"Quite possibly the greatest work of literature by an imaginary CEO, ever."

Maybe you've heard that I've been working on my memoirs. Well, it's true. The book will be out in October and will contain some shocking, never-before-told stories about life inside Apple. For those who have followed the big "scandal" around options backdating and wondered what really was going on behind the scenes, well, you won't be disappointed. It's all here. But be warned -- this story will shake your faith in the American judicial system. To be first on your block to order a copy, go here.

The review quoted in the headline, by the way, comes from the good folks at ImaginaryReviews.com. Yes, we paid them. But I still think it counts.

Watch your back, wigger

Vanilla Ice imitator Eminem is suing us over downloads. Or something. See here. My lawyers looked at the complaint and said it's all written in fake ghetto slang and rhymes. But when they translated it into English it said: "Dear Mr. Jobs, My career is over and nobody pays attention to me anymore, but I'm hoping this publicity stunt will spark some interest in me again. Thank you."

My lawyers say we'll just drag it out for a while and mess with his head. Personally I'd like to send Moshe Hishkill and a couple of his guys out to Detroit and have them track down this punk and put a cap in his ass. We'll see.

Freetards in deep denial

Well Fortune is getting loads of mileage out of its cover story on the Beastmaster making headway in China by slashing the price of Windows to three bucks. But the best part of the fallout comes from freetards, who first said the story wasn't true and that Linux still rules in China (ahem). Then they said, well, maybe it is true that Windows is winning, but if so this means that really Linux has "won" because it has forced Microsoft to lower its prices. Now they've moved on to story #3, which says Fortune is right and Windows is winning in China but this is only because Microsoft cheats. See here where some Linux bootlicker (shurely "independent, objective, trustworthy journalist"? Ed.) says the only reason Windows is winning in China is because Microsoft lets people pirate it and/or charges a mere three bucks for Windows and Office.

Freetard fails to notice the huge hole in his argument which is that -- imagine Sam Kinison screaming now -- fucking Linux is fucking free you fucking idiot! Linux is even cheaper than Windows. You can have it and all the other freetard apps that go with it for zero dollars, which is approximately three bucks less than what Microsoft charges. So, given the choice of a free software system or one that costs three bucks, the Chinese are choosing the one that costs three bucks. It's not cheating. It's called competition. The Chinese put the two products side by side and decided that if cost isn't an issue, Windows is better.

Freetard the Bootlicker says Microsoft is "dumping products on the market at far below cost." Um, is that not exactly what Linux vendors have been doing? Enabled by rich subsidies from IBM and other hardware players? And has it not occurred to you that the reason IBM pumped one billion dollars (visualize pinkie in corner of Palmisano's mouth) into Linux was precisely so that it could force Microsoft to cut prices on Windows and thereby choke off Microsoft's oxygen supply? Think, jackass. Why is it okay for IBM and its Linux puppets to give software away free but not Microsoft? And why do you care anyway? What difference does it make to you what OS some people in China use? Why does this bother you? Why do you filthy hacks come so unhinged when it comes to Linux? Why are you so emotionally wrapped up in the fortunes of some weird bit of software?

Don't get me wrong. I have no love for the Borg. And I'm a big fan of open source software and we use a lot of it at Apple (wrapped up in our own proprietary code and sold for big money, of course -- thanks, suckas!) But I'm sick of hearing freetards tell me how my stuff sucks compared to theirs. It's been going on for years and it's just not true. It's like Yugo claiming to be superior to Mercedes. It's ridiculous. Our stuff is way, way better than yours. That's not an opinion. It's a fact. That's why people pay so much for our software. And when it comes to Microsoft v. Linux, you freetards need to take a long, hard look at yourselves.

For the record, the real reason Microsoft got a foothold in China is that they invested in the country. They built research labs, hired Chinese people, helped the Chinese build an ecosystem of third-party software companies. And before you go crying about that being "unfair," take note -- it's exactly what IBM has done in BRIC and elsewhere, building labs to push Linux. Microsoft is just keeping up with Big Brother.

Freetards, face facts. You've lost. You've had sixteen years to try and build a desktop operating system, and you still can't get your shit together. Nobody wants your software. It's not Microsoft's fault. It's yours. Because trust me, if you truly developed a kick-ass OS with tens of thousands of drivers and easy installation and reliable performance, you'd be winning. But you're not. Firefox caught on, right? Why? Because it rocked.


Desktop Linux, however, is a different story, and in your heart of hearts you know this. It's a bad imitation of Windows and can't even come close to OS X. Want more proof? India rejected the XO machine. Hardly anybody else is placing orders for Negroponte's miracle laptop, despite the low, low price of only one hundred dollars. Now the Chinese don't want Linux. They're not buying into your crazy crusade. Sorry. And you guys are starting to sound like the world's biggeest whiners, constantly blaming everyone around you for your own failures. You're the John Kerry of software.

iPhone is getting way too popular

By now you've probably seen reports like this one about the supposed cutbacks in iPhone production. It's hurting our stock today, which is never a good thing. But hear me out. The reports are true. We're cutting back production from 9 million units to 4.5 million units. It was my call, and let me explain why I made it. iPhone is getting way too popular. The wrong kind of people are buying them. Every fad-crazy idiot in America is getting one. (See photo above.) But the whole point of iPhone -- of all our products, really -- is to offer a product that not everyone can have. A product that makes you different, and unique, and special. A product that makes you smarter and, well, better than other people. Can't do that if everyone has one, right?

We figured we could keep things under control using our usual overpricing strategy. Who in their right mind was going to shell out 600 bucks for a friggin phone, right? Especially if it lacks all sorts of features that people really want. Just to be doubly sure we put it on the AT&T network and gave it an unbearably slow wireless connection so that Web browsing is practically impossible. Well, much to our amazement, it turns out there are just loads and loads of people willing to spend 600 bucks on a feature-lite phone as long as it has one crucial feature, which is our Apple logo on the outside. Who knew?

Well, demand is just so strong that I've had to slam on the brakes before things get out of control. Apple faithful, listen up. There is nothing to worry about. Honestly. iPhone, like all our products, including Apple TV, is a huge super dooper smash hit. Too big, actually. That's why we're cutting back production. Make sense? Of course it does. And hardly anybody is returning them. Seriously. There really are not a lot of people who bought one just because all their friends were getting them and they just wanted to check it out and now are returning them because the novelty wore off and the call quality kind of sucks and the keyboard blows and they already have an iPod and they like their BlackBerry better for email. Okay? That's really not happening. I mean it. Peace out.

A reader asks...

"Since you're going on about the succession plan at Microsoft, what is your own succession plan? Who takes over when you leave?"

Answer: The question is moot. I am not ever going to leave. Apple is mine. Steve is Apple, Apple is Steve. My plan at this time is to live forever and to remain in charge here, though perhaps with fewer restrictions on my power. The truth is, I am not human -- I am a man-god, son of Zeus (in photo above; please note resemblance), born to mortal woman but fathered by the ruler of the gods, lord of thunder. If I do leave, Apple shuts down. Immediately. No guff. It's in my contract.

Interesting memo from Katie Cotton

So Katie did a really good analysis today on the two stories which appeared about the Borg this morning -- one in the Journal, the other in the New York Times. Katie wrote a memo for our entire media relations staff and I thought I'd share some of it with you because Katie is really sharp about analyzing the filthy hacks in the press. I'll skip the top few paragraphs where she tells me how smart and cool and handsome I am and just cut in to where she starts talking about the articles.

For the record they are here (Journal) and here (Times).

"Journal and NYT both have articles this a.m. on MSFT and it's instructive to see how each went after basically the same material. Beastmaster & Co. used last week's financial analysts meeting as an excuse to bring in some big press and purge a story that's been hanging over their heads for a year now. To wit: What happens when the Prince of Darkness leaves? Who's going to run this nuthouse? Will they be evil enough or will they be like Scott Evil, just one calorie, evil lite, etc. etc.

"Times story is by John "Mail It In" Markoff who appears to have simply flown to Redmond, spent an hour with Gates, Mundie and Ozzie, taken down a bit of what they said, then transcribed it into his laptop and filed it as his story, weaving in a few bits of general knowledge about Microsoft (threatened by Google, Web apps are the future, blah blah). This is Markoff's M.O. and no doubt it's why Waggener Edstrom probably insisted on giving the story to him. Next week he'll visit some IBM research lab and transcribe some tale they're telling about moving a pair of molecules around in a petri dish. WTF, it's a living, and he'll soon be collecting a pension.

"Journal story is by Robert Guth and it shows why the Journal remains the one news outlet we really need to worry about. Guth zooms in on Mundie, gets deep detail (what flavor power bar he eats on the road, what he learned in fourth grade) and either sat in on meetings in Europe with Mundie or at least learned enough to create the impression that he did. In other words, he actually did some reporting. Along the way he dug up how messed up the Borg's internal communications are, eg research labs in different locations are working on the same projects and don't realize it, and depicts the Borg as bloated, slow, dim, unable to get new technologies to market effectively, and so on.

"Advantage Guth. Advantage Journal. Bad news for us since the Journal hacks clearly still have it in for us."

A Slashtard asks ...

Some idiot on Slashdot says he really, really, really wants to rip OS X out of his Mac and run nothing but Linux. But he wants all his Mac apps to run just as smoothly and, um, they don't. See here. Money quote: "What I would like is an equivalent: a software compatibility layer that will allow Linux to run Mac OS X apps at native performance. ... Does such a project exist yet? If not, why not?"

Why not? Um, for the same reason there's no team out there working on a way to put a Volkswagen engine into a Ferrari. Because it makes no friggin sense. Trust me, pal. Stick with OS X. You're much better off. I should know. I wrote it myself.

Much love, Sugarcat Cakes

The nice folks at Sugarcat Cakes sent along this photo of their latest cake creation. They call it the Jesus Cake. Feeds a whole party of hungry geeks, but alas, you can't remove the battery. Watch out, Sugarcat folks. Some frigtard in Illinois might decide to sue you for false advertising. To see the original, go here. To learn more about Sugarcat Cakes, go here.

Suing me is like suing God

But I guess this guy is gonna try anyway. Claims we misled him by not disclosing that the battery on his iPhone is soldered into the frame. Let me make a prediction: We're going to win this one.

I've tested this product personally, and give it my highest endorsement

The folks at Apple who screen new iPod accessories for our retail stores sent this over and I have to tell you, it's fantastic for working out the knots in your neck and shoulders after a long day of typing. Really. The only mistake I made was letting Jon Ive borrow it. He called me today and told me I wasn't getting it back. I could barely hear him over the moaning in the background. Damn you, Jon Ive!

