Steve Jobs is taking medical leave. There are now about a billion articles online, including a gem from SFGate, where Henry Blodget claims this wording that Jobs used is “not encouraging”:

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can.

Blodget argues:

those are not the words of someone taking a short leave who is confident he will be back at the company soon (or ever).

FAN THOSE FLAMES, BLODGET! FIRE THAT LINK-BAIT SKY-HIGH AND FAR AND WIDE! I DON’T THINK THEY HEARD YOU ON THE MOON!

Oops. I appear to have left out a link. TSK! STUPID ME!

A leading industry analyst has declared that “Apple is basically fucked” after Apple’s 2010 fourth quarter results revealed that iPod sales had declined by 11 percent.

With the ubiquitous music player the only important product Apple makes, the leading analyst dismissed Apple’s record $20.4 billion revenue and $4.31 billion profit as “a blip” and said “it’s not like we just make shit up as we go along, you know,” adding: “If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother to sell your Apple shares, because the company really is that fucked—by the time you try, it’ll be too late.”

Another leading industry analyst agreed, pointing out that Apple was “closed”, “not open”, “somewhat shut” and “blinkered”, again pointing to the disastrous 11 percent decline in iPod sales as the “final proof that Apple is done”. Writing off the 27 percent jump in Mac sales and 91 increase in iPhone sales (to 14.1 million), he added: “Look, the iPod is where it’s at, and it’s clear Apple is losing that battle. I predict that within the year, Apple will be lucky to sell whatever’s left of its battered reputation to Acer for ten bucks and change.”

Yet another leading analyst chimed in: “It’s unlikely that Apple will survive the year. The drop in iPod sales will really hit Apple, and the tiny number of iPad sales—just over four million—won’t be enough to help the iPod maker struggle into 2011.”

Gah. I’m so behind the rest of the world. There’s been antennaegate and then there was Ryan Block’s not-at-all-link-bait glassgate that the rest of the tech industry parroted in its typical unthinking manner, without, you know, thinking it might be a good idea to check some of the supposed facts.

I need my own ‘gate’ to become famous (and then, presumably, hated and ridiculed a few hours later, but that’s the price of fame—just ask Jedward), but I don’t even own an iPhone 4 (not that lacking something you’re writing about is a problem for quite a few tech hacks these days).

Any ideas? I was thinking about actually-it-seems-that-the-iphone-4-works-quite-well-gate, but I don’t think that’ll draw in the traffic.

Typos are an inevitable part of writing, but some (and the subsequent corrections) are better than others. This one, via Popbitch, is the best I’ve seen in a long while:

This blog post originally stated that one in three black men who have sex with me is HIV positive. In fact, the statistic applies to black men who have sex with men.

In a press release on its website, Apple has confirmed that it will “broadcast its September 1 event online”, thereby providing immediate disappointment to users worldwide when Jobs doesn’t reveal a $50 256GB unicorn-powered iPod touch with Retina Display and sprinkles.

The event will be streamed using “Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming”, which the company says is “based on open standards, so fuck you, Adobe”. In order to view Apple’s open-standards streaming, you require a “Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™”, along, presumably, with a shield to defend yourself from the onslaught of registered trademark characters, hypocrisy and irony.