Steve Jobs: death greatly exaggerated

Red faces at Bloomberg today after they mistakenly put out an obituary for Apple CEO Steve Jobs – who is still very much alive. The financial news wire realised its embarrassing mistake and hastily retracted the 2,500-plus words death notice.

"Steve Jobs, who helped make personal computers as easy to use as telephones and persuaded customers to tune into digital music, has XXXX", the unfinished obit began. The article, which followed the ups and downs of Jobs's extraordinary career, came with notes detailing who Bloomberg reporters should contact about his death. Names included Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, and a former girlfriend, the venture capitalist Heidi Roizen, who, according to Bloomberg's notes, "knows a lot of Silicon Valley insiders".

The timing of Bloomberg's blunder was particularly unfortunate because Silicon Valley has been awash with rumours about 53-year-old Jobs's health since he appeared on stage in San Francisco in June to launch the new 3G iPhone, looking unusually gaunt. Despite assurances that he was cancer-free, the industry was asking whether the pancreatic cancer he had suffered in 2004 had returned. As Linton Chiswick wrote for The First Post in July, "The problem is that an Apple without Steve Jobs is almost unimaginable."