Category: Miscellaneous

Just hours after being sued by a group complaining that MacBook screens do not actually display millions of colors but only hundreds of thousands, Apple was hit by another lawsuit.

A group of customers is alleging the company has failed to produce on an implied promise that every Apple product comes with a free pony.

“While it was never explicitly stated in any of their materials,” attorney Leonard Embree said, “Everyone I know thinks that that Macs come with ponies.

“It’s just a given. You buy a Mac, an iPod, an Apple TV, and you get a free pony.

“But check the message boards at Apple’s support site and you’ll see hundreds of users complaining that so far there have been no ponies. Where are the ponies, Mr. Jobs? Where. Are. The. Ponies?”

For his part, CEO Steve Jobs insisted there was never any contractual obligation on Apple’s part to supply ponies.

“We’ve been very clear about this,” Jobs said. “Any ponies that might result from owning Apple products are simply an end result. So, buying an iPod might make you more attractive to wild ponies that may just start showing up at your doorstep. Or, buying a Mac might make you more productive and therefore you might find the time to take up the care and feeding of a diminutive equine.

“Although, why you’d want to do that is beyond me. Of course, I just ride my employees around so I don’t really have use for some hay-eating poop factory.”

As a side note, Jobs claimed that it is a well-documented fact that the human eye can only see 18 colors.

“So, this whole business about whether the MacBook displays hundreds of thousands or millions is simply academic.”

Just days after speed-bumping the MacBook, Crazy Apple Rumors Site has learned that Apple will be deploying another speed bump this weekend.

Ironically, while all previous Apple speed bumps have caused things to go faster, this one will actually slow things down.

According to sources in Apple’s facilities organization, Cupertino road crews will spend Saturday and Sunday speed-bumping Infinite Loop at the request of COO Tim Cook to make traffic on the Apple campus safer for pedestrians.

“It’s no secret that we put this off for years because [CEO] Steve [Jobs] likes to drive at speeds approaching that of sound,” Cook said. “But now that we’ve finished the secret tunnel that lets him come and go as he pleases, we can address the safety of others.”

After an uncomfortable pause as the implications of of his statement sank in, Cook added “Well, he, uh, never really hit anyone. Hard.

“I mean, that guy’s already up and walking again. It’s just… it’s not a big deal.”

As is typical of Apple’s design philosophy, these will be no ordinary speed bumps. Sources say the bumps have been specially designed by Jonathan Ive and are made of advanced ceramics that will convert the pressure of the cars that pass over them into electrical energy that will help power the campus.

“They will also be gorgeous to look at,” Cook said. “Which will cause drivers to slow down even further.

“They will also smell like strawberries and champagne.”

Asked to comment about the speed bumps, Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group called them “reckless” and predicted that they would actually cause traffic to speed up on Infinite Loop.

Since the dawn of time man has asked three eternal questions.

Why am I here?

Is this all there is?

And…

Why does printing suck so badly?

I mean, WTF? It sucks whether I’m using OS X or Windows. It possibly even sucks on Linux. It’s a little hard to say, though, as Linux is only used as a desktop operating system by four trolls living under a bridge in Norway.

And I don’t mean “troll” in the sense of the forum pejorative. These are actual trolls.

But anyway, I am uniquely qualified to address this question as I was there when printing was invented. And it was not at all like you have heard. Or can imagine.

Until I tell you about it. And then you’ll probably be able to imagine it. Or at least get a fairly good idea. Not perfect, of course, but directionally correct.

Yes, I saw the Navajo god Aychpee cast the ASCII characters upon the fire and conjured them to appear on sheets of birch bark left hanging from the roof of the sweat lodge. Sadly, the conjuring of spirits is not easily translated to the world of ones and zeros.

Works a little better with analog, but that’s not really relevant to this story.

Attempting to take printing to the digital world got off to a rocky start. When Wang (stop giggling) forced the first printer driver coders to spend 18 days in the desert in nothing but a loin cloth and do mescaline to try to get in touch with their spirit guides, the result wasn’t exactly user-friendly.

Actually, it was 142 pages of Wingdings. It was only after the second attempt where they had some park rangers stand over their shoulders and put in the occasional semicolon or squiggly bracket that they actually got the printers to respond.

