So what happens when the Apple suggests your handheld game device is sub-par? Out of touch? Passe? ‘Dems fighting words, right?

That’s what I asked Sony’s PlayStation boss Jack Tretton during a recent interview. His response? Keep talking, Apple — you’re only creating more future PlayStation users.

A little background: Earlier this month, Apple’s Phil Schiller said this about Sony’s PlayStations Portable (PSP) and the Nintendo DS, which have together sold more than 150 million units around the globe:

When these things came out they seemed so cool. But once you play a game on the iPod touch, they don’t really stack up anymore. They don’t have this amazing multi-touch user interface. The game are kind of expensive. they don’t even have anything like the Apps Store to find great games and titles. And they certainly don’t deliver a media experience like the iPod that is built into the iPod touch.

But worst is the buying experience. Having to go to the store and trying to find a hot new title is not a lot of fun.

Not long after, Apple CEO Steve Jobs piled on to the New York Times, saying that the new lower price for the iPod Touch would draw in gamers.

Tretton, whose full title is CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, counterpunched:

The gaming heritage and the home of gaming is PlayStation. Dabbling in gaming is nice and ‘thank you’ for getting people interested in gaming — because they are going to end up with us.

Its sort of like saying, I got my drivers license and my first car was a beat up Subaru, but if you are ultimately going to be on the track, you are going to be driving a race car, and not something that’s basic transportation. So if you are going to be seriously interested in gaming you are going to end up a PlayStation consumer.

Tough talk between two consumer electronics giants.

Personally, I have played games on all three devices — but not the same games — so I can’t testify to an apples-to-apples comparison. But I’ll say this: Poker and Tetris on the iPod Touch? Fun. Super Mario Bros on the DS? Cool. FIFA Soccer on the PSP? Wicked.

(Photo: Sony’s Jack Tretten at E3; Reuters)

Steve Jobs’ return to the public eye on Wednesday stole some of the attention from Apple’s products announcements which, if not earth-shattering, weren’t exactly chopped liver either.

The company unveiled new, cheaper iPod touches and affordable iPod nanos with video cameras. It also showed off the latest version of the iTunes software with new bells and whistles likely to cheer music lovers, including iTunes LP, which offers additional content such as liner notes, making a downloaded album a bit more like its vinyl predecessor.

Analysts liked the new nano most of all, although some wondered why the touch didn’t also receive a camera, as had been rumored.

Gartner analyst Van Baker said “it was nice safe choices for Apple, iterative improvements in the product line. I think the nano is going to do extremely well in the holiday.”

He said the nano could emerge as something of a threat to the Flip, the wildly popular mini camcorder.

“The Flip’s got some differentiators. That being said, the iPod is the device that most people carry with them all the time. And if they’ve got a video camera built into it, do they need to go buy another one? For a lot of people they’ll be really happy with the nano solution. To that extent, it will erode flip’s position in the market.”

David Murray, author of “Borrowing Brilliance” and former innovation guru at Intuit, said from a product standpoint there wasn’t anything too impressive on display at the Apple event Wednesday. He said the iPod line is difficult to keep innovating on. But Murray, like others, is more than a little intrigued by Apple’s tablet, a device that exists still only in rumors.

“I think they can do it… they didn’t invent MP3 technology, but they sure perfected it. They’re really good at taking ideas…[and] maybe somebody hasn’t executed it right. And if there’s one thing Jobs is good at, he’s good at recognizing a good idea, and then executing the hell out of it.”

New colors, video camera, price cuts. Whatever. The Apple show belonged to Steve Jobs.

So how did he look? Rail thin, as you can see from this picture (see below or click here for a bunch more shots of the 54-year old chief executive). That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given he’s recovering from a liver transplant.

Even looking frail, however, his presence pumped up the crowd. “Steve Jobs making an appearance was definitely a pleasant surprise,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Brothers. Another analyst, Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech added, “I was surprised to see Steve. It’s great to see that he’s doing well.”

Here is a chronology of Jobs’ health issues:

2004:

August: Jobs announces he underwent successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. He says it was a rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.

2005:

June: Jobs mentions the cancer in a commencement address at Stanford University. “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades,” he says.
Read the whole speech and see the video here.

