‘Sick Jobs works at home on tablet or netbook design’

Steve Jobs, on sick leave from Apple, was said to be working from his home on the design of a new mobile device. He’s reportedly still in control of planning and strategy, having recently worked on the new iPhone OS.

Jobs temporarily handed over his CEO duties to chief operating officer Tim Cook in January, then said he would remain involved in “key strategic decisions.” Sources from The Wall Street Journal say now that the Apple CEO is working behind the scenes to design a “device that is smaller than today’s Apple notebook computers, but bigger than the iPhone and the iPod Touch.” That indicates that Apple is working on a netbook, but Cook denied in January that there are any plans for such a device.

Another possibility is that Apple is working on a tablet. That would be consistent with rumors of a device with a 10″ touchscreen. Computerworld orphan It has been pointed out earlier that there are more devices in the pipeline that run on the iPhone OS. This site also says that Apple would rather come up with something new than enter the netbook market at this late stage.

The Wall Street Journal sources also say that Jobs is working on new iPhone models and a new interface for the iPhone operating system. Apple declined to comment on the reports, saying only that Jobs is looking forward to returning to the company. The CEO would return to full-time work at the end of June, approximately simultaneously with the release of version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system.