Morbid news from TV land--the big network news operations have started working on their obits for Apple CEO Steve Jobs. They’re shooting interviews now so that they’ll have their stories ready to go, if or when the bad news hits. You can’t blame them for trying to be prepared. But it does say something about Apple’s credibility on this issue. The company insists Jobs is simply taking a six-month medical leave, and will be back in June. Then again, until last week, the company was insisting that that Jobs was fine, even when it was apparent that he was not.

Earlier this month Jobs published an open letter claiming he was suffering from a “hormone imbalance” that was “relatively simple and straightforward.” Nine days later, however, Jobs said his condition was more complex than he’d originally thought and he would be taking a leave of absence.

The matter reportedly has prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Apple misled investors about Jobs’s health. Apple’s stock has bounced up and down for months as different reports have surfaced about Jobs. Last June he appeared on stage looking frail and gaunt, which aroused fears that Jobs might have suffered a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, for which he underwent surgery in 2004.

In December, after a blog called Gizmodo reported Jobs’s health was “rapidly declining,” a reporter from CNBC claimed sources at Apple had told him Jobs was fine--and Apple shares jumped on the news. Who were those people at Apple claiming Jobs was fine? The SEC may want to know.

 A purported image of visual voice mail on the BlackBerry Bold. Photo courtesy Boy Genius Report.

If the folks at Boy Genius Report are correct, it would appear that sometime this year, visual voicemail will be coming to users of the BlackBerry Bold on AT&T's wireless network.As one of the signature features of the iPhone since its debut--it allows you to select and play back individual voice messages rather than forward through your entire list of voice mails--it's a welcome addition to non-iPhone gadgets like the Bold. The only reason that I'm not more ecstatic is that I have a BlackBerry Pearl, with no intentions to surrender the diminutive device anytime soon. So if anyone from AT&T and RIM is listening, don't forget about us Pearl users. We like up-to-date features too.

By Daniel Lyons

The coverage of Steve Jobs of Apple and his health woes is starting to remind me way too much of the old Generalissimo Francisco Franco jokes on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. Back then, Chevy Chase would report that “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” – a dark-humored play on the drawn-out coverage of Franco’s declining health, in which newscasters had solemnly reported that Franco was still alive.

So, we are told, is Steve Jobs. We know this because a terse and somewhat grumpy letter was issued from the Apple mothership in Cupertino, Calif., today, over the signature of Dear Leader himself. In this letter, Jobs acknowledges that he’s lost a great deal of weight in the past year, and says doctors have finally figured out what’s causing it – it’s a hormone imbalance. And now he’s being treated for it, and he should start gaining weight again soon, and he hopes to recover by spring. And, as Jobs finishes up in his letter, “So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.”

Left unaddressed were fears that Jobs has suffered a recurrence of the pancreatic cancer for which he underwent surgery four years ago. Today’s note doesn’t mention cancer at all. From this we are presumably meant to infer that Jobs does not have cancer again. That at least is the message Wall Street took from the news, as Apple shares popped  four bucks today, to $94.