Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk

Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.
________________

Q: I’m terribly disturbed by Apple’s actions recently. They’ve been showing a tremendous amount of arrogance. Clearly they don’t care about their customers anymore and are truly the new Microsoft.

A: Oh, you mean like the iPhone bricking? The iPhone price drop? The Leopard Dock issues?

Q: What? No! Only a jackass would care about that crap! I mean Donald Rosenberg!

A: Huh?

Q: The Donald! Rosie! Bergie! They let him go!

A: He left. He went to Qualcomm.

Q: Right! How could they let him do that?! He was awesome!

A: Oh. Uh… really?

Q: Yes! The man was a legal machine! He made it exciting to buy products from Apple!

A: Are we talking about the same thing?

Q: YES! God, what is wrong with you?!

A: Well, I dunno. I usually like to keep up on the Apple executives, but I think I was on the road for pretty much all of his tenure. I mean, didn’t he just come on in like July?

Q: NO! AAAARGH! Donald J. Rosenberg! Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel from November 13th, 2006 to October 5th, 2007! I totally have his player card right in front of me!

A: He has a player card?

Q: I, uh, I make them. Out of construction paper. And some glue.

A: Glitter?

Q: A little glitter. For the ones I like.

A: Whew.

Q: Oh, look who’s talking, Mr. “Phil Schiller has a posse”!

A: Oh, I’m sorry, did you put glitter on Phil?

Q: Well, sure.

A: Yeah, that’s what I thought.
________________

Q: Hey, what is this crap I hear about Apple bricking hacked iPhones?!

A: Well, in Apple’s defense, the users have violated their license agreement, so…

Q: Oh, don’t give me that license agreement crap! This is a bullshit move by Apple! I mean, if you bought a monkey from someone who told you that the monkey could ride a unicycle and, and then you find out the monkey, isn’t actually a monkey, it’s a chimp, I mean, you’d be like, hey, goober! Where’s my fricking monkey?! Take this stupid chimp back and get me a monkey!

A: Uh… what?

Q: Yeah! See, see the monkey in this instance is the iPhone. And the chimp is… um… Well, I don’t know what the chimp is. I guess it’s a bricked iPhone.

A: But chimps are actually smarter than monkeys. So, arguably, you’d be getting something better.

Q: OK, OK, OK. Forget about the monkey. Let’s say it’s a manatee…

A: You know what? I think you should work this analogy out before you lay it on me.

Q: No! Look, the manatee is the iPhone and the 1.1.1 update is a speed boat! Nnnnnneeeeerrrrrrooooowwww!

A: Bye!
________________

Q: Personally, I don’t understand what all this bitching about bricked iPhones is.

A: Oh. Well, that’s refreshing.

Q: Yeah. Apple bricked my phone and I couldn’t be happier.

A: Really?

Q: Yeah! I installed that update and now I’ve got the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, the double-tap home button feature, the…

A: Dude, that’s not bricked. That’s just what the update does. Your iPhone’s not bricked.

Q: Oh. Well, what’s a bricked phone like?

A: It doesn’t work.

Q: Well… that’s no fun. That just sucks.

A: Now you’re catching on.

CARS Announces New Books!

Crazy Apple Rumors Site and Giant Squid Publishing, LLC, are proud to announce a new series of books written by Editor-In-Chief John Moltz! Dubbed the “Take Control of the Missing Manual for Dummies” series, these books will show you how to wallow in the gutters of the Apple community and be the biggest succubus you can be.

While other book series by other “authors” attempt to “inform” you about “features” and “ways” you can use software or hardware “products”, the Take Control of the Missing Manual for Dummies books will encourage you to let your id run amok through a vast technological landscape formed by people who actually do something for a living instead of living in their parents’ basement like you do.

Let’s take a look at the first two books in the Take Control of the Missing Manual for Dummies series!

Take Control of Being A Whiny-Assed Apple Customer The Missing Manual for Dummies will show you, the whiny-assed Apple customer how to leverage your inherent ability to bitch, bitch, bitch. Whaaaah! The iPod’s battery runs out after five years! Whaaaah! Apple bricked my iPhone after I took a soldering iron to it and installed a bunch of crap I downloaded from a Nigerian web site!

