benjamin Franklin and was writing one about Albert Einstein, and my initial reaction was to wonder, half jokingly, whether he saw himself as the natural successor in that sequence. Because I assumed that he was still in the middle of an oscillating career that had many more ups and downs left, I demurred. Not now, I said. Maybe in a decade or two, when you retire.

But I later realized that he had called me just before he was going to be operated on for cancer for the first time. As I watched him battle that disease, with an awesome intensity combined with an astonishing emotional romanticism, I came to find him deeply compelling, and I realized how much his personality was ingrained in the products he created. His passions, demons, desires, artistry, devilry and obsession for control were integrally connected to his approach to business, so I decided to try to write his tale as a case study in creativity.

The release date of the book has been moved up twice, and is now October 24th. After Jobs resigned as CEO in August, he knew the end was near. The WSJ reports that Isaacson's last interview was roughly four weeks ago, and "Jobs indicated at that time that he knew he was going to die soon."

9to5Mac has another touching excerpt from Isaacson's Time Magazine essay, which will hit newsstands tomorrow, that reiterates the love Steve Jobs had for his family, especially his children:

A few weeks ago, I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant. We talked about his childhood, and he gave me some pictures of his father and family to use in my biography. As a writer, I was used to being detached, but I was hit by a wave of sadness as I tried to say goodbye. In order to mask my emotion, I asked the one question that was still puzzling me: Why had he been so eager, during close to 50 interviews and conversations over the course of two years, to open up so much for a book when he was usually so private? “I wanted my kids to know me,” he said. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson will be released on October 24th. It is available via preorder from Amazon/Kindle, the iBookstore, and elsewhere.

With the death of Steve Jobs, a number of observers have addressed concerns over the future of Apple by noting that the company's roadmap is almost certainly already set for the next several years, and Jobs would obviously have played a key role in setting those plans in motion.

And while it should not come as a surprise, Jobs is said to have been playing a key role directing development of not only the iPhone 4S set to debut next week, but also the next-generation iPhone. Word of Jobs' involvement comes from Masayoshi Son, president of Japanese carrier Softbank, who noted to Reuters that "even after [Jobs'] death the work that he spearheaded will come out to the world".

Following yesterday's sad news regarding the death of Steve Jobs, AllThingsD reports that Simon & Schuster has bumped up the release of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs to October 24th. The book had previously been scheduled to be released on November 21st.

The book, which was fully authorized by Steve Jobs and is based on over 40 interviews with Jobs and interviews with over 100 of his friends and family members, was already of strong interest to Apple fans and has seen a massive increase in demand since yesterday, registering as the #1 selling book at Amazon with a sales gain on the order of 40,000% over the past 24 hours.

The book, which was still being updated in late August to reflect Jobs' resignation as Apple's CEO, will include full details on his life. The Wall Street Journal reports that Isaacson last interviewed Jobs four weeks ago, at which time Jobs knew that he would die soon. The final interview will be included as a scene at the end of the book.

Steve Jobs clearly had a significant impact on people around the world, and Isaacson's biography will offer the closest look yet at the popular yet intensely private man. With the cooperation of Jobs, the book may bring some closure for fans, registering as Jobs' final and most personal "one more thing".

Sprint has updated its website with information on its iPhone offerings, beginning immediate pre-orders of the new 8 GB iPhone 4. Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S start tomorrow, in line with the schedule set by Apple and being followed by other carriers in the first round of launches.

In its press release announcing the iPhone launch, Sprint touts its service plans offering unlimited data, a feature not offered by other U.S. iPhone carriers.

“Our unlimited data plans are the perfect fit for iPhone customers,” said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. “Sprint’s unlimited data plans provide more value than metered plans from other carriers. Our customers can take advantage of the innovative features of iPhone without worrying about overage charges or surprises on their bill.”

Sprint's plans include unlimited data and messaging (text, photo, and video), as well as unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling to and from any mobile phone in the United States. Three different plans with varying amounts of calling time are available:

- 450 Minutes: $79.99/month
- 900 Minutes: $99.99/month
- Unlimited: $109.99/month

A mobile hotspot option is also available for $29.99 per month, offering up to 5 GB of data for hotspot services through the device, which can support up to five Wi-Fi connections simultaneously.

