It's Thursday, August 25th, 2011.
I'm Wilson Tang on cnet.com and it's time to get loaded.
You must have heard by now, Apple CEO and cofounder Steve Jobs in a shocking but not all too surprising move has resigned as Chief Executive Officer of Apple.
Jobs cofounded Apple with Steve Wozniak and introduced landmark products like the Apple II and the original Macintosh before he was ousted from the very company
he founded.
Later, he also founded NeXT computing and bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm which became Pixar.
Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 when the company purchased NeXT computing and Apple was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Since then, the company has introduced a slew of industry changing products like the iMac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, and of course the iPad.
Apple briefly became the world's most valuable company for a few days this summer when the market cap exceeded that of Exxon Mobil.
Jobs departure
wasn't entirely unforeseen.
The CEO has taken multiple leaves of absence in the last few years.
Jobs won't be entirely departing Apple though.
He is now Chairman of the Board and plans to continue to contribute to the company.
In a letter to Apple's Board, Jobs asked to implement the succession plan they had in place and urge Tim Cook to be the next CEO of Apple.
Cook already has extensive experience as in term Chief Executive Officer during Jobs three medical leaves and already runs day to day operations.
Cook joined Apple in 1998 as VP of Worldwide Operations
and was promoted to COO in 2004.
He is credited with streamlining in restructuring Apple's manufacturing operations which improved margins all into the entire product lineup.
Cook's new role as CEO however doesn't likely mean any dramatic changes for Apple which already has long term plans in place.
Research In Motion was rumored to be preparing a music service for its BlackBerry phones.
Well now, it turns out those rumors are true.
Well, sort of.
The company has just announced the beta release of BBM Music.
That's right, the new social music service
is built on top of the BlackBerry Messenger service.
BBM Music is a cloud-based music sharing service that will offer millions of songs from all the major record labels.
Users will be able to store or stream up to 50 songs on their BlackBerry phones and can swap up to 25 songs with friends.
BBM Music launches two day in a closed beta in Canada, the US, and the UK and will cost $499 a month.
Speaking of BlackBerry, Bloomberg is reporting that Research In Motion plans to add Android app support in the next year's lineup of new BlackBerry phones.
The new Android-compatible phones will run on the company's QNX-based software that currently powers its PlayBook Tablet.
The PlayBook was supposedly capable of running Android apps by now but the feature has been delayed until the fall.
The Android-compatible new phones are expected to debut in early 2012.
Facebook plans to add photo filters to its mobile app in the next few months.
The feature is similar to mobile apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic that allow users to take cool, edgy looking photos with their handsets.
The New York Times reports
that engineers are currently busy adding a dozen photo filters with various styles before the service launches.
Apple may also be joining the fray by integrating photo filters into the release of iOS 5 due on the fall.
Microsoft is still in the process of acquiring voice and video conferencing giant Skype but that hasn't stop the companies from working together until the acquisition is complete.
Microsoft has now confirmed that Skype will work with Windows Phone 7 mobile devices that have front-facing cameras.
The service is expected to work with the next major release of the operating system
codenamed Mango but it's unknown if Skype will work as an app or a future update.
Those are your headlines for today.
I'm Wilson Tang for cnet.com and you've just been loaded.