Sure, you already sound like fingernails on a blackboard to anyone within earshot, but how can you weasel your way up to annoying bloggers, members of the press and even Apple executives?

Read the book!

Next up:

Hey, who wants to get in on some of that sweet Apple lawsuit action?!

Everyone, that’s who!

But I hear you saying, John, I’m a Linux user and I don’t own an Apple product because I’m too fricking cheap to own a decent Unix-based desktop! Whaaaaah! I’m not going to score free money!

Well, that’s an Apple lawsuit right there! Hey, if someone can sue Apple for $1 million over a $200 price drop, you can surely sue them for the pain and suffering caused by seeing people prancing around with fancier Unix-based desktop systems.

Read the book!

For some reason these aren’t on Amazon yet, but keep checking back!

Any day now.

That’s what my agent says, anyway.

Bungie To Leave Microsoft.

Members of the Apple community are rolling in feather pillows tonight and rubbing themselves with Crisco as reports indicate that Bungie is leaving Microsoft and becoming an independent game developer again.

Despite Game Informer’s claims that Microsoft will retain first right of refusal on all future Bungie games, Crazy Apple Rumors Site sources say that Bungie will return to being a Mac-first developer. This news brought a near orgasmic response from long suffering Mac gamers.

[Editor’s Note: I cut the near orgasmic response from Mac gamers. It was icky. It’s bad enough that I had to read it, I’m not going to make you read it.]

First on the menu for Bungie will be a much-awaited sequel to its once flagship title, Marathon. While many have incorrectly considered Halo to be a Marathon sequel, the true sequel will feature an entirely new engine based on Core Graphics and a OS X port of Input Sprockets and will be written only for the Mac platform. After that, Bungie will go on to write a sequel to Myth and then a prequel to Pathways Into Darkness that will actually be done with a stereopticon.

As unbelievable and an out-of-the-blue realization of a long-held pipe dream as this news seems, it’s not all. Sources also say that:

  • Your old girlfriend called and she totally wants to get back together with you.
  • Your parents weren’t lying to you when you were 5, your dog Sneakers really was taken to a farm and – guess what?! – he’s back and he wants to play frisbee! Yay!
  • Your parents breaking up when you were 12 was just a bad dream. Mommy really does love daddy. Not Rico down at the Jiffy Lube. And Daddy really likes women, particularly mommy. Not, uh… well, whatever disturbing thing it is you were told he liked on your 13th birthday. Sheep? Was it sheep? Or gophers? Sources couldn’t remember.
  • Your old girlfriend? Totally wants to do it with you and another chick. Totally.

Apple declined to comment, but CARS staff member and long-suffering Marathon gamer Masako Yamamoto has had what medical experts call “an episode.”

iPod Killer Coming Tomorrow! No, Really!

Devastating news reached the Apple world today as reports indicate that Microsoft will announce its “iPod killer” tomorrow.

Again.

Dubbed the Zune 2, the Revenge, the first update to the Zune line will feature, uh…

Flash memory.

Looks like.

“The 2 in ‘Zune 2’ is not sequential,” said blogger Robert Scoble. “It’s exponential! It’s like Zune squared! Which means Zune to the max. Maximum Zunage. Zunalicious. Zune-a-roonie. iPod killah.

“Or not. Whatever. Frankly, I’m kinda sick of this crap. I mean, they don’t even pay me anymore. I don’t know why I keep pimping their junk like some, um, pimp. An unpaid pimp.”

Analysts indicated that Microsoft’s ability to go from hard-drive to flash-based technology in just a year shows what an iPod killer the Zune 2, 3, 4, etc. are and will be forever and ever.

“An imaginary friend of mine told me that the Zunes 2 through 45 are certified iPod killers,” said John C. Dvorak. “They even have little stickers on them that say ‘Certified iPod Killer’, so you know it’s true.”

Microsoft is expected to announce its long-term commitment to the Zune platform as well as to the existence of fairies and elves.

The company will also be announcing its own line of accessories. Microsoft said it asked several third parties to make Zune accessories, but they explained they didn’t have the time because they had to wash their hair and then their shows were coming on.