In the tradition of Ellen Feiss, Danika Cleary and the chick in the MacMall ads, Mac users have a new girlfriend who isn’t really their girlfriend, thanks to iChat AV 3.0..
Apple recently announced that the latest version of iChat has already had remarkable adoption, with over 70 percent of Tiger users having successfully conducted multi-person voice and video chats. But according to Apple spokesperson Uwe Shaw, over 90 percent of those users are men using it vainly trying to video iChat with the hot iChat AV 3.0 demo woman “Linda.”
While good looking, Shaw said, Linda may appear to most viewers as extremely hot because she is always juxtaposed next to dorks.
“Eight-three percent of the men at Apple are dorks,” Shaw said. “There are some exceptions. You know, Jobs, Joz [Greg Jozwiak], that guy who plays guitar down the hall… and I think that’s it. Maybe it’s more like 99 percent.”
Linda’s identity is unknown beyond her first name, but her ubiquitous appearance throughout iChat AV 3.0 advertising has made her the object of desire for these desperate, lonely Tiger users, Shaw said.
According to Shaw, Apple’s research indicates that most male Mac users outside of corporations pathetically believe that chicks dig Macs, and are therefore also likely to dig the men who use them.
“Actually,” Shaw said, pausing to look at some documents on his desk, “that’s also true of male Mac users inside of corporations. So, any heterosexual male Mac user. Yep.”
In sharp contrast, Shaw noted, most female Mac users are trying to get work done and wish the male Mac users would just shut up so that they can concentrate.
Undeterred, however, lonely male Mac users have taken to Linda like doe-eyed puppies to a bowl of milk.
“Linda wears glasses and has her hair swept back over her ears,” noted Mac user Jon Eckard, mooning over what he called “Linda’s page” on Apple’s web site. “That means she’s approachable.
“Not to me, of course, because I would never approach someone as hot as Linda.”
Indeed, Linda’s appearance has prompted many a socially deprived Mac user to note that she reminds them of Lisa Loeb or that girl they knew in high school who always smiled at them but they were too afraid to talk to.
While Apple declined to make Linda available for comment, it did release this statement from her: “No, I am not free Saturday night. No, I won’t tell you my .Mac account name. Please stop standing on the lawn outside One Infinite Loop holding up a boom box playing Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes.’ It’s not romantic, it’s creepy.”