APPLE boss Steve Jobs was last night recovering well despite being forced to accept a transplanted liver that was badly designed and with limited scope for expensive upgrades.
The billionaire businessman had asked medical staff at the hospital in Tennessee to find him a liver that was small, sleek, beautifully white and effortlessly stylish.
But after six months of searching he was forced to accept that a liver is an ugly, misshapen purple blob with the unmistakable look and feel of a large piece of slippery meat.
Dr Tom Logan, the hospital's director of livers, said: "He gave us a sketch of his ideal liver and I have to admit that if livers were made of shiny, moulded plastic it would have changed the way we use livers forever.
"He then asked if the liver could at least be transplanted inside a sleek, white box with a small LED screen and a single white button that activates each of its 243 functions, but we said no, if we did that he would die incredibly quickly.
"While his new liver may not have the exciting functionality and sleek user interface of an iPod, an iPhone or an iSpleen, it is quite good at plasma protein synthesis, hormone production and detoxification, which is pretty much what you want a liver to do."
Dr Logan said that if the hospital had used Mr Jobs' liver design, 'it would be bit like designing a mobile phone which could take photographs, surf the internet and give you directions to trendy restaurants, but would not actually be a particularly good phone'.
Despite its lack of sleekness Jobs is understood to be fascinated by his new liver and has asked Pixar, his hi-tech animation studio, to begin developing Organ Story, the touching tale of a young boy who keeps a box full of kidneys under his bed.
Dr Logan added: "We gave him a liver which basically does the same thing as all the other livers but charged him twice as much as all the other hospitals. I'm sure he won't mind."
Laughing is the best remedy, didn't somebody once say?