As on other carriers, Sprint is offering the iPhone at the following price points, all with two-year agreements:

- 8 GB iPhone 4: $99.99
- 16 GB iPhone 4S: $199.99
- 32 GB iPhone 4S: $299.99
- 64 GB iPhone 4S: $399.99

As with Apple, iPhone 4S pre-orders through Sprint will begin at 12:01 AM Pacific time tomorrow.

Apple's website announces the sad news that Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs has passed away. Jobs was 56 years old, and had been struggling with complications related to pancreatic cancer over the past several years. Apple leaves the following message on their website in tribute to Jobs:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

If you would like to share your thoughts, memories and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com

Steve Jobs narrated this unaired version of Apple's famous Think Different ad in 1997:

Apple's board of directors released this statement:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

From Robert Scoble: "Flags half staff at Apple headquarters. Sad day in Cupertino."

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As noted by CNET's Roger Cheng, Phone Scoop, and AllThingsD, Sprint has confirmed that it will indeed be offering unlimited data for the iPhone when it launches on the carrier.

“We will be offering the benefit of our unlimited plans that start at just $69.99,” said spokeswoman Michelle Leff Mermelstein. Sprint’s $69.99 plan includes unlimited data and 450 voice minutes as well as unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. Unlimited calling and data costs $99 a month.

The new iPhone 4S is scheduled to debut on Sprint, AT&T and Verizon in the United States on Friday, October 14th, with pre-orders beginning this Friday, October 7th. Sprint will also join AT&T and Verizon in offering the low-capacity 8 GB iPhone 4, with information on Apple's site listing Sprint's availability for that device as "coming soon".

Sprint has been surprisingly quiet since yesterday considering that it has reportedly committed to purchase billions of dollars' worth of iPhones from Apple, with no mention of the iPhone yet appearing on the carrier's website. AllThingsD notes that Sprint is in fact "very excited" to begin offering the iPhone, but is making sure all of its plans are in order before beginning its promotional blitz.

TUAW publishes an extensive list of phrases that the new Siri personal assistant functionality for the iPhone 4S is capable of understanding. The list, broken down into categories, outlines the various types of information and tasks Siri can deal with and provides some interesting insight into how users can help Siri learn to understand their requests.

For example, several demonstrations of Siri have included users referring to other people by their relationships (wife, dad, etc.) rather than by name. Informing Siri of those relationships is as easy as telling the system what they are, and Siri will remember those associations from that point on. Example voice input using relationships includes:

- My mom is Susan Park
- Michael Manning is my brother
- Call my brother at work

Another interesting and flexible use of Siri is in the creation of notes, a feature that allows users to make records of a wide range of content on their devices.

Creating and finding notes

- Note that I spent $12 on lunch
- Note: check out that new Alicia Keys album
- Find my restaurant note
- Create a reading list note
- Add Tom Sawyer to my reading list note

And while the example phrases show how users can make requests of and provide information to Siri, the examples are just that – examples. As demonstrated yesterday, Siri is capable of understanding natural language, allowing users to ask essentially the same question in a number of ways without needing to employ specific syntax.

Siri's example input phrases are broken down into the following categories:

- Address Book: Querying Contacts, Finding Contacts, Relationships
- Calendars: Adding Events, Changing Events, Asking About Events
- Alarms: Setting Alarms, Checking the Clock, Using a Timer
- Email: Sending Messages, Checking Messages, Responding to Messages
- Friends: Checking Up on Friends
- Maps: Directions, Local Businesses
- Messages: Sending Texts, Reading Texts, Replying to Texts
- Music: Playback
- Notes: Creating and Finding Notes
- Phone: Phone Calls
- Reminders: Requesting Reminders
- Stocks: Checking Stocks

The full list of example phrases is included at TUAW, but Siri's capabilities extend even beyond the items included on the list, as evidenced by demonstrations of Siri searching the Internet, Wikipedia, and Wolfram Alpha for specific information.

comScore today released the results of its latest survey of mobile phone usage in the United States, revealing that Apple is quickly approaching a 10% share of the U.S. mobile phone market. Among the top mobile phone manufacturers, Apple led the pack in growth between the three-month period ending in May and the period ending in August, growing by 1.1 percentage point to hit 9.8% of the U.S. market.