A challenge to Czech youth

Look, I like the Czech Republic. I've had a good time in Prague. Such helpful people in all the stores, such friendly folks on the trams and buses, so welcoming and warm, so willing to offer assistance to foreigners. Never grumpy or grouchy or pissed off. It's a nation known for hospitality, and for some great achievements. Like the Skoda. And those fantastic beers. Wonderful composers like Smetana and Janacek. Writers like Kundera, Skvorecky, Hrabal and my main man Hasek. Marina Tsvetaeva, my favorite Russian poet, wrote some of her best work in Prague. And of course I love the great Czech politicians like Vaclav Havel (who by the way loves our new MacBook Pro) and Lech Walesa, and famous emigre businessmenski like Andy Grove.

But the above video just makes me sad. It shows young Czech kids vandalizing an Apple store and covering its windows with the word "Why?" because they think our computers cost too much in the Czech Republic. Folks, if you want to see how four decades of Communism can destroy a country's soul, look no further. A once-proud nation of beermakers and industrialists has been transformed into a nation of lazy, whingeing young people who don't respect other people's property and expect handouts from the West. Sorry, kids. That's not how it works. If you really want to know why imported goods cost so much in your country, take it up with Vaclav Klaus, or maybe his interior minister, Misho Knedlik.

Or hey, better yet. Go buy one of those wonderful Czech computers that are made in your fine country. Oh wait. You don't have any computer companies? Ty vole, I've got an idea. Maybe you kids should start your own computer company. You know, like sell your car and beg some money from relatives and buy some components and start putting together machines in your garage. Work your ass off, hire the best people you can find, work your ass off some more and change the world. Then, in thirty years, when you've created the most beautiful machines ever known to mankind, you can have some punks deface your store and gripe about you being a rapacious exploiter. That's how the world says "Thank you." Or should I say, "Dekuji." Or is it "Polib mi prdel"? I always get them confused.

Update on that last item, for frigtards and Europeans

For the small but still surprising (and also disappointing) number of people who read the last item as a kind of "death threat" despite the explicit use of the word "metaphor" (see their frigtarded comments here) I should like to explain. I am not threatening to do any physical harm to John Dvorak. I am saying that Dvorak has made a career out of playing the same role as the "freak" in the game at Coney Island. He's a wiseass. He's a bully. He mocks passersby, he taunts, he jeers -- and those of us who've been taunted by him have been powerless to fight back. (Like the dummies who pay ten bucks at Coney Island and get a paint gun that won't shoot straight.) But now, thanks to the blogosphere, a CEO doesn't have to just take shit from guys like Dvorak. When he makes up lies about my product or my company, I can fire back. And I can be very accurate. Every time Dvorak takes a shot at me (metaphorically, duh), I can "fire back" and address his bullshit here on my blog. Which is what I'm doing. It's way more efficient than flying in Goatberg and Smurfy Pogue and hypnotizing them over and over again so they'll do my bidding. Of course we're still doing that too. Only because it's so much damn fun.

Anyhoo, frigtards -- I don't actually own an Israeli assault rifle, and I am not ever going to go shoot John Dvorak or do him any physical harm. Bokay? Metaphor. Look it up. No need to call Tim O'Reilly and Jimbo Wales and the rest of the Internet police.

Now Dvorak is hunting for me too

See his "Cranky Geeks" Web site here. In the episode 74 video the first topic (after uber-geek and super-techie Dvorak reveals the fact that he doesn't know how to work a Tivo box) is "Who is Fake Steve Jobs?" Dvorak, to answer your question, let me quote from Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood: "I'm your worst nightmare." You've made a career out of being a bully and bashing my machines. You've been kicking sand in my face for twenty years. Now I've got a platform with which to call you on your bullshit. The victim is hitting back. The ninety-pound weakling doesn't have to just let you kick sand in his face. The hunter (that would be you) becomes the hunted. Deal with it, old man. I have you in my scope. Ever heard of "Shoot the Freak" at Coney Island? See a write-up on it here. You pay a few bucks and get to shoot pellets at a real live human being. It's a metaphor. Ask one of your brainy "Cranky Geeks" panelists to explain it to you. Only I'm not using one of their frigged-up bent-barrel Coney Island pellet guns. I've got a Tavor assault rifle with a laser scope, obtained by my main man Moshe from his friends in Sayeret Matkal. Start running, freak.

I'm thinking about getting a new car

As many of you know, I've been partial to Mercedes uber-coupes. (See photos.) But I'm getting itchy for something new. I like the new CL. And the CLS is interesting too and almost expensive enough. The SLR could be fun. But I'm willing to look at other brands.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Money is not an issue, obviously, but taste is. So is performance. So please, no letters about the Prius, okay?

Joy of Tech on the Dvorak about-face

Funny cartoon. See here. Much love to Thierry for sending this in.

I'm offering to help Lindsay Lohan

I've talked to Arnold about it and he thinks we can work something out where we can keep her out of the judicial system and handle this privately and humanely. Clearly she needs to be punished but the girl definitely doesn't need to go to jail. She needs to get out of LA, up to the Bay Area, spend some time at Tassajara or Green Gulch, do some meditation, stop eating meat, stop drinking and smoking, just clean up and detox, maybe spend a week eating nothing but carrots, go for long walks on the beach, do some T'ai Chi and Zen work with an older dude who isn't her dad and who isn't interested in her only because of her looks. Clearly the girl needs to be taken in hand by a wiser, spiritually gifted yet also strict man, sort of a father figure but a guy who's an improvement on her real dad, a guy who can discipline her and keep her in line. (Enough, we get it, Ed.) When she's cleaned up and rested we can get her some work at Apple. Let her live a normal life. Get up, take a shower -- preferably a long, hot, steamy shower with lots of soapsuds and a big squishy loofah -- then get dressed and go to work like a regular person. We'll get her some job at Apple and she can just be normal for a while. Poor kid. She never had a normal childhood. Never had a normal adulthood. That's what she needs, and I want to give it to her. I mean I really, really want to give it to her. (Are you Bill O'Reilly? You're fired, Ed.)

This about-face by Dvorak

So loads of people are writing in asking about this recent article by Dvorak in which he admits he's using a Mac and thinks it's a hundred times better than Windows and concedes that's been a big foolish windbag ass-hat Mac-hater, and he's been wrong, and he apologizes, and he prays that someday I can forgive him ... or something like that. So people are asking me, Steve, what do you make of this?

You know what? It scares the shit out of me. Because if this frigtard Dvorak now likes our machines, I think we must have done something wrong. Honestly. This idiot has been so consistently wrong for his entire career that we use him as a contrarian indicator. Now he likes us, and I'm afraid this might mean we've jumped the shark or something. Also, as I've said many times, there are a lot of people who we really don't want using our products. No bias or anything; they just aren't right for us. Dvorak is clearly one of them.

So we're watching this very, very closely to see how it develops. With any luck they'll get JD back on his Alzheimer's medicine and he'll regain his senses and start bashing us again.

Today's music depresses me

Sorry for not blogging much yesterday but I was hanging out with the guys in our high-resolution digital downloads group. These are the guys who are working on next-generation digital streaming technologies that will let you download music at way better sampling rates than ordinary CDs (at a premium price, of course). The goal now is to match and then outdo vinyl, which these guys insist is still the best sound available. What I love about these guys is that they're engineers but they're also total music freaks and they all have backgrounds in recording studios and so forth. They love music. And they love to get high. They've got their own building on the campus with a listening room that's completely sound-treated and loaded up with the finest gear money can buy, plus loads of comfortable couches and chairs, and cool rugs and black lights, and this killer music collection.


Yesterday I went down there, got stoned, and kicked back for a listen. They had this German turntable that costs some ridiculous amount of money and looks like it fell off a spaceship, plus some Spectral Audio amps and a pair of Wilson Audio Alexandrias which to my taste are a bit overdone; I prefer my old WATT Puppies, but whatever. Anyway. They put on an album I hadn't listened to in years -- Robin Trower Live, first released in 1976. Mindblowing. I'd forgotten how good he was. We just sat there, pinned to our chairs, stoned out of our minds, saying stuff like, "Man. Wow. Hmmm." And trust me these are some jaded dudes who are not easily impressed. Then we listened to the same music on remastered high-rez digital and it was close but still not quite there with the vinyl.

But the real point, the one we all made to each other, was this: Can you imagine if Robin Trower came along today? He couldn't even get a record deal. It's hard to believe today that only 30 years ago there was a market for guys who were just flat-out virtuoso musicians, guys who could fill a stadium with people who just came to hear some amazing dude play his instrument. No back-up dancers, no flashing video screens, no lip-synching. Just three guys on a stage. And people would sit there and listen. We all agreed that the music business sucks today. Then we all felt sad. Then we all felt old.

Then we fired up the monster bong again and listened to side one of the Live album on vinyl and everything was cool again.

Think different

Yeah, it was a good day. Much love to Dear Reader Larry M. who sent in this chart. O mover of bits, O Linux apostate, O gentleman farmer. Zat's right bro. I know who you be. Much love. Peace out.

I told you it was a buying opportunity

But did you believe me? No. You all got scared. You lost faith. You wanted to stick your hand in my side and feel the wound. Well, I hope a few people were smart enough to snap up a few shares. And don't ever doubt me again. Bokay?

It's official -- Al has moved out

He just came by and told me he's moving over to the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto. Not because we've shut off the air conditioning, mind you. He said nothing about that. Though I saw him this morning and he was looking pretty sweaty and drained. Trust me, the guy can't deal with temps above seventy. He melts like a wax statue. "I just don't want to be an imposition on you," he says. "You've been really considerate and generous and a great friend, but I just feel I should go to the hotel."

I told him I understand, and that we'd miss him and that I hoped he and Tipper could work things out, and he could have our old Mercedes station wagon for as long as he wants. Then we both did our gassho bows and said, "Namaste." As soon as he was gone I called Breezeann and told her to fire up the damn A/C again. We're breaking out champagne tonight.

The best use yet for an iPod Nano

See here. I have the exact same thing in my office. And in my car. And at home.

More whine, my darling?

Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal (above, in stylish eyewear) continues to have a sicko man crush on me and now has done another doozy on El Jobso. If you haven't seen this morning's Wall Street Journal, be sure to go get one. It's a collector's item. (BTW the photo above reminds me of a joke. Q. What's a Journal reporter's favorite wine? A. "Rupert's buying our paper, waaaaah!" Fair enough. It works better out loud than in print. Try it and see.) Meanwhile I can provide you a taste of his gross article here. They've made an entire Page One story out of the fact that I allegedly do not like buttons and that this was why we made the iPhone look the way it does. Like, I wear turtlenecks -- no buttons! Gasp! Nick Wingnuts figured this out all by himself and pitched it to his editor and some bonehead in New York actually considered this to be a profound revelation about me and Apple and the world and the meaning of life, even though nobody from Apple would talk to them for the story and the few quotes they had were mostly anonymous and the story itself is totally pointless.

Steve Jobs favors minimalism in his designs. This is news? To whom? Or maybe they just wanted an excuse to put my face on their front page, in order to boost circulation. Honestly, Wall Street Journal, why don't you just write the words STEVE JOBS STEVE JOBS STEVE JOBS all around the edges of every page? Wouldn't that help you sell copies too? Or you could change the name of your newspaper to The Steve Jobs Wall Street Journal, or Steve's Wall Street Journal. I'm going to call Rupert and suggest it. You could have a different celebrity CEO "sponsor" every week. It'll go great with your new tabloid format.

