There’s a report out today claiming that Steve Jobs is coming back to Apple, and before the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in July. The story is from the Wall Street Journal, who claims that their information is from an anonymous source. As you may recall, the Journal also marked themselves as Apple’s media plaything when they ran another story about how Steve Jobs was working closely with Apple without citing any verifiable sources. Yet Apple’s motive for planting the story then was to buffer themselves for their upcoming quarterly earnings report. This story, while still unverifiable, is a little trickier.
If Apple is lying, they’re in a mess of trouble because everyone will know it about a month down the road. So if the story is a lie, this will be the last time that Apple can plant a story about Mr. Jobs ever, and the last time that they can plant anything for a while (they’ll do it again within a year even if it is a lie, though, as the media very quickly forgets past offenses).
But there is still room for concern. The same person who wrote the last Journal piece about Mr. Jobs’ still working with Apple, one Yukari Iwatani Kane, also wrote this story. The “anonymous source” could have realized that he is more or less free to sell Ms. Kane any story he wants.
Either way, we’ll know within a month if we can trust either Apple or the Wall Street Journal.
