Steve Jobs: Yep, still alive

Bloomberg quickly retracted its premature obituary, which was published by accident Wednesday afternoon. Still, the goof spooked tech watchers and investors, who've been obsessing over Jobs' health in recent months.

CNET reports that Bloomberg, which apparently had been in the process of updating the obituary, accidentally posted the 17-page story at 4:27 p.m. EST on Wednesday. A few hours later [edit: make that less than a minute later, as more recent reports have noted], Bloomberg pulled the obit and eventually issued a brief retraction.

Eagle-eyed readers quickly zapped the obituary to Gawker, which has the lengthy piece in its entirety, complete with "XXXX"'s, "TK,"'s, dozens of quotes and contact numbers. The obit was clearly unfinished; nevertheless, unnerving stuff.

Of course, it's standard procedure for news services like Bloomberg to prepare obituaries of famous people while they're still very much alive—heck, even Britney Spears has one ready to go, courtesy of the AP—and they frequently sneak into print by accident.

Still, the slip-up would have been a more amusing had Sir Steve's health not been such an issue of late. Pictures of a gaunt-looking Jobs unveiling the new iPhone in June stoked the fire, even as Apple sought to reassure investors that Jobs was merely suffering from "a common bug." Industry observers have been buzzing about Jobs' health since his recent battle with pancreatic cancer, first revealed in 2004.

Jobs himself finally called Joe Nocera of the New York Times in late July for an "off the record" discussion about his health. Nocera dutifully reported that Jobs' "health problems … weren't life-threatening" and that "he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer."

Jobs is, naturally, so tied to the success of Apple that rumors of his demise could easily send Apple's stock into free-fall. Luckily, the errant obit didn't cross the wires until after the closing bell on Wall Street, and Apple's stock is looking just fine today.

And, of course, we're happy to hear that Steve is, in fact, A-OK.

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Bloomberg mistakenly publishes Steve Jobs obituary [CNET]