Not to be a dick but Katie Cotton informs me that this is the same Nick Wingfield who's had a hard-on for me over the options stuff and has been writing all those slanted, biased, unfair articles basically calling me a crook. Now he wants to be pals and say what great design taste I have so he can get a story onto A1 and look like he's Mr. Silicon Valley who knows all about tech. Friends in the press, that's not how things work out here. You want to get us to talk to you, you have to promise to only say nice things. (For an example of how to bend over gracefully and court us the right way, see Fortune magazine.) Meanwhile, Nick, I'm holding up three fingers, and I'd suggest you read between the lines.

FYI, this is what an overpriced stock looks like

I know everyone's worried about Apple but folks if you're looking to short something, how about a stock that's trading at nearly 4,000 times earnings? Yep. You heard that right. Or, okay, say you want to look at a forward P/E instead of trailing. This thing is still outrageous. Especially when you consider that Larry is pushing Oracle into their space and NetSuite into their space (and yes, okay, full disclosure, Larry slid me a nice chunk of NetSuite as a late birthday present, so yes, I'll do well on their IPO, but that's not why I'm touting them. Not at all. Just like that's not why all the VCs out here are pimping Facebook. Ahem.)

The other problem for Salesforce is, of course, the Borg. See here and here. Beastmaster Bill is coming into the space and undercutting Salesforce on price, ie disrupting the disrupter. What else? Um, well, Salesforce has a blowhard CEO who learned all about business ethics during his time at Oracle and who brags about manipulating the press. What else? Oh yeah. Their chief accounting officer just resigned, which is always a good sign, especially in a company that has a subscription model and the tricky revenue recognition policies that go along with that. Nuff said.

Trust me, it's a buying opportunity

So you've seen the big news about our stock getting hammered because those frigtards at AT&T only activated 150,000 iPhones in the first two days, and from this people extrapolated that we mustn't have sold as many iPhones as people thought. Folks, take a deep breath here. You know I can't tell you what we're going to report tomorrow. But keep the big picture in mind. Don't worry about what we did or didn't do in the last two days of a quarter. Think about the product. Think about the sense of childlike wonder. Think about how good you will feel owning Apple stock and holding it forever. Even if it goes down, you'll still be proud to own it. Pride of ownership, that's what we're all about. That special feeling when you own something that not everybody else can own, something that makes you special and unique and, well, better than other people, something that even Robert Scoble holds over his head and cheers about. (enough, Ed.) Namaste. Buy our stock. Peace out.

Al Gore, world's worst house guest

So here's the latest. Al borrowed my wife's G55 and went to McDonald's, ate burgers, and left the meat-stained wrappers in the truck. "It's death," she says. "The smell of death. That's what's in there now. You'll never get it out. I just called the dealership. They're going to send over a new one and tow this one away. I want him out, Steve. I mean out. Now. Today."

But here's the thing. Al eats when he's depressed. He's a junk food junkie. I can't bear to toss him out right now, considering all that he's going through. On the other hand we really did love that Gelandewagen. It's an AMG model and totally kicks ass. I mean it's this huge ass truck and it still does zero to sixty in five seconds. So I've come up with a plan. I just called home and told Breezeann, our house manager, to shut down all the air conditioning in the house and the guest house. We're telling Al that he's made us realize how important the environment is and how we should be doing more to help out. It's not super hot out here in the Valley this week, but it's hot enough. My bet is he's gone in two days. More as it develops.

Crave: Apple will take over the home

Resistance is futile. All your home are belong to Steve. See here. BTW it's not just everyone's home. We're taking over the music and movie industries too. And telecoms. And transportation, though we're still a ways off on that.

Woz doesn't like his iPhone. Or something.

See here. Says he still uses Razr to make phone calls and is "compiling a list of peeves" to tell me about. Peeve away, Woz. Because we all really, really care what you think. I mean, hey, you invented the Apple II, right? So now we'll have to waste half a day bringing him in and hearing all his big ideas and letting him draw on a white board and give orders to some cafeteria workers that we dress up as engineers. Total pain in the ass.

I can't tell you what tomorrow's earnings report is going to look like

But I wish I could. I mean, I really, really wish I could. That's not a forward-looking statement, is it? (Yes it is please stop, ed.)

Another thought on the OLPC machine

I should clarify something. I'm not against the idea of helping people in developing countries get hold of technology. The idea is a great one. What bothers me about the OLPC machine, or the XO machine, or whatever they're calling it now, is simply the aesthetics. When I look at those machines I just feel a profound sadness -- I suppose it is the way Frank Lloyd Wright must have felt when he looked at some horrible big public housing estate. Like FLW, I'm all about creating beauty. Ugliness actually repulses me. I get physically ill. Just because people are poor doesn't mean you have to stigmatize them by putting them in ugly buildings. Nor should you give them ugly computers. There. I said it.

To those who say I shouldn't criticize OLPC, since Apple isn't giving away hundred-dollar Macs to Third-World kids, let me explain. That's not our job. That's not what Apple is here for. That's not what I was put on earth to do. I'm here to push the state of the art, to create groundbreaking, mind-blowing designs. That's who I am. That's why I'm here. An artist has to find his niche. You don't ask John Ashbery to write advertising jingles, right? You don't ask Patek Phillipe to make a Timex. I just wish the OLPC people had consulted with us a bit on their design before they went ahead. I wouldn't have met with them personally, but we could have found a few people to sit down and tell them how things should be done.

Alvy Ray Smith has moved to New Zealand?

I had no idea. See the story here.

Once upon a time there was a bitter, twisted little book publisher ...

Oh, what the heck. Let him tell you the story himself, on his blog.

Back story for those who don't remember: This guy works at a book publisher called Wiley. We banned their books from our stores because these guys are scumbags and their books are filled with lies.

Let the train wreck begin

The world-changing hundred-dollar laptop is going into mass production, which means that soon one of two things will happen. Either a) a huge number of these things will get shipped into developing countries and begin to crash and pile up, broken, in heaps; or b) a huge number of these things will pile up in some warehouse because the orders still aren't coming in. Now the good folks at OLPC are saying they will subsidize their efforts by selling these craptops to First-World freetards for something like five hundred bucks a piece. See the Engadget piece here.

Why is this significant? It's significant because it's a huge about-face for OLPC, which originally said they wouldn't sell to consumers here because there was going to be such demand in the Third World and they wanted to make sure that every kid got a machine before they started letting folks here have them. Now they're going to start cranking them out and selling them here while they wait for those huge million-unit orders to come in from the developing world -- you know, those orders that will cost each country $100 million that they don't, um, have. Ahem.

The next fall-back, as these machines start piling up, will be for OLPC to try to arrange "financing" through the World Bank or the U.N. or some other organization. When that falls through they can blame those guys. Or they'll blame Intel, which by then will have swept in and helped these countries set up their own plants to build the machines locally, thereby creating jobs. I know it sounds strange, but what Intel understands and OLPC doesn't is that these countries don't want expensive handouts. They want companies to come in and create jobs and help them build an ecosystem. Just selling them a bunch of cheap laptops (which by the way are still too expensive for them) doesn't do them much good.

Of course the OLPC people won't admit defeat or even admit to being disappointed. And they'll never admit how stupid and idealistic and naive they look. And nobody in the freetarded media will ever criticize them because then they too will look stupid for having touted this thing like it was the second coming of You-Know-Who.

Note to Nicholas Negroponte: You went on your big world tour and met with Kofi Annan and all these government ministers and they all posed for photos and told you how wonderful your plans were and how they were so eager to get started. But then when it came time to write checks they all kind of stopped returning your phone calls. Or if they do call back they start suggesting ways that you could set up their brother-in-law as a distributor and slice a little bit of the skim back in their direction. Welcome to the developing world. You should see the stuff we have to do to make business happen in these places. One guy -- I can't say who -- made us set him up with a private jet, ostensibly so he could zoom around the country keeping an eye on us and monitoring our performance. Oh, and maybe zip off to Paris for weekends. NickNeg, have you ever done business in places like Africa before? Oh right. You're a professor. You just want to help the kids.

Funny thing is that there's not a lot of demand for these dopey machines from the target audience, but there's loads of demand from freetards in the U.S. and Europe. Turns out, apparently, that folks in the developing world know enough to stay away from first-gen tech, especially when it's running a brand-new OS designed by wooly Cambridge types and it's still crashing all the time. Not so the freetards, who can't wait to get their hands on these semi-functioning boxes with their childish icon user interface. How soon till we see bozos in Berkeley and Cambridge sitting in cafes, pumping away on their foot pump or tugging on their salad spinner, keeping their little laptop running and cruising the Web with their Opera browser? No doubt they'll act all smug, too, and tell us that by doing this they're a) saving the planet from melting; and b) helping kids in Africa. Have at it, bozos.

Squirrel Boy is feeling scared

Sure, he won't admit it. But he is. We're taking a workout class together -- it's a combination of Pilates, sweat yoga, meditation and karmic journeywork -- and last night, when we were in the locker room, he was talking a bit about Google missing its numbers in this recent quarter. He was saying that it's all overblown and everybody is looking for some significance that isn't there. Tells me he had some really rough call with some obnoxious sell-side analyst who covers Google. The guy kept saying that this was the first sign of Microsoft gaining some traction in online advertising, encroaching on Google's turf. Eric told the analyst flat out that this simply isn't true, but the analyst just kept on drilling him, saying the new competition is forcing Google to lower some of its prices and work a little harder. Guy keeps saying to Eric that this is how it goes with Microsoft, that at first you laugh at them, and deservedly so, since they're so clumsy and stupid and rough around the edges. But the one thing about the Borg is they don't give up. They've got a lot of money, and they're very patient and very persistent. They keep pushing and pushing and pushing. They study you. They copy you. They wait for you to make a mistake. They look for your weak spots, and when they find one, they start pressing and pressing. Eventually they get their hooks into you, and it starts to wear you down. Not in a big way. Just a little tear at first, way out at the edge of your fabric, so slight you almost don't notice it.

I don't know if this is true or not. But I don't think this matters. As I told Eric, the significant thing is that this is what the Wall Street guys are saying. This is the perception that Google will need to counter. Squirrel Boy says the Wall Street guys are all smoking crack and that Google is invincible and no way is Microsoft gaining any traction. But there was something about the way he said it -- this weird look in his eyes, as if maybe he didn't really believe it. Or maybe he was just wiped from the yoga. This new instructor, Aimee, really works us hard.

Just got out of a Fair Trade meeting

Can't go into details but there are some issues around pricing. I was thinking we might have a 50 percent price bump. Seems I was off by a bit. More on this as it develops.

