There are a lot of talks about Apple’s future and how Apple can survive without Jobs. Jobs is probably the most hands on CEO in the world (for companies of this size) and I’ve heard many stories from his direct reports how he makes all final decisions even on very small things. I mean small things such as the placement of logo and small design touches.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced he will be taking a medical leave, effective now through the end of June. Apple COO Tim Cook will run the company until then.

Reports from two different media outlets indicate that iTunes is going to expand its offering of DRM-free music to all four major music labels, and that an announcement will be forthcoming this week (possibly / probably during today's keynote).

Another Steve Jobs health rumor? No, not a rumor this time. Information from an open letter from Steve Jobs, filed via press release, confirms that he is skipping Macworld due to illness. Yet, at the time of this writing, AAPL stock is up! The reasons: openness, and a non-dire illness.

In a seemingly coordinated crash, 30GB Zunes across the world seem to be failing, frozen on startup, in what some have snarkily called Z2K or Z2K9. The device can't be reset, and the best efforts at troubleshooting seem to point to an issue with the latest firmware.

On Tuesday Apple made two announcements bound to enflame the Mac users of the world: one, the 2009 Macworld Expo will be its last, and two: Steve Jobs will not give the keynote.

On December 9, 1968, Douglas Engelbart, the director of Stanford Research Institute's (SRI) Augmentation Research Center, took the stage and gave what has since become known as "the mother of all demos." A number of ideas in use today were first demonstrated that day, including including hypertext , object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as video conferencing. But the idea that people most held onto, was the mouse.

We know that Wal-Mart is set to start selling the iPhone 3G on December 28th, but only today, Dec. 8th, did mainstream media pick up on it. More than that, however, a rumor raised last Thursday says that it might also sell a special $99 version of the phone. However, the only thing different about the phone will be the amount of memory, according to the report.

It's that time of the year when everyone announces their "Top" list. Top this, top that. Feeling left out, Apple has launched a special section of iTunes that lists the top iTunes downloads of 2008. This includes not only movies, TV shows and music, but also App Store purchases for the iPod Touch and iPhone.