Apple has just announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO, and will now take over as Chairman of the Board. Tim Cook, formerly COO, will replace Jobs as CEO and also join the board as a director.

"Steve's extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world's most innovative and valuable technology company," said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple’s Board. "Steve has made countless contributions to Apple's success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple's immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration."

"The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO," added Levinson. "Tim's 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does."

Steve Jobs’ letter to the board, after the break.

[Apple PR, Apple PR]

August 24, 2011–To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal‘s Yukari Iwatani Kane, who’s sources are uncannily accurate, added that Jobs will remain involved going forward. [WSJ]

People familiar with the situation have said that Mr. Jobs continues to be active at Apple and is closely involved in the company’s product strategy.

iPhone Live, the live recording of the best dang iPhone and iPod touch podcast on the net, hits the air again tonight. Join us!

Follow along with our show notes!

Time: 6pm PT, 9pm ET, 2am BST!

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Be there, and by the Power of Grayskull, you shall have the POWER!!

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Safety Photo+, by Eightythree Technology, is an iPhone utility app that lets you passcode protect your photos.

One of the cool features is the ability to upload/download from your computer via web browser or iTunes file sharing. This means you don’t have to ever have the photos in the native photo library.

You can now keep your most private photos away form unauthorized access. Introducing the Safety Photo+. Used the most advanced security system to protect your photos. You can then browse, organize, share, and manage your photos right on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

• Passcode locking style (combination lock, keypad lock)
• Selectable stylish theme, yet easy to use interface

• Take private photos from within the app
• Extremely simple to import photos from photo library

• Export photos to your iPhone/iPod Touch 
- Create albums for your photos
• Passcode protect individual album
• Supports move, copy & paste
• Upload/download from PC to iPhone via web browser/iTunes file sharing
• Share photos within 2 iOS devices with Safety Photo+ installed vie Bluetooth/Wi-Fi

• Full Retina display support

Today, Safety Photo+ is available on the iPhone for free. The price will increase each day by $1 until it’s $3.99.

[App Store link]

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And hey! — these double as show notes for our iPhone Live! podcast tonight at 9pm Eastern. So join us at TiPb.com/live and follow along!

Meta

• Iterate 5: 1Password
• ZENandTECH 12: Review
• Mobile Nations 5: A wedding and a funeral
• Poll: What's the next iOS device you plan on buying?

iPhone 5

• Sprint to get iPhone 5 this October?
• iPhone 5 replacement parts cropping up online
• Dual mode GSM/CDMA iPhone 5 spotted in app logs?
• Apple set to release an 8GB iPhone 4 alongside the iPhone 5?

iOS 5

• iOS 5 has earthquake warnings for Japan
• Apple releases iOS 5 beta 6 to developers
• iOS 5 likely coming first week of October

News

• Apple photo gallery patent about to get all Samsung Galaxy phones banned in the EU?
• iPhone, iPad untouched by mobile malware attacks
• On the eve of iMessage, AT&T removing all but unlimited SMS text plans

Tips

• How to switch from webOS to iPhone and iPad

Jailbreak

• Sn0wBreeze Windows jailbreak updated to 2.8b6 to officially support iOS 5 beta 6

Apps

• Developer Spotlight: Boyd Timothy of Appigo
• Top 5 best soccer apps for iPhone and iPad

Apple has announced a few new features for iTunes Connect, their back-end iPhone and iPad app management portal, in an effort to provide better management and reporting for developers.

New Metadata Rejected App Review Status: You can now resolve metadata issues that have been identified by the App Review team without having to recompile and resubmit a new binary for review.

App Bundle IDs Now Editable Before Binary Submission: You can now edit your app’s assigned Bundle ID in iTunes Connect as long as you have not submitted a new binary for review and your app is not using Game Center or the iAd Network.

Also added is a new auto-ingest tool for easier, automated retrieval of daily and weekly reports.