Al Gore is driving us nuts

So he's been with us for less than a week but we're ready to shoot him. First of all, he's not a vegetarian, and he keeps bringing meat into the house even though he knows we've got a rule about that. And he's got nothing to do so all he does is hang out playing Wii and checking his email. Also, he's a slob. It's driving Mrs. Jobs nuts. I told her, You know, the guy has never had to pick up after himself. Grew up with servants on some plantation, so all through his childhood he had people picking up after him. Same as an adult. Above is a photo of what he's done to the living room in our guest house in just a few days.

He's also doing damage to the main house. Example: He gets a pizza delivered, and just puts the cardboard box on the coffee table in our living room and eats out of the box, with no plate, spilling crumbs everywhere. He doesn't eat the crusts, so they end up scattered on the table alongside his empty beer cans. Then when he's done he just gets up and goes out to the guest house and goes to bed, leaving his mess in our living room for us to clean up. (Or actually for our house manager but whatever.) He doesn't even shut off the TV. He also leaves the lights on all the time, which is kind of a pet peeve for me and Mrs. Jobs.

So just now the wife called me at work and gave me an ultimatum. The old "he goes or I go" thing. So I'm going to have to call him. I'm dreading it, seriously.

Giant iPhones appearing in sand around the world

It's freaky. It's like crop circles, or the Nazca lines. Nobody seems to know how this is happening. More freaky is that some of these sand-based iPhones actually work. To see someone using one, go here. Much love to the reader who alerted us to this phenomenon.

The Apple "Fair Trade" initiative

I've been getting loads of blowback in comments in response to my story about Jerry York taunting Al Gore. So I just want to make something clear. I absolutely one hundred percent fully believe in the global climate crisis. I've been a huge environmental activist for a long, long time. I've known Al Gore for years and I've been with him on this crusade since the beginning. To those people sending in links to NASA temperature charts and other data, I understand why you're doing it, but the fact is, I don't need any scientific proof. I never did. It's obvious to me that we've been pumping way too much carbon dioxide into the environment and that as a result our planet is hurtling toward a catastrophe.

Frankly I think we've got ten years left, at best. My biggest fear is that we may have already gone past the point where a catastrophe could be averted. From my perspective there's no point in having a debate, if only because there's no time for debate. The planet is in serious danger. These freako cold spells, these intense hurricanes -- it's as if the planet is crying out to us for help. We need to listen. The climate change crisis is real, and it's obvious. It's right there in front of us. It's happening. It's not a theory; it's a fact. Just look around you. Listen to what the planet is trying to tell us. And you know what? Even if the climate crisis turns out not to be true, it won't matter to me, because I still will know in my heart that it is true. So again, there's no point in having a debate. There's no point in throwing all sorts of "data" and "arguments" at me, because you're not going to dissuade me. I know it's true. How do I know it? Because it is true. You see? It's a perfect circle. That's how I know I'm right. It's like my Buddhism. I know it's the right path. There's no sense arguing with me about it.

Toward this point, there's something else I want to announce. I've been holding back on this but since I've been challenged I want to go public. Recently I instructed a team at Apple to draw up plans to create "Fair Trade" versions of everything we make. Macs, iPods, iPhones, everything. What does this mean? It means no underpaid labor, and no dangerous chemicals -- and not just in our own plants but all the way down our supply chain, down to our suppliers' suppliers, down to the very last component in everything we build. It means having zero impact on the environment, and a completely carbon neutral footprint for every product we make. I've given the team a deadline of the end of this year to implement this plan. I know a lot of you have been wondering why we're taking so long to crank out new computer models. Part of it is this Fair Trade initiative. I know it's annoying to wait. And it's clear to us that we're going to have to charge a bit more for our products. How much more is not yet clear. But I know you'll agree with me that whatever you have to pay for your next iPod, it will be worth it. Namaste. Much love. Peace out.

My goodness, look at the jugs on this one

Kids in Nigeria are using their One Laptop Per Child machines to cruise for porno. See here. Nicholas Negroponte must be so proud. Much love to reader Nick D. who sent this in.

Al and Tipper's argument

Like all of these things, it's so silly how the whole thing got started. Apparently Tipper got upset during Madonna's performance at Live Earth because Madge kept using what Tipper calls "the MF word." (For the record, I believe what Madonna said was, "If you wanna save the planet, stand the fuck up, motherfuckers!" Which in my mind makes perfect sense.) So after the set, Tipper goes backstage and reads Madonna the riot act, saying there were kids in the audience and kids watching on TV and what kind of example is Madonna setting? Then she says Madge is going to get fined since there were riders in all the contracts prohibiting profanity and forcing performers to pay penalties if they broke the rules. Madge freaks out and starts going all Cockney on Tipper, using a fake working-class British accent and sounding like a female Ali G. Then Al gets involved and -- here's the mistake -- sides with Madonna. Or, at least, agrees that there won't be any fines levied on Her Madgesty. At which point Tipper goes nuts and tells Al he's a drooling idiot and a ridiculous loser and how she was supposed to be first lady back in 2000 and instead here she is still schlepping around trying to get his fat ass elected and hanging out with circus freaks at rock concerts.

Yeah. Ugly. Al never went home. First he hung with Bono for a while but Bono got sick of him and "accidentally" forgot to tell Al their plane was leaving one morning, so Al got stranded in Morocco. He called me, drunk and crying, and I sent the Jobs Jet to fetch him. Now he's with us and I have no idea when he's leaving. Mrs. Jobs is not thrilled. More on this as it develops.

Bit of an argument at dinner last night

So Jerry York is a total global warming skeptic. Doesn't even try to be polite about it. Just scoffs openly and taunts the shit out of Al Gore -- who, as it turns out, is staying with us for a while since he and Tipper are having some problems again. So last night Jerry was in town and came over for dinner and he starts going on to Al about how it must have been pretty embarrassing to have that global warming concert wiped out in South Africa because of record cold temperatures and unprecedented snowfall. He says, You know, Al, I was looking at the climate trend data in South Africa, and one day last week the temperature was fifteen degrees lower than on the same date last year. Which means if this trend continues for another twenty years the average temperature in South Africa will be two hundred degrees below zero all year round, and the country will be covered by an ice sheet fourteen feet thick. Scary, right? I mean, we've got to do something!

Al sort of chuckles like he's already heard this one way too many times and as if Jerry is just some poor retard who doesn't understand science. He says, Jerry, see, this is why we're now focusing on climate change rather than global warming. People got this idea about global warming in their heads and that's really not the problem at all. Some parts of the globe are getting warmer; others are getting colder. It's the change that we're focused on, and in particular the severity of that change.

Jerry says, Well, um, excuse me, but if people somehow got the wrong idea that we were supposed to be worried about warming, isn't that kind of your fault? Because I'm pretty sure you're the one who got the warming thing going with that movie of yours, talking about how the atmosphere was acting like a greenhouse and the whole planet was getting warmer and warmer. But now if some parts of the globe are getting colder, that kind of destroys the greenhouse metaphor, doesn't it? I mean, you don't hear about greenhouses where over in some corner the air's getting freezing cold, do you?

Al says, I actually never talked about global warming. That's just not what I said. Jerry says, Actually that is exactly what you said, but anyway, if you're going to weasel out of it now and talk about climate change, okay, be my guest. But tell me this. If you don't like change, what are you advocating? That the entire planet's climate should remain exactly the same forever and ever amen? No change at all in any direction can ever be allowed? Or what is it? We could have a little change, but not too much? How much would be okay? And who's going to decide this? You? Or some panel at the United Nations? You really think we should get involved in trying to micromanage all these little microclimates and if they're deviating in any direction, up or down, we've got to keep pulling all these levers and changing our behavior trying to just keep the entire planet the same, temperature-wise, for the rest of all time? One year things start to get too warm, we cut back on fossil fuel usage, but then if things get too cold, we do what, we burn more gas or something to try and bring things back to normal? And if Africa's getting cold while we're getting warm do we burn more gas in Africa but less gas here or what?

Al says, Jerry, you aren't seriously suggesting that there's not a problem, are you? I mean every scientist in the world who's got half a brain has already signed off on this. I mean, you and I can sit here debating the science till we're blue in the face but let's be honest we're not scientists and we don't know what we're talking about.

Jerry says, Well it's refreshing finally to hear you admit that. Al says, I was talking about you, not me. Jerry says, Well, if you want my opinion I think you just want something big and scary and invisible that you can use to scare the shit out of people and get them whipped up behind some cause. It's the oldest trick in the book. You create some big terrifying boogeyman. It's what the Bushies have been doing with the rag-heads. But let's be honest. Your real cause, at the end of the day, is "Cause I want to be president." And since we've been drinking and since I'm so rich that I don't give a shit who I offend let me say that I actually feel kind of bad for you, Al. Because you're basically a nice guy with modest talents and a decent, though not outstanding, brain, and you had all sorts of unrealistic expectations placed upon you and had every advantage given to you but in the end you just didn't have what it takes to fulfill your father's ambitions.

Jerry says, It's tough, I agree, to grow up in a rich Southern family with a daddy who's a U.S. Senator and who gets you into Congress at 29 and the Senate at 36 and paves the way for you to become president. But eventually you bumped up against your own limitations, and unfortunately you had to do it on the biggest stage in the world, and you failed and got humiliated in the most public way possible. I felt bad for you in 2000 and I feel bad for you now. You had a good run with this global warming thing, and now that half the planet is freezing instead of warming you're trying to call it climate change, but come on, that's just clumsy and awkward and it smacks of bad PR -- it sounds, in fact, like the kind of "pivot" you used to use in your campaign in 2000. Worse yet, the only thing you can possibly accomplish here is to fuck up our economy while doing nothing about the climate. So please, Al. Go do something else to win your daddy's love. Lift weights. Make a billion dollars. Grow your hair, buy a guitar and make a rock and roll record. But not this.

By this point Al was in tears. And Jerry goes, You see? You see what I'm saying? How you going to run for president and stand up under that heat when you can't even take a little crap from me? Jerry says, Steve, what do you think? Am I right or am I right? Don't you agree? But I just put up my hands and beat feet out of there. The fact is, I love Al Gore. He's like a brother to me. I think he'd be a great president. And I friggin hate Jerry York. If I didn't need him to protect me on this SEC thing I'd bounce his ass off the board today.

Correction

Well as several dozen people have pointed out here, the Nobel Prize is awarded in Sweden, not Finland, as I reported yesterday. To see the original item and the many, many corrections, see here. All I can say is that this is what happens when you're living out of your car, surviving on coffee and truck-stop amphetamines, and blogging from Starbucks. Anyhoo, FSJ regrets the error and offers a super-humble apology. Much love and namaste to all of the helpful people who wrote in providing the correct information. Really. The unique value that you bring to this blog is incredible. In fact I sometimes think that the audience is, in fact, the best thing about this site. After me, of course. But right after me, it's you. Or something like that.

