Apple Stonewalls Efforts to Prepare Steve Jobs' Obituary

Steve Jobs

​Apple is trying to hinder reporters' efforts to keep a stored obituary of CEO Steve Jobs up to date, according to the New York Post.

In advance of the 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference, which starts today in San Francisco, Associated Press reporters called around to refresh quotes on an obituary that has been prepared for Jobs. News organizations typically write obits for famous figures in advance, so they can release them immediately when the person dies.

However, Jobs' recurring health problems -- he has been on medical leave after treatment for cancer -- appear to make the prospect of his death more concrete than that of say, jogging enthusiast George W. Bush. In light of widespread speculation about Jobs' sickness, Apple decided the AP's questions were out of line.

"Apple found out about it and asked everyone involved not to give any quotes, although most of those called had already refused," an unnamed source told the Post's Page Six. Another unnamed source called the inquiry "ill-timed and macabre."

Jobs is scheduled to make his first public appearance since March at WWDC. Whatever you think of the routine newspaper practice of refreshing celebrities' obituaries, it seems more than likely that Apple's attempt to stonewall reporters has, as Gawker observes, in fact brought added attention to the verboten subject of Jobs' frail health.

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