2008:

June 9: Jobs appears dramatically thinner at an Apple iPhone event, touching off speculation that the cancer has returned. The company said later he was fighting a “common bug” and taking antibiotics. Apple called Jobs’ health a “private matter”.

July 26: The New York Times journalist Joe Nocera wrote in a column that he had spoken to Jobs about his health but that because the conversation was off record, he could not disclose what was said. “While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug,’ they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer,” Nocera wrote.

Sept. 9: At an iPod product launch, Jobs jokes about his health by walking on stage in front of a giant screen that flashed “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” — a quotation borrowed from Mark Twain.

Oct. 3: A false Internet report that Jobs had suffered a heart attack briefly pushes Apple shares down 2 percent to a 17-month low. Apple quickly denied the report on iReport.com, a citizen journalist site owned by CNN.

Oct. 14: At a Mac product launch event, Jobs jokes again about his health. His blood pressure was 110 over 70 and he said, “And that’s all we’re going to be talking about Steve’s health today.”

Dec. 16: Apple said Jobs won’t deliver the keynote address at the Macworld trade show in January, reviving concerns about his health. Asked to explain the decision, spokesman Steve Dowling said it would be the last time Apple takes part in Macworld so “it doesn’t make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show we’ll no longer be attending.”

Dec. 30: Apple shares fall as much as 2 percent after Gizmodo reported that Jobs health was “rapidly declining” and that was the reason why he canceled the Macworld keynote.

2009:

Jan. 5: Jobs says he has been losing weight throughout 2008 and his doctors think a hormone imbalance was “robbing” him of proteins. He says he has begun a “relatively simple and straightforward” treatment for his nutritional problem and that he will continue as CEO during recovery. “I will be the first one to step up and tell our board of directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO,” he says. Apple shares rise 5 percent.

Jan. 14: Jobs announces medical leave until the end of June, saying his health issues are “more complex” than originally thought. He hands day-to-day operations to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and says he plans to remain involved in major strategic decisions. Apple shares fall 10 percent in after-hours trading. Read his email to employees here.

Jan. 21: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining Apple’s disclosures about Jobs to ensure investors were not mislead, Bloomberg reports.

June 8: Apple unveils new iPhone 3GS at its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference but Jobs does not make an appearance.

June 20: The Wall Street Journal reports that Jobs had a liver transplant in Memphis, Tennessee about two months ago and he is expected to return to work later in June. Apple declines comment except to say it expects Jobs back at the end of the month.

June 22: Jobs is spotted at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California, underscoring expectations that he is either back at work or will return soon.

June 23: The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute confirms it performed a liver transplant on Jobs and says he is “recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.” The hospital does not give more details, saying the confirmation had come with Jobs’ permission.

June 29: Jobs returns from medical leave. An Apple spokesman says Jobs will be in the office a few days a week, and work from home the rest of the time.

Reuters will have live updates and photos from Apple's live event at 1 pm ET on Wednesday.

Apple Inc's Phil Schiller, Senior Vice-President of worldwide marketing, speaks about the iPod touch's game playing capabilities.  REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

All photos by Robert Galbraith.

Tech bloggers love to write about Apple, for better or for worse. The secretive nature of the company means a lot of those blogs are speculative and light on sources, yet  we still all love to read them because the house that Steve built is indeed both a fascinating and hugely successful company.

The latest round of speculation is around Apple’s planned September keynote event which sources have told AllThingsDigital is due to take place on Wednesday,  Sept 9 in San Francisco. There has been a huge amount of speculation around whether Apple will unveil a new tablet device but sources tell the blogs there will be “no discussion whatsoever” of the such a device.

AllThingsDigital’s John Paczkowski isn’t giving up though saying: “Too bad. It’s looking more and more like we’ll have to wait until 2010 for that.”

It’s now expected that Apple will debut a new social version of its iTunes media player and unveil new versions of its iPod.

The other big question is whether Steve Jobs will make his first appearance since returning to work after his liver transplant.

Keep an eye on:

• News Corp’s Star TV overhauls Asia unit to focus on India (Reuters)
• Dreamworks closes deal with Indian investors Reliance (NYTimes)
• Apple investigating reports of exploding iPhones-EU (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Few observers expressed much surprise over Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s decision Monday to step down from Apple’s board. Analysts said the writing was on the wall, as Google’s Android smartphone software competes in the same market at Apple’s iPhone, and Google’s forthcoming Chrome operating system prepares to enter a market against Apple’s Mac OS.