Squirrel Boy gets his turn in the clown chair

Well the backlash against Google has finally begun. See here. And all it took was a tiny miss on growth estimate that, let's face it, the Wall Street guys had pulled out of their butts anyway. However, it doesn't matter. Google missed and now the wolves will be all over Google about everything. The hypocrisy of "Don't be evil" while you are being evil in China. Spying on customers, invading privacy, cheating book authors, screwing poor saps who sign up for AdSense. Google as Big Brother. Google as monopolist. All these stupid investments in new businesses that aren't paying out. YouTube for a billion and a half? What the frig were you thinking? All these apps in the cloud that aren't making money. Google this, Google that, everything in perpetual beta, nothing ever finished and done and working 100% right. They're going to look like a bunch of spoiled coddled self-involved Lego-playing 20-somethings who have free massages and dry cleaning and groovy ethnic food and have been turned loose with no adult supervision to do whatever the fuck they want, and who all are suffering from acute Attention Deficit Disorder so that they never finish anything because they get bored and move on to the next stupid idea that some bozo has dreamed up on a white board. You know why they're going to look like that? Because that's what they are. Yes, there are smart people at Google. Smarts are about one tenth of what makes a business work. The rest is just shitty stuff like dealing with customers and partners and fixing bugs and reworking code and doing all sorts of lousy grunt work -- stuff the little whiz kids don't want to get their hands dirty on. And stuff that Squirrel Boy, quite frankly, has never been too good at either. Sun? Novell? Heard of them?

Oh, it's all fun and games when you're on the way up. Now is when it's going to get ugly. Squirrel Boy, I feel your pain. Sort of.

Re: the record highs in the stock market

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Hey, can it really be true that Apple alone is responsible for the frothy soaring wondrous stock market? Well, yes. It is true. And I know you're thinking, Hey, Steve Jobs, thanks so much for doing this. For not only giving us the beautiful iPhone but also driving up the values of our 401(k) plans and making us all a little bit richer. Steve Jobs, we'd like you to have a Nobel Prize for this. Won't you come to Finland and pick yours up? Because what does more to give peace to the world than driving up the value of everyone's stock portfolio? Wealth equals happiness equals peace. Yes. We love you, Steve Jobs. This, with the stock market, is just another way in which you've added a sense of childlike wonder to our lives. When we open our envelopes from Fidelity and Vanguard, and our eyes fill with tears of joy, we look then to the extra large photo of you, Steve Jobs, that we keep over our desk, and we say, Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Friends, in response I say: You're welcome.

Woz has nothing to do but give interviews

Now he's talking to PC World and claiming we're still friends. See here. Money quote: "Also, I have a long dream to build my own house in a very energy-efficient approach. That's going to be very soon. It uses the right kind of wood that serves as a heater and as an air conditioner." Can't wait to see that.

A new way to read this blog

Look to your right. I've put up a box through FeedBurner that lets you subscribe and get your daily Steve right in your mailbox. I'm not sure how much interest there is in this service but Squirrel Boy insists it makes huge amounts of sense for me. Whatever. I'm using his blogging software and ad network stuff as a favor since he's on our board. If any of you do subscribe, please let me know if it actually works and if it's any good. If not, I'm going to cut Squirrel Boy a new one.

Sumner Redstone keeps firing people

Now it's his daughter, Shari. See here. Can't someone do something to help this crazy, helpless old man? Everyone in the movie business has known about this for months, ever since the Tom Freston thing. Sumner's off his rocker. He called me a few weeks ago and told me I was fired. I was like, Sumner, I don't work for you. He said, I know you don't, because I just fired you. I'm like, No, Sumner, I'm at Disney, and you don't own Disney. He said, Don't give me no back-talk, punk, just clean out your desk or I'll call security. I wouldn't mind but he's fired me before, too. Half of Hollywood has been "fired" by this guy in the past year. It was funny for a while but nobody's laughing anymore. BTW the only guy he doesn't dare fire is Brad Grey. That's because every so often Brad brings James Gandolfini around the offices and tells Sumner he's friends with Tony Soprano. Sumner hides under his desk when he hears that Brad and Tony are walking around. Brad scares the hell out of Sumner. Brad scares the hell out of everyone, frankly.

Howard Stringer says I'm greedy

See here. Money quote: "Stringer said Jobs, who just launched the iPhone, is the "greedy" one because he wants a world where only he makes money." Translation: Steve Jobs is kicking my ass, boo-hoo-hoo...

I'm pretty sure this guy does not actually read the blog

Got this email today and had to share it.

My name is Kyle and I am the administrator of a new and fasting growing firearms discussion forum; www.firearmstalk.com. I am writing to you today to inquire about a link exchange between our two websites. This is not a bulk spam message. I searched for specific websites and found your e-mail address through your website. We are being very selective on who we contact and how many links we exchange with to avoid link farming. ...

Kyle

So when Apple goes after bloggers, we're evil. But when Valleywag does it, it's entertainment.

I've been debating whether to post anything about this. But here goes. Sorry I was out of the loop a bit the last few days. Life is tough when you're on the lam. I've been holed up with lawyers and private eyes and computer security consultants after discovering a few invasions of privacy that may or may not have crossed over the line of legality but definitely fall outside the boundaries of what most decent civilized human beings consider to be appropriate behavior.

I don't want to get into details but let's just say it sort of almost makes a person begin to fear for the safety of himself and the people around him. It's creepy. It's gross. It's wrong. I will be blogging when possible over the next few days but might not have much time. So bear with me until we can get everything straightened out. FYI, I'm not saying who did this but I have a pretty good idea and I bet you do too (cough sodomite cough). To whatever bit of pond scum is doing this stuff, let me say this: This was fun, up to a point. You've gone past that point. Stop.

Who cares about Microsoft v. Red Hat?

I know. That's what people are asking me. Why does the world's greatest imaginary CEO care about Microsoft and Red Hat? Well, the thing is, as much as I hate Microsoft, and as much as I think they're often clumsy and stupid, there's another part of me that just admires how cunning they can be.

In this case what they're doing is turning Red Hat's own rhetoric back on them. For years Red Hat has been saying they're all about setting customers free and giving them choice and empowering them. (Now of course this was all horse shit and Red Hat is just as craven as anyone else and in fact they make most of their money from software that isn't "free" or "open source" at all -- Linux is "free" but then they lock you into all this other stuff that's totally proprietary and closed.) So fine. Microsoft now says, Gee, we're all about letting customers choose too, and they really want all of us vendors to get our heads together and make our products interoperate. We're listening to customers and doing what they want. Won't you step up and do this too? Don't you want to continue giving customers what they want? And so on and so on.

It's a neat little piece of ju-jitsu. Microsoft is calling Red Hat out and daring them to back up their bullshit rhetoric with action. As much as I can't stand Beastmaster Bill and Monkey Boy Steve, they deserve a little tip of the cap for the way they're handling this. I've told all my guys to pay attention to this and see how we can apply it to those bastards in the movie and music business. Not to mention the anti-DRM freetards and the Greenpeace types.

Don't be afraid, I just want to interoperate

Well this little mini drama between Microsoft and Red Hat continues, where Microsoft is trying to form a "partnership" for "interoperability" and Red Hat is freaking out because if makes any deal with Microsoft the nutbags in the Linux "community" will accuse Red Hat of selling out and making a deal with the enemy. See here. Basically Microsoft is doing its Eddie Haskell act and pretending it just wants to play nice and interoperate and do what's right for customers blah blah mwah mwah. You believe that? Me neither. So far Microsoft has rounded up all the other idiots in the Linux "market" (hard to call it a market but whatever) and got them to sign deals and agree, implicitly anyway, that their Linux stuff may infringe on Microsoft patents. Linspire, Xandros, Novell, and a bunch of embedded Linux guys have all bought tickets on the Redmond Railroad to secure "peace in our time."

Now Microsoft is closing in on Red Hat, forcing Red Hat's hand by saying that if Red Hat doesn't play ball with Microsoft it will look like a holdout, a radical, a weirdo freako company that doesn't want to put customers' needs ahead of its own socialist agenda. And until Red Hat signs a deal Microsoft will keep steering enterprise Linux business to Novell. Which, believe me, is starting to pinch Red Hat. Look at their last quarterly results. Their top line is growing, but check out their operating costs. They're working a lot harder to make their numbers. That's going to keep being a problem. Worse yet, very soon they're going to start suffering some real pain thanks to the GPLv3 which is going to mess up the entire operating system. This is why it sucks not to own any IP. This lack of control over its core product has always been the true Achilles' heel of Red Hat. They tried to present this as a virtue, talking about "flexibility" and "freedom." But at the end of the day if you don't make your own stuff you're at the mercy of the people who make it for you. Um, Red Hat shareholders and institutional investors? Let me introduce you to Richard Stallman, the man who actually controls your company. You're just as free as Richard says you can be.

So Microsoft just slowly coils itself around Red Hat (by making deals with everyone else in its space) and gently begins to squeeze. Ubuntu, the other holdout, is probably less worrisome because they're not really gaining much traction yet and Microsoft feels pretty sure on the desktop. (How else to explain the fact they're charging four hundred friggin bucks for the top version of Vista? Jesus.) Microsoft's real goal, the one that has consumed it for 20 years, is cracking into the data center. They thought they would take over the Unix market by now, using low-cost Windows servers to displace Sun, HP and IBM. Instead Linux zoomed in and took that market. In the world of Beastmaster Bill this just means it's going to take longer to get what he wants because there will be an extra hurdle to get over. But he'll get there. Wait and see. Red Hat will cave. They don't have a choice. All they're doing now is delaying and looking for a way to make a deal but save face with the freetards.

What's that, retailers? I can't hear you...

A lot of people are writing me email asking what I think about this deal where Prince gave out free copies of his CD in some newspaper in England. So here goes. First of all I am a huge Prince fan. Lot of people don't know that. But I am. The guy is a genius. All those years when he was TAFKAP and had SLAVE drawn on his face? I was right there with him 100%. I knew what he was doing. He put out a bunch of crap albums to live up to his obligation to his six-record deal (or whatever) and then as soon as he was free he pumped out Emancipation, a three-CD album that is friggin killer. If you haven't heard it, go get it. It's one of the great buried albums of all time. No radio station would play it because he went outside the system. So probably a half dozen songs that should have been Top 10 hits never made it there. Not that Prince cares, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't. I've wanted to meet him for years but he won't take my calls and won't meet me. He thinks I'm the devil and says I'm just as bad as the guys running the majors. He was saying this back in 2000 or so when everyone else in the artist community was going nutso over the Internet. Which shows you something: In addition to being a genius musician, Prince is a sharp little businessman too.

So this new thing. I think it's smart. You may have noticed that the only ones howling about it are the retailers. They're threatening not to stock any Prince albums as a form of pay-back. Here's the thing. Would you really want to do business with people whose chief form of negotiation is blackmail? Point B: These idiots are all dying anyway, so who cares what threats they make? In a few years they won't be stocking anyone's music. Prince knows that. The fact is, in any market the retailers are pretty much the scum at the bottom of the barrel. Nobody likes dealing with them. They've got the mindset of sleazy used-car salesmen and no matter how big they get you can't get that out of them. It's in their DNA. Even the ones who seem polished and professional -- you scratch the surface a little bit and there's Fast Talking Freddie, the sales guy, lurking underneath.

