Words cannot describe how much you inspired us to be better in life. Thank you for teaching me to think different.

Some of my favorite quotes by Steve Jobs:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Rest in peace, Steve. (1955 - Forever)

Apple’s fantastic customer service strikes again, the story comes by way of an individual close to Apple:

Apple's focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said "Wife said no." It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it. They sent the guy an iPad 2 with a note on it that said "Apple said yes."

So, Man is happy to have iPad 2. Wife is happy that no money was spent. Apple is happy to make customer happy.

Very cute story.

via MacRumors

Apple launched its in-app subscription plan, after the launch of Rupert Murdoch's iPad only magazine The Daily. I have read the official statement from Apple. The service now is open to all content providers, for each subscription sold through the app, Apple takes a 30% cut. Publishers can set the price and length of a subscription, also can offer subscriptions through their own existing websites but would be required to offer those same terms to anyone signing up through Apple.

Subscriptions purchased from within the App Store will be sold using the same App Store billing system that has been used to buy billions of apps and In-App Purchases. Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.). Customers can review and manage all of their subscriptions from their personal account page, including canceling the automatic renewal of a subscription. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30 percent share that it does today for other In-App Purchases.

The magazine has re-released the piece it published in early 1985, just before Jobs was fired. The story was published in the magazine's February issue. Three months later, Sculley relieved Apple's co-founder of his duties as head of the Mac division. In that lengthy interview with Playboy, 29 years old young Steve Jobs touches many topics and you get a feeling toward the end of the interview that he sensed his day at Apple might be numbered.

JOBS: There's an old Hindu saying that comes into my mind occasionally: "For the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you." As I'm going to be 30 in February, the thought has crossed my mind.

PLAYBOY: And?

JOBS: And I'm not sure. I'll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I'll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I'm not there, but I'll always come back. And that's what I may try to do.

The key thing to remember about me is that I'm still a student. I'm still in boot camp. If anyone is reading any of my thoughts, I'd keep that in mind. Don't take it all too seriously. If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you've done and whoever you were and throw them away. What are we, anyway? Most of what we think we are is just a collection of likes and dislikes, habits, patterns. At the core of what we are is our values, and what decisions and actions we make reflect those values. That is why it's hard doing interviews and being visible: As you are growing and changing, the more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you that it thinks you are, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to go, "Bye. I have to go. I'm going crazy and I'm getting out of here." And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.

You can read the rest of the interview here, it'll take you back in time.

via Fortune

Today Apple announced details about the upcoming release of iPhone OS 4.0. We’ve heard a lot of rumors about just what it will include. Now it's coming and here are all the things you need to know about iPhone OS 4.0 (organized via techcocktail)

Multitasking - Finally! the new iPhone OS 4.0 will the ability for 7 multitasking services (APIs) on the iPhone. Some of these include:

• Background audio
• VoIP
• Background location
• Push notifications
• Local notifications
• Task completion

Folders - Users will be able to add folders to your home screen. Just drag two apps together and an folder is created with intelligent naming. Users will also be able to change their wallpaper background with ease.

Enhanced Email - The new mail offering will create a unified inbox pulling together all your account into one account. You can also now have multiple exchange accounts. Messages will be organized by thread which sounds very similar to Gmail.

iBooks - Just like the iPad the new iPhone OS will offer iBook with a bookstore where if you buy once you can read the book anywhere. Sync pages and bookmarks between devices. Users also get a free copy of Winnie the Pooh.

Enterprise features - The new OS will offer improved data protection, including data protection within third party apps as well as mobile device management which means that up until now companies would have to plug into iTunes to distribute apps but with the new OS they will be able to do it wireleslly from their own servers.

Game Center - Allows games players to challenge each other interactively and offers a leaderboard to track game play.

iAd - Apple announces the launch of a mobile advertising platform! The platform could serve 1 Billion ad impressions a day. Apple wants to offer amazing advertising experiences leveraging HTML 5. Apple will host and sell the ads and give 60% of the revenue to developers. This could be huge for Apple Developers of free applications. Ads will have access to many of the same Apple APIs as apps (i.e. like location and some level of accelerometer access, etc).

These “tentpoles” as Jobs called them, are going to be released to developers today and to iPhone users later this summer. and they will run completely on iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd generation models, won’t run completely on 3G and iPod Touch 2nd gen models. More than 100 user features are being added and developers will have access to more than 1500 new APIs. As for the iPad, iPhone 4.0 OS is coming to the iPad this Fall.