Motorola Renew (W233)

Shares of Apple rose as much as 4.6 percent in intraday trading Monday, following an announcement by co-founder Steve Jobs that he would remain as CEO while undergoing hormone therapy treatment.

The disclosure of a hormone imbalance as the reason for his health decline and that he would remain as CEO while recovering from therapy treatments propelled shares of Apple to as high as $94.91 during intraday trading.

Have you ever wondered what iPhone apps are hot in Japan? If you're attending this year's MacWorld conference in San Francisco, you'll have a chance to find out. There, Nobuyuki Hayashi, a Japanese Mac and iPhone tech journalist and blogger, is hosting an event called "Japan iPhone Apps: State of the Market," which will be held on Wednesday, Jan 7th. If you can't make the event, here's a sneak preview of the apps being featured.

The news that Steve Jobs will no longer give the keynote speech at Macworld disappointed everyone from casual consumers of Apple gadgets to die-hard Mac fanatics. His annual appearances weren't merely corporate product demonstrations – they were masterful personal appeals that highlighted his fantastic talents as a showman.

The Industry Standard has put together a YouTube collection of the many highlights from Jobs' Macworld keynotes since his return to the company in the late 1990s.

Microsoft is just squeezing in under the wire to claim the rights to “weirdest tech story of the year.”Last night at approximately 2 AM, every 30GB Zune model on the planet crashed at the exact same moment. The Zunes reset, powered up, then froze on the loading bar screen, and no conventional method of resetting them appears to work.

This is brought to you courtesy of Microsoft, who has been selling a video game console with a nearly 100% fail rate for three years.

Speculation that Wal-Mart Stores would sell a $99 iPhone was put to rest on Friday when the official announcement came out sans the double digits.

However, all hope is not lost.

AT&T is selling a refurbished 8GB iPhone 3G in black for $99 with a two-year service contract through Wednesday, New Year's Eve. That beats AT&T's previous price tag of $149.

As the world's largest retailer (and company), Wal-Mart commands a significant amount of respect. In fact, I think the company is the most important retailer to any company in any industry, let alone Apple and the tech industry.

But Friday's announcement that the iPhone will be coming to Wal-Mart store shelves on Sunday has changed the face of the cell phone industry. In effect, it means that Apple, one of the most important hardware companies in the space, will see its popular mobile phone be made available to millions of more customers.

Wal-Mart on Friday confirmed that it will be selling Apple's iPhone 3G, beginning Sunday at about 2,500 stores. The price, with a new two-year service agreement with AT&T (or qualified upgrade), is $197 for the black 8GB model and $297 for the black or white 16GB version.

"We are delighted to bring customers this ground-breaking mobile technology," Gary Severson, Wal-Mart senior vice president of entertainment, said in a statement. "Our electronics associates have been preparing for many weeks for the arrival of iPhone 3G."

The Ghost of iPhone Past paid us a visit last night to remind us of all the great iPhone tips our readers sent to us throughout the year.
It’s been a great year for Touchtip, and along the way we shared the best tips here so you could get the most out of

First reactions from buyers of Research in Motion's newest BlackBerry Storm smart phone have been "lukewarm," and nowhere near the satisfaction ratings of Apple's iPhone, a market research analyst said Tuesday.

"It's not that the BlackBerry Storm is a bad phone," said Paul Carton, research director at ChangeWave Research. "It's just that the initial launch has glitches which have resulted in a mediocre satisfaction rating, while consumers are already trained to expect the very highest standards from their BlackBerries."