Re: this music business retail hassle, something very much like this happened back almost 10 years ago in the computer business. You may or may not remember but back when the Internet was first taking off and people were realizing you could use Web sites to sell stuff, the big PC makers started thinking they should sell their computers over the Internet, direct to the consumer. Consumers were clamoring for this. But all the big computer distributors and retailers put a gun to their heads and said the first PC maker who dared to "sell direct" (as they called it) would be pulled off their shelves. In other words, Screw what's best for the customer, we're looking out for us. Then the distributors invented all these cockamamie schemes like "channel assembly" and built huge quasi-manufacturing plants so they could do final assembly of PCs while they were halfway through the distribution channel and they argued this would be just as efficient as Dell's configuration center. Riiight. Adding three steps will be very, very efficient. Nobody in their right mind could believe this but the PC makers all went along with it. Result: While Compaq, HP and IBM sat there with their thumbs up their butts, frightened by their own channel into accepting one stupid idea after another, Dell steamrollered over all of them. IBM got hurt so badly it had to exit the PC business altogether. And eventually they all broke down and did what they should have done in the first place. Everybody's selling off their Web sites now. Can you imagine someone who didn't? It's unthinkable.

This is also partly why we created our own retail stores. Cost a lot of money to do that and once again it was an example of Apple taking a big risk and seeing it pay off. We wanted to touch the customer directly, but we wanted to control the way that was done. We wanted a Lexus dealership, not Fast Eddie's chop shop. Also we didn't want to get blackmailed by the bastards who make up the typical retailer. I think we did the right thing.

Speaking of restoring a sense of childlike wonder

Check out this video showing a two-year-old figuring out how to use an iPhone. I wept when I watched this. It was like seeing the future. And it was a future that I had created. This one video is worth more than all the advertising we could create and pay for. Honestly. Listen to the joy in the girl's voice when she realizes this little device plays music. When she touches her little fingers to the screen and her face lights up. Wow. Namaste, little friend. You and I have connected through technology. Even after I'm gone, I will live on in the magical devices that will enrich your life. Oh God I'm getting choked up again. Okay. Peace out.

Yes, you can turn a Windows Mobile phone into an iPhone. Sort of.

Like you can "sort of" turn lead into gold. Anyhoo, some website has directions here for ways to add iPhone-like features to a crappy Windows Mobile phone. Little hint: It's easier to just cough up $500 for the real thing. A lot easier.

iPhone parody video

We didn't approve this. But some folks at Apple are enjoying it, so I figured I would share it with you.

Only 7 years into the century and we're already setting records

The highly independent and trustworthy folks at Macworld report here that the iPhone "could emerge as the most succesful product introduction of the 21st century." I am not kidding. This is why I love tech, for the hyperbole. Oh, and the money. But mostly the hyperbole.

Hey, Apple retail: Which part of `no skanks' did you not understand?

Jesus. Now Lindsay Lohan is flashing something shiny and slippery again only this time it's a friggin iPhone. Trust me, heads are rolling in the Apple retail division today. We spent huge amounts of time on this. We had a weight limit, an age limit, and a list of famous people who were not allowed to have one. Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, Michael Lewis, David Hockney, Damien Hirst, Christo, Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro, Harold Pinter, Francis Bacon -- fine, yes, please, of course. Harvey Weinstein, Michael Eisner, Yoko Ono, Britney Spears, K-Fed -- absolutely not, for fuck's sake. This is a classy device meant for discerning and intelligent people who know enough to demand the best. And look, Ron Johnson, don't try telling me that Lohan had someone else buy it for her. I don't care. This photo was exactly what we anticipated in our war game planning and it's devastating. It undermines our entire image. Look at those shorts, for God's sake.

Rolling Stone: The record industry is dying

I've been busy lately and missed a couple issues of Rolling Stone (still a must read in the world of El Jobso) but one of our PR people just sent me up this clip. It's a pretty smart piece on why the record companies are going under. And they've got a great photo (above) of Lyor Cohen, Edgar Bronfman and Ahmet Ertegun (not funny that really is Ertegun, ed.). Money quote from some industry dude: "How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing? The model is wrong."


Here at Apple we're defining a new role for ourselves in this whole dismal story. We're positioning ourselves as a caring nurturer, part shrink and part hospice worker, making these old thieves comfortable during their final days. It's sort of like working in the nursing home where Uncle Junior lives. It's hard because you know you're dealing with evil human beings but you also know that the best thing to do is just to keep them happy and quiet. So you give them their morphine and change their bed pans and tell them how important they still are. Every so often, to humor them, you have a "meeting" and pretend to "negotiate" something, but mostly you just smile while you wait for them to die. And maybe once in while when no one is looking you put a pillow over someone's face. Fair enough.


When they're finally gone our role changes again. We'll serve as undertakers, giving them a really nice service with lots of flowers and great speeches about how wonderful they all were and what a great contribution they made to the world. Then we'll set about being an even worse slave-owner than they ever dreamed of being, but we'll find a way to dress ourselves up as the friend and savior of the artist, the one who's going to set them free, and no matter how badly we screw people we'll be depicted as heroes. We'll use the word "free" a lot, in all its variations. Freedom. Freebie. Free-ness. "Apple equals freedom." You ask, Who would ever fall for such blatant nonsense? Are there really that many incredibly gullible and emotionally needy people out there? Um, did you see Johnny Skidmark and Robert Scoble and all those other people lining up for the iPhone? Er ... right. And those guys are geniuses compared to the average musician. John Mayer says "between you and I," for Christ's sake. Harry Connick Jr. got involved with Habitat for Humanity because he thought it was an animal rescue league. Zach de la Rocha once told me that Lyndon Johnson kept slaves. Madonna once told me Nostradamus predicted global warming. You get it? Fish in a barrel, baby.

We have seen the gPhone, and yes, it scares us

So it's no big secret that Google has Andy "Sidekick" Rubin and a team of ex-Apple guys working on a phone. And it's no secret at all that Google recently bought Grand Central, a company that makes a unified messaging service for mobile phones. So we know they're up to something. But now we've seen the actual phone. One of the ex-Apple guys on Rubin's team is still on our team. For obvious reasons I can't say who it is. They have pretty tight security at Google. And we've been stymied for months trying to get hold of one of these units. Finally our man managed to get a phone out of the building. Little hint on how he did it: Christopher Walken in "Pulp Fiction." Nuff said. And this is not a small phone.

It's the same color as the Zune, by the way, or at least that's what we thought before we remembered to wash it off. We used it all day yesterday (wearing surgical gloves, natch) and all of us had the same reaction -- this terrible mixture of being really thrilled by the technology but not wanting to be thrilled because it's not our technology. Ultimately we all just got really bummed out. I bitched to Squirrel Boy about it (though I didn't admit I'd seen one) and he said I shouldn't worry because it's not a competitor to the iPhone, it's aimed at a completely different kind of user, blah blah. I'd almost believe him except I've been with him when he's said the same thing on the phone to Gates, while making a whacking off motion with his free hand.

Some dude has written an entire book on his cell phone

See here. Fantastic opening line: iT wwax a drk= & smtromy nnnnigght...

Oh, Woz, my heart weeps for you

Check out this video. He's now doing voice-over work for some lame Internet cartoon. And he's being interviewed. Best part is the look of total boredom and discomfort on the guy's face after he asks Woz a question and Woz starts going on ... and on ... and on ...

Ladies, here's one for you

That's right -- Powerbook earrings. Check it out here. Apparently the idea is to reduce waste by using pieces of old computers as jewelry rather than throwing them out. They've got a very cool-looking hard drive belt that I'm sure would be a big hit at a Def Con show. Much love to Matt for sending this in, and who points out that so far nobody is making jewelry out of pieces of old Dell machines, so there.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

Here's Congressman Ed Mahkey of Bawston using our iPhone to draw attention to himself. Oh, sure, supposedly this was some big event about freedom and the goal was to force us to make the iPhone available on any wireless carrier. But let's be honest. The real reason was so Mr. Ed could get up there and hold up an iPhone and look all cool with his flowing gray locks and his faux Kennedy accent and "tawk" about "the wondahs of wyuless technawlogy" and the "sheeah wizahdwy of wyuless enjuneewing." Look, Mahkey Mahk. You're sixty-one years old. There's no point in grandstanding, because you're never going to run for president. You're also not going to tell us how to manage our iPhone business, unless you want to apply for a job at Apple and work your way up through the ranks like everyone else, which, let's face it, you couldn't do, since you've spent your entire adult life in Congress and you don't know squat about business or technology. If you did, you'd realize that the market will decide this on its own. If we're making a huge mistake going with AT&T (and I'll admit, I sometimes lie awake at night wondering this myself) our customers will let us know, and we'll have to change. But please. Go ahead. Pose all you want beside my shiny hip new device which is restoring a sense of childlike wonder to people's lives. Just don't presume to tell me how to run my company. Bokay? We square on this? Peace out, Mayor Quimby.

By the way, Al Gore tried to put the kibosh on this "iPhone hearing," but it turns out he's got no juice at all in Washington these days. None. Zip. They're tired of his shtick like everyone else. My God if you could have heard him yesterday going on about his friggin concert. Ugh. Groan. I put my iPhone on the desk and let him ramble and then picked up fifteen minutes later and said, "Wow, yeah, cool, hum, hey, yeah, oh hey I gotta take this can I call you back?"

Warning: Don't go jogging during lightning storms. Duh.

Hooboy. Now they're trying to pin a new one on us. The New England Journal of Medicine says here that some jerk was jogging during a thunder and lightning storm and got blasted out of his sneakers -- actually messed up pretty badly. And guess what. He was wearing an iPod. Now they do at least admit that this was not our fault: "Although the use of a device such as an iPod may not increase the chances of being struck by lightning, in this case, the combination of sweat and metal earphones directed the current to, and through, the patient's head." Neverthheless they still manage to put us into the headline, which reads, "Thunderstorms and iPods -- Not a Good iDea." Thanks, New England Journal of Medicine, for perpetuating the myths about our fine -- and totally safe -- consumer electronics products. And now the idiots in the regular press are picking up the story too.

Is this photo for real?

If so, someone's head is gonna friggin roll. I told them not to let this happen. I mean it was a direct order and it went out on email to everyone. Damn.

John Mayer, you are dead to me

We launch this kid's career. We make him a superstar. And this is how he thanks us? Doing ads for BlackBerry? Wow. Talk about having no loyalty. Thanks bro. And yeah, I know, it's just a sponsorship and you're really using your iPhone and loving it and you wouldn't use a BlackBerry in real life -- whatever. Save your breath. And don't bother calling up to tell me how my body is a wonderland, either. I've fallen for that one for the last time. I'll be honest. This hurts, John. It really does.