Schmidt said earlier this month he expected to chat with Apple about his role on its board, and what with increased regulatory scrutiny about the company’s ties, many say it was only a matter of time.

“It’s the collision course that they’ve been on for a while, I think they’ve managed it well up to until now,” said Todd Dagres, a venture capitalist whose firm Spark Capital funded Twitter. “I think Eric getting off the board may be an indication of sort of the last straw here.”

The ties between the two companies do run deep, he said, noting that current Google director Ann Mather was CFO at Pixar while Apple’s Steve Jobs was CEO. But he said competitive juices among folks at both companies will start to flow as their empires bump into one another and “it affects your performance, your bonus and your market share.”

This is not the first time a CEO has stepped down as a director of another Silicon Valley company against a backdrop of competitive concerns, noted JMP Securities analyst Sam Wilson, who mentioned Carly Fiorina — then CEO of Hewlett-Packard — who left the board of Cisco Systems in 2003.  The two companies partner in some areas but are increasingly competitors in others.

Wilson said technology companies are always looking to branch into new markets, meaning today’s allies are tomorrow’s rivals. “Tech overall isn’t growing that fast, the pie isn’t growing that fast, so everybody is looking at everybody else’s piece of the pie.”

He said Apple’s recent rejection of the Google Voice app for the iPhone should be read as a sign.  “They’re no longer friends. I think when Apple turned off Google Voice it was clear they’re no longer friends.”

New colors, video camera, price cuts. Whatever. The Apple show belonged to Steve Jobs.

So how did he look? Rail thin, as you can see from this picture (see below or click here for a bunch more shots of the 54-year old chief executive). That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given he’s recovering from a liver transplant.

Even looking frail, however, his presence pumped up the crowd. “Steve Jobs making an appearance was definitely a pleasant surprise,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Brothers. Another analyst, Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech added, “I was surprised to see Steve. It’s great to see that he’s doing well.”

Here is a chronology of Jobs’ health issues:

2004:

August: Jobs announces he underwent successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. He says it was a rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.

2005:

June: Jobs mentions the cancer in a commencement address at Stanford University. “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades,” he says.
Read the whole speech and see the video here.

2008:

June 9: Jobs appears dramatically thinner at an Apple iPhone event, touching off speculation that the cancer has returned. The company said later he was fighting a “common bug” and taking antibiotics. Apple called Jobs’ health a “private matter”.

July 26: The New York Times journalist Joe Nocera wrote in a column that he had spoken to Jobs about his health but that because the conversation was off record, he could not disclose what was said. “While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug,’ they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer,” Nocera wrote.

Sept. 9: At an iPod product launch, Jobs jokes about his health by walking on stage in front of a giant screen that flashed “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” — a quotation borrowed from Mark Twain.

Oct. 3: A false Internet report that Jobs had suffered a heart attack briefly pushes Apple shares down 2 percent to a 17-month low. Apple quickly denied the report on iReport.com, a citizen journalist site owned by CNN.

Oct. 14: At a Mac product launch event, Jobs jokes again about his health. His blood pressure was 110 over 70 and he said, “And that’s all we’re going to be talking about Steve’s health today.”

Dec. 16: Apple said Jobs won’t deliver the keynote address at the Macworld trade show in January, reviving concerns about his health. Asked to explain the decision, spokesman Steve Dowling said it would be the last time Apple takes part in Macworld so “it doesn’t make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show we’ll no longer be attending.”

Dec. 30: Apple shares fall as much as 2 percent after Gizmodo reported that Jobs health was “rapidly declining” and that was the reason why he canceled the Macworld keynote.

2009:

Jan. 5: Jobs says he has been losing weight throughout 2008 and his doctors think a hormone imbalance was “robbing” him of proteins. He says he has begun a “relatively simple and straightforward” treatment for his nutritional problem and that he will continue as CEO during recovery. “I will be the first one to step up and tell our board of directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO,” he says. Apple shares rise 5 percent.

Jan. 14: Jobs announces medical leave until the end of June, saying his health issues are “more complex” than originally thought. He hands day-to-day operations to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and says he plans to remain involved in major strategic decisions. Apple shares fall 10 percent in after-hours trading. Read his email to employees here.