And that was on the Wang (stop giggling), which only used four characters.

Those characters were…

Anyone?

No. It was a, e, t and the ampersand (stop giggling).

But that was over 40 years ago. You’d think they would have gotten it right by now, right?

Sadly, discord between competing furies continues to cause things like Print Center or Printer Setup Utility or whatever it’s called this week. Even Apple’s continued attempts to appease these furies by naming its operating system releases after big cats has yielded them little.

There is hope for the future, however. Apple’s web site currently lists one opening entitled “Shaman”, another “Dark Mystic” and a third “9th Level Warlock”, although the latter is thought to be to deal with the evil goat.

Printing. Alas, we are stuck with it.

Until Apple releases digital paper with tiny bubbles that change color that can be reused as many times as you like.

Which, fortunately, is going to be next week.

In a surprising turn of events, Apple seeded OS 9.3 to developers late this afternoon.

According to the release notes, 9.3 resolves several bugs, provides updates for QuickTime, iTunes and Java, and makes OS 9 compatible with the current Intel-based Macintosh architecture.

According to sources at Apple, the company is entirely at a loss to explain where this seed came from.

“I didn’t do it,” said senior vice president of software engineering Bertrand Serlet. “I can’t even get Leopard done in time. I’m swamped. Stupid iPhone and Apple TV. Nobody asked me whether or not we should make those. I mean, I haven’t gone to the bathroom in three weeks. OS 9? Je pense que non.”

Some believe that a long-lost OS 9 developer is somewhere in the building still working away by himself.

“You know,” said chief operating officer Tim Cook, “kind of like that Japanese soldier they found on that island who still thought the war was going on twenty years later.

“In that episode of Gilligan’s Island.”

Cook said CEO Steve Jobs would be sending out an email to the entire company – including, somehow, all the old eWorld and AppleLink accounts – stating in no uncertain terms that “the war is over”.

“It’s a bit creepy when you think about it,” Cook noted. “Crazy unwashed developer stalking around here at night…

“OK, that pretty much describes 75 percent of the company… But still, working on OS 9?”

Cook shuddered and locked his office door when reporters left.

Reacting to a recent incident where a blogger’s life was threatened, publisher and blogger Tim O’Reilly issued a a blogger’s code of conduct, which was subsequently covered by the New York Times.

Despite his good intentions, the response of many bloggers was negative, complaining that it was an unnecesary overreaction.

“I found this post a little odd coming from Tim,” said blogger Nick Carr. “It’s well known in the technology industry that – while Tim’s very polite on his blog – if you meet him in person you’ll get treated to a 30-minute spittle-shower screed about ‘the god damn Germans’.

“I mean he really, really doesn’t like them. I have no idea why.

“Well, at least that’s what I heard. I can’t remember where.”

Carr also allowed that while he thought it was Germans, it might have been Mexicans O’Reilly dislikes so much.

But sources close to the technology industry maven indicate that it is indeed Germans.

“Not a lot of people know this,” a source said, “but Tim is actually 109 years old. He fought the Kaiser, you know.”

In a hand-written note that is unlikely to make the front page of the New York Times, O’Reilly responded briefly and courteously to Jeff Jarvis’ reaction to his code:

My Esteemed Colleague:

I should rather lay down with the stinking Jerries than engage in the uncouth sport of verbal sparring with such loutery. I shall rise above your gutterisms, leaving you to wallow in the filth with the vile Hun.

I remain your humble servant,

Timothy O’Reilly, III – Esq.

Meanwhile, on O’Reilly’s blog, the most recent post reads in its entirety:

A beverage that I truly enjoy is Moxie. I believe its Genetian root extractives make it a delectable thirst quencher. However, I could see how someone else could have a different opinion and I respect that.

Crazy Apple Rumors Site considered contacting O’Reilly directly prior to publication of this story but then thought, eh, fuck it, he’d probably just ignore us anyway.

It should also be noted that several sites have gone beyond the pale in criticising him as a “German-hating, kerchief-clutching fop”. We’d take them to task over it, but we kinda lost the links and and actually believe that Twittering about Desktop Tower Defense is more important.

Commenters to this post are encouraged to post their true feelings about the Blogger’s Code of Conduct, O’Reilly, Germans and Moxie and their relative preference for big butts.