Glimpses of Apple CEO feeds Rumors

One of the first things I did on Friday morning, when I saw coverage of President Obama's meeting with tech leaders in California Thursday night was the search for images or videos. Eric Schmidt, not Obama or Mark Zuckerberg. I wanted to see how Steve Jobs looked.

As most of us, I read that the National Enquirer was publishing pictures of jobs outside of a cancer treatment center in Palo Alto, trying to weak and emaciated. (The photo was published in the edition of the magazine print Wednesday.) Jobs announced last month that he was taking an indefinite leave to focus on his health. The co-founder of Apple he had pancreatic cancer in 2004, undergoing surgery and had a liver transplant in 2009.

(See also: while jobs focuses on its health, Board of Directors of Apple must focus on its responsibility)

What I wanted to see from the event on Thursday night was a picture of jobs not taken by a guy in a parking lot with a zoom lens, something that might, well, tell me something about the condition of the legend tech.

But there was just a picture from that pictured jobs. In it you can see the CEO of Apple, seated to the left of President Obama. The image is taken from behind and to the left, then in terms of offering a taste of jobs, was unnecessary. You can't help but wonder why there are more pictures of jobs from the event.

Ghoulish feels this way of thinking, but it's human nature. I am not alone. Since the National Enquirer published Wednesday alleged images of jobs, shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) have abandoned the 3.5 percent.

Granted, Apple Wednesday hit another all-time high of 364.90 a share and stocks bounce off ceilings. In addition, there were other problems. The company endured a storm of criticism, not to mention possible interest by antitrust regulators, for its online content subscription policy.

But through those situations. This feels different.

Steven Burke, CRN has a good piece on the Apple business problems faced because of concerns over the health of Jobs. In it he quotes Jeff Matthews, general partner of Ram Partners LP, a Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund that "holds a significant amount of shares Apple":

"There is nothing good about this. It is fun to talk about, but as an investor in the real world you have to watch everything. Jobs is the reason that Apple is where it is. This is something that you need to pay attention to and understanding ".

That pretty much says it all, especially the first part: there is nothing good about this.

Chris Nerney writes about the business side-to-market strategies and technology trends, legal issues, management changes, mergers, venture capital, IPOs and technology stocks. Follow him on Twitter @ ChrisNerney.

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