Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak feels 'relief' about Steve Jobs' health

1:09 PM, January 5, 2009

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said today that he was relieved that the news about Steve Jobs' health didn't appear to be worse.

After a year of speculation about his increasingly gaunt appearance, Jobs said he's suffering from a hormone imbalance that has caused his weight to drop through 2008. He said in a letter to the Apple community that the cause of his weight loss had been a "mystery" to him and his doctors, but that they had finally identified the problem and that he had begun treatment. "But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this spring to regain it," Jobs wrote. "I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery."

Wozniak created the original circuit board used for the Apple personal computer and teamed up with Jobs in 1976 to sell it. The resulting company, Apple Computer, of course went on to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry. After some time away from the company in the mid-1980s, Wozniak quit working full time at Apple in 1987 and has since worked on a variety of projects.

We were curious what Woz, as he's known, thought about Jobs' disclosure. So we sent him an e-mail asking if he was relieved. His reply:

Yes, this news is a relief, because it implies that Steve is not impeded from future accomplishments. It's not a surprise based on realistic analysis of news items and a short discussion with him recently.

I'm saddened that he has any such condition to contend with.

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Photo: Steve Wozniak in 2003. Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press