Jan. 21: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining Apple’s disclosures about Jobs to ensure investors were not mislead, Bloomberg reports.

June 8: Apple unveils new iPhone 3GS at its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference but Jobs does not make an appearance.

June 20: The Wall Street Journal reports that Jobs had a liver transplant in Memphis, Tennessee about two months ago and he is expected to return to work later in June. Apple declines comment except to say it expects Jobs back at the end of the month.

June 22: Jobs is spotted at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California, underscoring expectations that he is either back at work or will return soon.

June 23: The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute confirms it performed a liver transplant on Jobs and says he is “recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.” The hospital does not give more details, saying the confirmation had come with Jobs’ permission.

June 29: Jobs returns from medical leave. An Apple spokesman says Jobs will be in the office a few days a week, and work from home the rest of the time.

A good day for Apple — or a bad one? Judging from the early reaction in the stock market, investors seem to have already gotten used to the idea that Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant two months ago,  as reported by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. Shares of the company opened a touch higher.

One reason might be that — for most investors — certainty is also preferable to uncertainty. Know the risks and you can deal with it. And until this weekend, there was very little information on the nature of Jobs’ health problems, which began in 2004. (Apple, by the way, is not commenting on the WSJ report, other than to say that the company’s leader will return by the end of the month, as planned).

Another reason for the stock strength may be more basic: business looks pretty good. Apple said this morning that it had sold more than 1 million units of its newest iPhone in the first three days of its launch, a big number in the context of the current economy.  The device, which offers faster speeds, longer battery life and the ability to take videos, hit stores on Friday.

So it appears it could be a good day for Apple. Or another good day, we ought to say. The stock is, after all, up 63 percent so far this year.

Keep an eye on:

• Hey Wimbledon fans, IBM has a new application for you (Reuters)
• The Cannes advertising festival isn’t quite so hot this year, given the industry’s troubles (Reuters)
• You may want to sit down… media stocks are outperforming the broader stock market (NY Post)

Photo: Reuters

-Tom Dunmore is editor-in-chief of Stuff magazine. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Yesterday, Apple unveiled the latest version of its wildly popular iPhone. And it was quite a show, despite the absence of Apple's usual ringmaster Steve Jobs.

The keynote speech at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was heaving the massed ranks of the global media, hyped by rumours of mini iPhones, touschscreen Macs and Steve Jobs' early return from sick leave.

In the end, Apple's hardware announcement was more prosaic - the new iPhone 3G S looks exactly the same as the old iPhone 3G but is faster, has a better camera, and offers voice control.

But it quickly became clear to the audience that the iPhone is about much more than hardware. Developer after developer took to the stage to show off their new software, which ranged from multiplayer games to a medical application that allows doctors to remotely monitor a patient’s vital signs.

There are already 50,000 programs available from the iTunes App Store, and the 40million iPhone and iPod Touch users have each downloaded an average of 25 apps - taking the total downloads to over 1billion since the App Store launched less than a year ago.

Many app downloads are free, but plenty of developers are making a good living from selling their wares to this growing audience, and the new iPhone 3.0 software - due out on June 17 - will allow them to charge for updates and subscriptions from within their applications.

The new iPhone software also enables turn-by-turn satellite navigation - which is destined to be a huge success, judging by the demonstration of iPhone software from TomTom.

And because iPhone 3.0 software is a free upgrade for existing iPhone users, there's already a massive market for any new applications taking advantage of its new features.

Meanwhile Apple's biggest rivals are preparing to release smartphones that are arguably technically superior to the iPhone. Nokia's N97 will be released in the UK on June 19th - the same day as the iPhone 3G S - while Palm's Pre has just hit the US market. Both iPhone rivals feature their own application download stores - but neither has the iPhone's momentum. And without a vibrant community of developers, a smartphone is little more than a complicated way to make phonecalls.

The iPhone is changing the shape of the mobile phone market. The technical specification of a handset is no longer the key selling point - the hardware is now just a platform, and it's the software that's built upon it that really counts.

Until rival platforms develop a critical mass of users and developers, Apple can continue to turn small changes to the iPhone into great leaps towards global domination.

Reuters is sending live updates via Twitter from the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, scheduled to start at 10 am Pacific Time (1 pm Eastern). Read the updates below or follow us on Twitter.

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