Microsoft: No longer family friendly

Okay, this is kind of old news, but I have to mention it anyway. Microsoft apparently had a program that let Vista owners buy a couple of additional copies at a discount as part of some family plan. But as of June 30 that discount has gone away. See here. Honestly, I don't get this. It wasn't a great deal to begin with. You had to have purchased Vista Ultimate, and that allowed you to buy 2 copies of the lesser (brain-dead) Vista Home Premium for $50 apiece. Now Microsoft has decided even that was too generous. What the fuck are they thinking? Little news flash, Bill: Most users are scared shitless of Vista. (Rightfully so.) And most users resent Microsoft already for its price-gouging. (Rightfully so.) What's the correct move in this situation? Hint: It doesn't involve finding a way to gouge people a little more on the OS that they already don't want.

Beastmaster Bill, you need to do some radical rethinking. Get rid of Detroit-spawn Ballmer and his constipated Ford Motor Co. worldview, first of all. (Because honestly, you guys sound more and more like that dopey fuckwit Bill Ford every friggin day, and it's scary.) Make one version of your OS. If you can't do that at least put one price on all the versions, and for God's sake make it a low price. If you really insist on cluttering up Windows and Office and IE with a zillion features and pull-downs and tiny buttons, okay, we can't stop you. But how about this. Take a dozen young kids in your engineering labs and start a skunk works team. Let them do a stripped-down lightweight OS and give it away free. Let people tinker with it, hack it, add to it, build on it. Create a stripped down version of your productivity apps too. Simple word processing, simple browser, simple mail. Again, make them open and let people hack them. Think of it as a hobby. Think of it as a way to buy some goodwill from people outside your walls.

Because you know what you've become? You've become the Grinch. You've become a tax collector. You're the guy people hide from when you ride into town. It's not good. You need to do something about that.

It's called "zeitgeist," have you heard of it?

Every picture tells a story, and a picture is worth ten thousand words, and "Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours," as Napoleon once said to Josephine. [enough! we get it! ed.] Much love to Dear Reader Tom who was inpsired by my earlier post about our stock price and spent some time creating this wonderful graphic using the Web 2.0 mash-up tools in Yahoo Finance. Also, Tom, thanks for teaching me a new word. I don't speak Dutch but it's cool to add to my vocabulary. And since you alluded to this in your email, yes, as the Dutch would say, I am engaging in a bit of schadenfreude.

This site rocks

Much love to Doctor Sam at Hah-vud for sending in a link to this Apple site which exists in some kind of separate mirror universe.

Again: You're welcome

My predictions were off a bit. I thought we'd hit $130 before the iPhone hit, just based on the hype. Still, we've got a market cap of $114 billion. That's almost 2x the market cap for Dell. And it's something like a thousand times more than what it was when I took over as Supreme Ruler for Life. Nice work, me. To celebrate the occasion, I've just hired someone whose job is to stand behind me and pat me on the back and tell me what a great job I'm doing. And fan me when it's hot. Phil Schiller, he's called.

Will it blend?

I'm getting loads of mail about this. To answer your question: Yes, it upsets me. It upsets me a great deal. I can't really say much more about this at this point. I'm just kind of sitting here shaking.

Check this out

I just did an interview with the Indian version of Valleywag -- a site called Techgoss. See the Q&A here. Much love to my main man DJ Varma, who sat down with me in Bangalore. We ended up talking for hours about music, which is a shared passion. Keep spinning those records, DJ!

A rave review on the God Phone with one small nitpick ...

Marc Hedlund writing for O'Reilly: "The iPhone keyboard blows. Let's not mince words here: text input was better on a Newton. The keys are way too close together, full stop. ... The amazing thing to watch is everyone blogging about how they "need to get better at typing" -- that's the drugs talking. The iPhone needs to get better at typing, not you." See here.

Vista's advanced speech recognition technology

I'm not sure if this is for real but even if it isn't it's fun to imagine that it is. [pls rewrite, Ed.] This is a demo of someone writing a PERL script using voice recognition. You can see the amazing productivity gains that Vista affords. Much love to CBsteve for sending this our way.

I wish we'd thought of this

It's a sooperdooper secret agent kit for the really cool dudes who are developing apps for the OpenMoko freetard phone. See here. They call it the "hacker's dream box" and they manage to work "Neo" into the name because let's face it all of these Linux guys like to see themselves as Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix." Right. As if. I'm not sure what applications these guys are making but you just know one of them will be an app that lets you press a special key to speed-dial your mom to come pick you up. (Richard Stallman commanded them to make that one a priority.)

Anyway, I really really wish we'd done something like this for the guys making third-party iPhone apps. Or maybe we could make a big case like this for iPhone users. You know, so people know you're special. Otherwise how does anyone know you're even carrying an iPhone? You end up having to take it out all the time and pretend you thought you heard it ringing. Memo to Jon Ive: Get working on this.

Corporate users are waking up

See this fantastic story on CNET about some CIO in England who says he's tired of getting extorted by Microsoft and now intends to fight back by using Linux and Macs. Money quote: "I feel we are being railroaded, and the market generally forced (us) into a corner or even a cul-de-sac. In a free market, we have made Microsoft dominant, and now we have the collective responsibility to reverse this situation to re-establish balance and competition. If I am being driven down the Vista route, then an Apple Mac is smarter money and cheaper."

Another false rumor; another leaker caught

Thanks here to Reuters for running this story about our allegedly forthcoming Nano-based iPhone. Total fake -- because think about it, how can you put a phone keypad into a Nano screen? -- but again the old "marked fiver" trick worked like a charm and we've rounded up the leaker, who turns out to be an administrative assistant who screamed like crazy when Moshe and the boys arrived to haul her out of her shower this morning. Much love also to Kevin Chang of J.P. Morgan who cooperated fully with the investigation and handed over the identity of his sources before we had to start cutting off his fingers.

Spy picture of Jim Allchin's bathroom

No lie. One of our operatives -- a Greek dude named Paris, no less -- managed to wangle a visit to the home of former Microsoft honcho Jim Allchin. During a trip the bathroom our operative spotted these two sleek little notebooks tucked away. Apparently even though Jim has left Microsoft he still worries about Ballmer or Gates dropping by without calling first, and so he has to use his Macs in secret, tucked away in the bog. Call it his guilty pleasure -- he feeds his Mac hunger furtively, the way Ginny Sacrimoni consumes candy bars. More telling is that these are not new Macs, which indicates Jim has been a secret Mac-o-phile for many years. I've previously reported on the weird man crush that Allchin has on me. This led him to put many of my ideas into Vista, for which he oversaw development. Jim, it's okay now. You're retired. You can use any computer you want. Come out into the light, Jim. And by the way, that iPhone registered in Bellevue, Wash., to a person named "Mij Nihclla"? You're not fooling anyone.

Tom Yager of InfoWorld, please return your iPhone immediately

I'm sorry but we're just not going to allow slams and cheap shots like this. We're just not. Tom, we'll gladly refund your money. But as of midnight tonight your service will be canceled.

Another leaker identified and captured

Mike Cane, a dear friend of this blog, reports here on his blog that we're cooking up a major new version of the iPhone that will make the current version obsolete in just a few months. Mike is citing someone else who is in turn citing a "friend who works at Apple." Mike and other guys, I just want to let all of you guys know that we appreciate you helping us identify the leaker. Whether the information you've printed is true or not, you'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile we've put the leakmeister in custody and Moshe Hishkill and his team are warming up the water in the shark tank and attaching frickin laser beams to the sharks. Much love.

We're trying to make our retail experience a little more annoying

It's all part of the "playing hard to get" strategy, which involves artificial creation of scarcity plus an absence of information plus routine overpricing by 20% to 50% on everything we sell. It's all designed to make people want our stuff even more and so far it's working like a charm. (For a discussion of the "Obama Maneuver," see here.) At the retail end we reinforce this by having sales clerks called "geniuses" who are just a wee bit snooty and condescending and cooler than you'll ever be, and who are trained to give you this look that says, You know, I'm not sure if you're cool enough to buy this product, so let me go check with my manager and see if we can sell to you. (We hired Franz-Josef Leckmichamarsch, the guy who did the training at Barneys, and he's done a remarkable job for us.)

Also, as some blogger points out here, in a masterstroke of retail genius we've done away with cash registers and replaced them with little handheld devices that all the clerks carry. Yes, this slows things down, because nobody is actually dedicated to the task of just ringing up sales. And yes, this confuses customers and sends them bouncing around the store looking for some clerk who isn't already working with a customer. But it maximizes the productivity of the clerks, who before this were often just hanging around doing nothing while the check-out counter losers were backed up. By distributing the load of ringing up sales among all the clerks, we can cut our store staffing by up to 20% on average.

Better yet, we also increase the amount of time each customer spends in the store. Which means we sell more stuff because while they're waiting they see other things they should buy. Best of all, because it's now a little bit more difficult to make a purchase in our stores, frigtards view our stuff as even more special and unique, and they want it even more. Buying from us isn't just a matter of walking into the store, choosing a product and paying. With us, your purchase is an adventure. A hero's journey. And everyone's journey is different, and unique, and special. You must overcome obstacles, and wait for long periods of time, and figure which clerk is going to free up first. It's kind of like a videogame. People love it. We're getting huge positives in our focus group testing, and in the 40-question surveys we're requiring everyone to fill out before they are allowed to complete their transaction.

Stallman: All your iPhone are belong to me

I'm traveling today but just heard from folks in Cupertino that we've been served with an official complaint from the Free Software Foundation regarding the iPhone. We're not entirely surprised since as I recently reported (see here) Peter Brown, director of FSF, was sending around email dropping veiled hints about how the iPhone uses software that is covered under the GPL.

According to our legal team the complaint was prepared by lawyers from the Software Freedom Law Center. Gist of the complaint is that crucial pieces of OS X and Safari were originally designed by Richard Stallman or designed by others who turned over their copyrights to Stallman. The threat is that we must remove those pieces of code and redesign the iPhone or start paying a royalty to the Free Software Foundation equivalent to 100% of the retail price of each unit sold. Or we can agree to comply with the terms of the GPL and give away all our software. But they say they'd mostly like us to go with option 2, that being the money.

More on this as it develops ...

Scoble: Please turn in your iPhone immediately; your privileges have been revoked

Poor dumbass Scooble. First he cheered himself hoarse roaring out of the Apple store like a conquering hero with this damn iPhone. Now he's disturbing the peace in our stores and just generally harshing the vibe -- and then complaining about it on his stupid friggin blog. Robert, no need to worry. I've instructed AT&T to shut down service to your iPhone at midnight. Sprint isn't the only carrier that shuts down a-hole customers, pal. Go back to using that sleek Nokia N95 that you lurve so much.

Better late than never?

This masterful poem has been sitting in my email inbox for days now, and I just found it. Comes from a reader named Lars and is worth saving. He titles it:

"Jobs' talk to retail staff."


He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Jobs.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is the iPhone Day.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on IPhones's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
I the Pod, Lisa and Macintosh,
Jaguar and Panther, Tiger and Leopard-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Job's RDF shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in Gatesland now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon iPhone Day's day."

