Category: Apple Executives

Jobs Declares Independence From His Pants.

Flush from a record-breaking launch of the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off his personal Fourth of July celebration by declaring his independence from his pants.

At an impromptu company event on the Apple campus, Jobs, wearing nothing but his trademark black shirt and a pair of tight briefs, said he would no longer submit to the tyranny of social convention for trousers.

“For too long have I allowed myself to be slave to the yoke of those restricting britches,” Jobs said, as the gathered Apple employees attempted to avert their eyes.

“No longer!” he declared. “The highly successful iPhone launch has allowed me to see clearly that I have certain inalienable rights: those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“All without pants.”

Jobs noted that, despite their hard work, this did not go for his employees.

“If you go out and start a company and launch three market and life-changing products then maybe you can run around without pants, too. Until then…”

Senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller seemed to be at a loss for words.

“He, uh…” Schiller said. “Well, you see, Steve marches to… the beat of…

“Yeah, I’ve got nothing.”

Jobs Gives Freebie to Employees.

CEO Steve Jobs told employees in an all-hands meeting today that by the end of July they would be getting a highly coveted prize.

According to sources at the meeting, Jobs said that employees could choose to receive either a free iPhone, coveted by gadget geeks and consumers, or a free pony, universally coveted by little girls. Keeping with his maniacal attention to detail, Jobs said he would be asking each employee in a one-on-one, Mexican rules meeting which one they preferred.

“Make no mistake,” Jobs said from a perch 100 feet above the employees, “The iPhone is revolutionary in a way that I’ve only said once or twice before. Maybe three times. Four, max. You will all want one.

“However,” he continued, swooping down on a prototype Apple anti-gravity pad to hover mid-air above a startled mid-level accounts manager, “You may also ask for a pony.”

Jobs said that employees would be expected to bring the pony into work each day, provide it with fresh hay and bedding, groom it, and sing to it. And the pony could not interfere with work or chores.

“If you choose an iPhone, you will have access to the greatest handheld Internet browsing technology ever developed, the best iPod ever, and a crappy-ass phone with a mediocre voice network behind it,” Jobs said, looking deep into the souls of several employees.

“But you could also have… a pony. And ponies have their own… pedestrian… charms. I suppose.”

An informal survey after the event revealed that 73 percent of employees would prefer the iPhone, for reasons that include cubicles too small to contain a pony and their Aeron chair, the smell, or that they are not 13-year-old girls. 22 percent of employees said they were just freaked out by Jobs flying around and looking into their souls and wanted to get out of there as fast as they could and didn’t even hear what he said. The last 1 percent said they’ll take the pony, but insisted it would only be for their kids.

Apple Community Ponders Identity Of Fake Blogger.

The Apple community is in full speculation mode tonight as it wonders aloud…

“Who is Fake Phil Schiller?”

In a hilarious send-up of everyone’s favorite Apple senior vice president, an anonymous blogger has created an Internet phenomenon that seems sure to set the Apple world on its head.

“I’m not sure who he is, said Tim O’Reilly, “but I’ve got my people trying to negotiate a book deal with him.

“Well, OK, it’s not so much a ‘book deal’ per se as it is a deal for a series of pamphlets. I mean, it’s not like he’s pretending he’s Steve Jobs or something.”

While O’Reilly attempted to work out a pamphlet deal, other Apple followers attempted to piece together clues as to Fake Phil’s identity.

“He’s clearly Canadian,” said Jason Snell, editor of Macworld magazine. “You can tell from the hockey references.

“No one in the states watches hockey. Seriously. I didn’t even know the deciding game of the… whaddaya call it… Cup playoffs… were on tonight.”

Some feel they already know who Fake Phil is.

“Oh, I know who it is,” said the New York Times’ David Pogue, looking around furtively. “I can’t say his name… but his initials are… W.G.

“Aaand they sometimes call him ‘the Great One.'”

Pogue raised his eyebrows several times, then furrowed his brow.

“Oh, hell, it’s Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky. Well, at least I think it is.

“OK, I don’t really know.”

Regardless of his identity, Apple followers agree that from the hockey references to the Star Trek references to the insider’s view on Apple, whoever writes Fake Phil has Schiller down pat.

Fake Steve declined to comment for this story.

Jobs Conducts Enigmatic Firing.

Just three weeks before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Jobs conducted a firing today that has many followers scratching their heads.

As close followers of Apple know, the name of every person Steve Jobs has fired is an anagram for the next product the company releases or updates. In December of last year, Jobs fired engineer Al Pheppilone, whose name is, of course, an anagram for Apple iPhone.

The problem? The name of the engineer Jobs fired today is Xerxes Ng.

“Uh, well, OK, uh,” began Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. “Oh! It’s, uh, X-Ser… uh, no. How about Sex… well, probably not…

“No, wait! It’s X-Ser… oh, no, wait, I tried that.”

“Maybe we should ask [the New York Times’ David] Pogue. Does the Times have a Jumble?”

For his part, Pogue was simply incredulous.

“What the hell kind of a name is Xerxes Ng anyway?!” Pogue demanded. “I mean, the guy’s half Persian half Vietnamese? Why the hell couldn’t Jobs have fired that dude named Mac Proboko? I mean, he’s a total slacker.”

Apple followers are now watching the company closely in the hopes that Jobs will fire someone with at least a few more vowels in the weeks between now and WWDC.

Woz Announces New Venture.

In a surprise move, Steve “Woz” Wozniak announced today that he was founding a new firm to compete with Apple, Inc., a company he started with Steve Jobs 30 years ago.

Like Apple, Wozniak’s PhonePhreaks Unlimited will market a line of handheld devices, computers, and phones. Unlike Apple, however, PU products will only incidentally be computing devices and telephones. Rather, Woz said he is poised to capture the hacking and pranking aesthetic.

“When you use the wPhone, you’ll receive a slight electric shock when it rings, unless you remember to enter ‘skcussboj’ every morning,” Wozniak said in a conversation overheard through a shotgun mike aimed near his backyard.

“Better still, you can set the device so that when someone asks you to see your wPhone, it will produce an ear-splitting shriek and an electric shock when they start messing with it. It’s awesome! Waaaaa!!! Ah-ha-ha!”

The wPhone will primarily work as a voicemail system, including a voicetree prepopulated with endless loops and Polish jokes. It will also allow the user to receive and place calls, but only to for-fee sex talk lines and Dr. Phil’s home phone.

A wWoz computer will be an aquarium full of mechanical fish, which will emit puns on a regular basis. A Woz Pro desktop model will only run Mac OS X in a form of emulation that experts haven’t yet figured out, but seems to involve BeOS, nuclear radiation, and cells scraped from Woz’s cheeks.

It is unclear whether Woz believes these products will actually compete with Apple offerings or if this is yet another prank. Or whether the idea of the products is a bigger prank than his production of them. Or if Wozniak is simply too inscrutable to fathom.

Analysts speculate that the firms hired to manufacture the PU products will find that when the schematics are turned into circuit boards, the metal traces will reveal a picture of Woz mooning Steve Jobs.