The auto-ingest tool is a Java-based script that will run on any operating system that supports Java 1.6 or later. Before you begin using the tool, we strongly urge you to read the App Store Sales and Trends Guide and note the following:

• Use of this tool is monitored.
• If your system will be set up to automatically pull daily or weekly reports, allow 15-minute intervals between pulls.

More information is available inside Apple’s iOS developer portal.

[Thanks Jack!]

IconCommands lets jailbroken iOS users customize what happens when they tap on icons. Want to set up gestures for additional taps? Don’t like holding down to delete apps and want a quicker solution? Once downloaded, with IconCommands you can head over to your settings and set up all that and more.

For example, you can set two taps to display application info and three taps to delete the app. There are also several other options including restart springboard, search Google, switch to Safe Mode, hide, and many more. I found this to be a super fast way to search the web, respring, delete, and hide icons. Much easier than jumping into SBSettings to hide icons. It’s also much easier than jumping into Safari to search the web. I simply tap any icon four times and it brings up a prompt to search the web.

You can find IconCommands in Cydia for $1.99.

[$1.99 - Cydia Store Link]

A Dutch court today issued a European Union-wide injunction against the sale of Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Ace phones, due to violation of an Apple patent involving swiping between photos in a gallery. The injunction would start taking effect in mid-October (around the time of iPhone 5 release).

However, it sounds like the impact might be mitigated somewhat by Apple’s failure to file all the proper paperwork for their patents in all the proper countries. Also, the court disregarded most of Apple’s other patent claims, focusing their ruling on this one, single area of infringement.

According to FOSS Patents:

Samsung may be able to work around that particular patent without a huge degradation of the usability of its devices because it appears to relate to the way users flip through the pictures in a photo gallery. However, regardless of how Samsung may be able to work around this decision in Europe, it’s a setback for Android, a platform that is at issue in more than 50 lawsuits worldwide. In all likelihood, the winning patent is infringed by Android itself — not the operating system per se, but by one or more of the applications that ship with Android and without which the usefulness of Android would be impaired in one particular area (photo viewing). Apple has now obtained the first enforceable court decision (out of many lawsuits going on around the world) that finds Android to infringe an Apple patent — and there will definitely be many more to come.

In other words, the Imperial Fleet might have come out of hyperspace too close to this system, but all sides better prepare for ground assault.

[FOSSPatents]

SpeakingPal English Tutor is a new iPhone and iPad app that teaches you how to speak English. It uses speech recognition and each session is less than 2 minutes long, making it a quick way to brush up on your English skills.

Learning to speak English has never been easier. 2 minutes a day is all it takes – try it and be amazed!

• Interactive video dialogs
• Voice activated (uses speech recognition)
• Control the dialog flow with your answers
• Role play a character
• Get feedback on how well you spoke
• Feedback is given for each sentence and each word
• Color-coded scoring for easy evaluation
• Listen to a native speaker to compare with your speech
• Less than 2 minutes for each session
• Listening units with snappy comprehension questions
• Progress page to track your improvement
• Share your recordings and scores with your friends

SpeakingPal English Tutor is available on the iPhone and iPad for free.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

• MyRoute Safe Drive: A complete speed trap and radar warning system, a full-featured HUD, which includes a plethora of instruments, and a programmable speed limit warning system. [$1.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

• Angry Birds Rio: New ‘Airfield Chase’ episode with 15 new levels! [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

• Orders for iPhone – Sell With Comfort: A great and intuitive manager for your orders. You easily can keep all your sales in one place, organize and manage them. As well as manage your products for future use in a specific order, add customer, price and due date to each order. [$2.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

• Task Caddy: A simple task management tool designed to support the basic features we all need in a task manager, no more, no less. [$2.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

• Croma: Croma is a fast paced abstract experience, a shooter in the grand tradition of Ikaruga on a much smaller scale. Visual and audio design combine to create an atmosphere of meditative lows and frenetic highs, in this constantly evolving monochromatic world. [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

UPDATE: Sorry folks, sold out! There’ll be another deal tomorrow though!

Shop other great iPhone and iPad accessories now!