Looking specifically at smartphones and measuring platforms instead of manufacturers, Apple checked in at 27.3% of the market, up 0.7% over the prior period but trailing Android's 5.6 percentage point growth.

The reports also highlight the rapid deterioration in Research in Motion's market share. Apple and RIM had been neck and neck in share just four reports ago, covering the February-April 2011 period, but RIM has fallen to under 20% of the smartphone market as Apple has surpassed 27%.

comScore's surveys track installed user base rather than recent sales as tracked by many other firms. As a result, comScore's numbers react more slowly to changing trends in mobile phone sales than shorter-range measures of recent sales. But comScore's numbers would be more accurate reflections of actual consumer usage given typical upgrade cycles on the order of 18 months for average users.

In what should have come as no surprise to most observers, Apple yesterday introduced its new iPhone 4S without LTE 4G capabilities. The company had previously acknowledged that the first generation of LTE chips had required handset design compromises that Apple was unwilling to make, and analysts had noted that Apple-suitable LTE chips weren't likely until early 2012.

AnandTech takes a closer look at the status of LTE chip development, describing how a slower-than-expected transition to new 28-nanometer chip processes has left a number of companies unable to release the devices they had originally hoped to launch in 2011.

As you may have heard however, the move to 28nm at both TSMC and Global Foundries isn't really going all that smoothly. The jump from 4x-nm to 28nm is a very big one, so it's not unexpected to have pretty serious teething problems as the process ramps up. I suspect that an aggressive 28nm roadmap that didn't pan out probably caught a lot of SoC and smartphone vendors in a position where they couldn't ship what they wanted to in 2011.

As in earlier reports regarding Apple's likely LTE chip plans, AnandTech points to Qualcomm's MDM9615 modem as the chip to watch for. The MDM9615 will be the first chip to offer both LTE and voice services in a single chip.

But with the MDM9615 not scheduled to begin shipping in quantity until the second quarter of next year, AnandTech suggests that an LTE-enabled iPhone wouldn't appear until the third quarter of 2012.

Qualcomm's current roadmaps show the 28nm MDM9615 arriving in Q2 2012. The 9615 finds itself in a smaller 10x10mm package and is voice enabled as well. Apple (and all other smartphone makers) could replace the MDM6600 with the MDM9615 and have a "single chip" LTE solution for smartphones.

Apple's next-generation A6 system-on-a-chip is also said to be on track for a second quarter debut, and while such a schedule raises questions about Apple's plans for the iPad 3, it would line up nicely to allow Apple to launch a new iPhone based on the A6 and LTE about a year from now.

Yesterday, Apple released their next generation iPhone called the iPhone 4S. Some were understandably disappointed that the rumored tapered "iPhone 5" design (shown below) was not released.

The design was first revealed back in April, but gained more traction after cases started appearing from various Chinese accessory manufacturers in June. In fact, we heard that many of these suppliers were 100% confident that this would be the new iPhone design. So much so that large distributors were offering money back guarantees to retailers that these cases were correct. This, of course, led to a proliferation of cases into retailers as well. As the media event approached, however, there was no real evidence that Apple was actually producing this design.

One report suggested that a lost Apple prototype from a Foxconn factory was the source of the case designs. This is a story we're inclined to believe. We had heard that this design is an actual Apple prototype that was in development, and not just a product of someone's wild imagination.

So, there is some hope that we will ultimately see the design in the future, though it's also possible that this exact design will never make its way to production. This scenario has happened before, where case makers jump the gun based on a leaked prototype. Most notably, back in 2009, case makers started producing cases for a then-unreleased iPod touch with camera. A prototype of exactly such a device was also leaked. Apple, however, released a camera-less iPod touch in 2009, and waited until 2010 to release one with a further redesigned camera. So that 2009 prototype never made it into production, but was verified to be legitimate.

The "iPhone 5" moniker will also have to wait until the next iPhone's release. At this point, Apple seems to have established a pattern for their iPhone releases with external design changes seemingly scheduled every two generations (Original iPhone, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S). We've heard nothing about when the next generation iPhone will arrive, but if we had to guess, we'd think Apple would stick to a late fall schedule again in 2012.