Reports: Steve Jobs back in black at Apple, but questions are swirling

He said he'd be back in the office by late June, and according to a slew of reports, Steve Jobs has indeed resumed terrorizing—I'm sorry, leading—the big brains at Apple. Meanwhile, questions about how much Apple should have disclosed about Jobs' health just won't go away.

The New York Times, Reuters, and CNBC are all saying that Jobs was spotted at Apple HQ in Cupertino on Monday and has resumed his CEO duties. Apple, of course, has yet to confirm whether Jobs is back at his desk.

A Reuters reporter actually spotted Jobs "leaving the Apple campus … dressed in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans." He "walked out chatting with another person before climbing into a black car that then drove off."

But if Steve Jobs was looking for "Welcome Back!" balloons from the tech press, well … he wasn't getting any.

The Times has a pair of Apple stories in Tuesday's paper: One about Apple's secretive, borderline paranoid corporate culture ("Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again"), and another that raises the possibility that Jobs jumped the queue for his reported liver transplant two months ago.

BusinessWeek also took Apple to task, noting that the company's "handling of reports" about Jobs' liver transplant (the story broke in the Wall Street Journal late Friday) has "rekindled concern among corporate governance experts that the company and its board are disclosing too little, too late."

Then there's this ZDNet column, which points out the "fishy" timing of Apple's Monday morning "We sold a million iPhones!" announcements, which (successfully) diverted attention from the Journal's liver transplant story.

At issue, of course, is the delicate balance between Steve Jobs' personal right to privacy and his—and Apple's—obligation to disclose any factor affecting his duties as the CEO of a publicly traded company.

As the Times story notes, the legendary secrecy at Apple borders on the obsessive. Come to think of it, Apple is the most tight-lipped company I've ever covered—I mean, we're talking North Korea-type secrecy (in fact, like the U.S. and North Korea, Apple and I have little in the way of diplomatic relations).

Now, when it comes to keeping new products secret—hey, go for it. I, for one, love surprises (although given all the leaks—mostly correct—about the new iPhone, someone needs to go back to cloak-and-dagger school).

But Apple is publicly traded, and when Steve Jobs comes to work (or doesn't) that affects the share value, and in turn, people's lives. Now, it just so happens that Apple stock has actually soared during Jobs' medical leave (and in defiance of the recession, as well), but still, monkeying around with Grandma's portfolio by keeping a CEO's health under wraps is serious business. (And in case you're wondering, no—I don't own any Apple stock.)

So, what do you think? Should Apple have been more open about Steve Jobs' health, at least as far as it affects his position as CEO? Or does Steve deserve his privacy?