Why does this man want to have sex with his mother anyway?

Russians don't always "get" advertisements from the West, and Iulia and Nastya, our interns in Krasnodar, are no exception. They hate the new ads on the site and have been lobbying to get rid of them. The one they really hate is the Viagra ad. They say they don't understand why a man in his thirties needs to take penis pills -- except that it appears that this man wants to have sex with his mother, who has just arrived at his house driving a fifty-year-old car. "Falshivka Styopa," they write, "why cannot this man simply have sex with a sexy girl who is young and pretty, and then he will not need to take the pills? Is this an American thing?"

You can't reverse engineer my presentation skills, sorry

Nevertheless BusinessWeek gives it the old college try, with an article telling people how they can learn to give spellbinding presentations like mine. Some "expert" deconstructs my presentation from MacWorld in January where I introduced the iPhone. See here. The article overlooks one huge item, which is my Kreskinesque group hypnosis techniques. Unfortunately that is not something you can learn from reading a magazine article.

Another note about the iPhone hysteria and why others can't replicate it is this. The one big mistake that other companies make is they start showing review copies of the product long before it's available. And they try to get as many reviews as possible. They think they're going to drum up loads of buzz. Huge mistake. Our biggest trick -- and it's not really a big stroke of genius or anything -- is simply to make a huge and dramatic presentation and then not let anyone actually see the phone. That way everyone can project their hopes and desires onto the object and build it up in their imagination as some great special unique magical device. We call it the Obama Maneuver. This creates a deadly combination: loads of demand and very little actual information.

Then we manipulate reviewers. We let these bozos know that we were only going to send out four units, and that to get one they would have to sign NDAs and agree not to run their articles until a certain day. This tactic lets us rule out any renegade "independent thinkers" who won't sign agreements like this. Instead we find the true shills who will agree to do anything we tell them. In fact they pretty much self-select. The other cool thing about forcing these guys to sign NDAs and agree to an embargo is that it makes them subservient to us. We film the signing process, partly to intimidate them and partly so that we can watch the video over and over and howl as we watch these great "lions of the media" humbly sign away their independence.

The humiliation process also reminds them that if they write something bad, they'll be knocked off the "super special access" list. For guys like Walt Mossberg or David Pogue, access is like oxygen. Without it, they die. Their most important value-add is not their brilliant insight into products; their biggest value-add is simply being able to get stuff first. They're not journalists. They're courtiers. Neither of these guys is particularly tech savvy. But they're fantastic boot-lickers.

As long as Goatberg or Pogue can keep getting stuff ahead of everyone else, they get to keep their cushy jobs which pay them huge amounts of money and make them superstars who get paid to fly around the world and give speeches and build franchises of spin-off products and websites. Goatberg's making $1 million a year from the Journal and then has built a little empire on the side with the D conference and his D website. All of that -- every little bit of it -- is based on Goatberg being able to be first in line for new products. To do that, he has to keep us happy. In other words: we own him.

I didn't see this one coming

Salman Rushdie's marriage to super-hot and much-younger Padma Lakshmi (pls check, Ed.) has ended. Man oh man. Salman's a friend, so I don't want to go into it. But honestly we're all a bit shocked. New iMac is in the mail to you, S.R. Keep your head up.

Poor Al

First his moron kid gets busted for carrying drugs and going 100 mph in a Prius (he's got the quad-hamster model). Then his big global warming concert has some problems -- like, in South Africa, attendance was off because of extreme cold weather. Oops. No comment.

Hate mail

A reader named Michael [LAST NAME EDITED] ([EMAIL EDITED]) writes in to say:

Greets.. sometimes I joke around with my friends. If I come up with something good, I may pass it on, but rarely. But making a blog out of whatever pops into your head unedited is a waste of bandwidth. Please show this stuff to someone, then edit it, then rewrite it before you hit upload.

sincerely
NAME EDITED

I'm sure Michael would love to receive email from anyone who has ideas on how to conserve bandwidth. Please feel free.

UPDATE: An anonymous poster points out that I'm a dick for putting up this guy's name and email address in my original post. You know what? I agree. I was a dick. I'm sorry. Michael, in the spirit of namaste, I beg your forgiveness. Also, I will take your criticism to heart and stop re-editing these posts over and over. I wasn't aware that it's such a pain in the ass for readers to deal with posts that keep changing. What can I say? I'm pretty self-centered. Your point is a good one. You are good, and I am bad. FSJ deeply regrets any pain this has caused you. And readers, please stop writing to this guy. Bokay?

Thanks, Spiegel Catalog

So on Thursday we suddenly got hit with this huge surge in traffic and we couldn't figure out why. Turns out it was because of this article in some German version of our Spiegel catalog. I don't read Swiss so I can't make any sense of it but I'm told it's mostly positive. Apparently this Spiegel publication is very widely read in Europe, and all these daffy Euros, including many Italians, clicked on the link in the article and found this blog. So that explains all the traffic. It also explains the huge list of corrections to this recent article that I wrote about Fiat. It's really worth taking another look at the article and then reading the numerous comments.

I'd like to address these concerns with the following correction:

A recent post about Fiat in the FSJ blog contained several errors. Tripoli is not in Italy, as we reported. Sicilian is not the language of Italy, as we reported. And "vaya con dios" is an expression in Spanish, not in Italian or Sicilian. We regret the errors and apologize to any Italians, Spaniards and Moroccans who might have been offended. I've instructed my team at Apple to create a new Foreign Language And Geography (FLAG) squad to start checking my items before they're published. Items that have been checked -- starting with this one -- will have a label called "Foreign Language And Geography (FLAG)."

Nicholas Negroponte introduces the hundred-dollar iPhone

Man oh man. When I first saw this I thought Nicholas Negroponte and those crazy kooks in the One Laptop Per Child crusade had decided they weren't satisfied making shoddy knock-offs of real computers and now were attempting to make a cheapo version of the iPhone. Thank God it isn't that. Some kid's mother knitted an iPhone for reasons I don't understand. See here.

Spotted outside McNealy's house

Jealous bastard.

"Yeah, I'd like a family-size bucket of the Colonel's original recipe. Can you deliver to the mall? I'm the sad-looking guy outside the Apple store."

Speaking of guys who crave attention, how about poor Woz showing up and getting involved helping the retail goons hand out numbers? Dude, my bro, you need to get a job. Again, much love to the Mercury News for this treasure trove of scary/funny/sad photos.

Look at me! Look at me! Not the phone! Look at me!

Robert Scoble emerges triumphant from his hero's journey into the depths of an Apple retail store. "I did it! I bought a phone! Look! A phone! I gave them a credit card and got it, just like that!" Note the overjoyed expression on the retail dope next to him. He's setting a new record for looking bored while clapping. No doubt by this point this guy and all his colleagues were just so sick of Scoble they couldn't wait to see him leave. Can you imagine? Scoble sitting there for three days doing an in-person version of twitter, telling everyone everything he's doing at every minute? "Right now I'm live blogging and now I'm podcasting and now I'm vlogging and now I'm writing another blog item ..." Good grief. Best part, from what I'm told, was when Scoble finally bought his phone and handed over his credit card and the clerk looked at it for a second and Scoble said, "Um, yeah. I'm that Robert Scoble." Clerk, for the record, had no idea what Scoble was talking about.

Poor Scoble. Ever since he left Microsoft he's getting less and less attention, and he can't stand it. He's like some retired ballplayer or washed-up rock star who can't let go of the glory days. This too is from the Mercury News slideshow.

This is why I need ex-Mossad security guys

This dame actually waited to meet me on iDay with this doll of me that she made. No lie. Check out Captain Freako in the background. He's one of our guys. Yuri Hishkill, son of Moshe Hishkill, our head of security. This photo was in the San Jose Mercury News. See the whole sad slide show here. Much love to reader Martin who sent this in with the message, "She has an iDol." Ugh. Groan.

Free Steve T-shirt spotted in wild

This is a dude waiting for an iPhone in Cincinnati wearing one of our T-shirts. Good thing you got the shirt when you did because the interns have just informed me that Cafe Press has put a halt to the shirts with the drawing Steve Jobs-slash-Dave Winer on them.

David Pogue remains completely hypnotized

Or is it Steve-notized? Anyway. We love pulling pranks on the filthy hacks who cover Apple. Until now our best one was when we got Goatberg to jump up on a chair and go "baaa-baaa" while under hypnosis. But this one is way better. We got David Pogue of The New York Times to go sing a song about the iPhone. This one is so sick that Katie Cotton tried to stop us. She says David Pogue still has a tiny shred of integrity left and why can't we just leave him alone. Well, we can't. That's why. Besides, have you ever seen the friggin mansion we built for that guy in Connecticut? He owes us. Big time.

Another iTard tale

Some guy stocked up on iPhones figuring he could sell them at a huge profit on eBay, only to discover that he, um, couldn't. So he had to return them to the store. People, think about it. Did you really think we'd generate all that hype and then not have anything to sell? That's something that Microsoft would do. Or Sony. Anyway, we're all laughing our asses off in Cupertino these days. See here.

In an unrelated story, Jizzmodo reports that some iTard paid $305 for one of the paper bags that we put the iPhones in. No guff. See here. I know what you're thinking. Is Apple doing this stuff itself in order to keep the mania going. Um, yes. It was Katie Cotton's idea.

Shame about those Xbox defects

Guess the faulty Xbox units are flying back into Redmond so fast they can't keep up with it. See here. Then again maybe I shouldn't gloat. We're having some problems of our own. Guy says his iPhone pooped out after four days and that, "my iPhone would get incredibly hot to the touch when plugged in and charging while I was on a long phone call. So hot I lived those first three days in constant fear that it would heat to the point of burning up," and it "all but burned the skin on my hand." Certainly seems like user error to us but we gave him a new phone anyway.

Another super cool iPhone hack

This new button, showing hands folded in "namaste" pose, lets you go immediately to the FSJ blog. Much love and a giant namaste bow to Dear Reader Charles, who created this.

You thought I was kidding about "Great artists steal?"

Ryan Block of Engadget drills me a new one for stealing work from other artists to make advertisements for Apple. Ryan claims all these poor starving artists were ready to sue Apple for ripping them off. Frankly, it's not like that at all. Most of these people are really grateful to us for using their ideas as inspiration. That's because when Apple makes an ad using their ideas, their ideas suddenly become worth a huge amount more. Now some of these greedy a-holes also wanted us to pay them money for using their ideas. But come on. That would be like us paying them twice.

Fiat wants to be Apple

And they're thinking the new Cinquecento can be the iPod of cars. They've even gone so far as to rip off our "Think Different" advertising style in their new ad for the car, with shots from "Cinema Paradiso" wrapped around pictures of famous Italians. Now look. I love Italian cars. I wouldn't buy them, but I love the way they look. The new Cinquecento, which appears at the end of the spot, is really a nice-looking small car. I wish Fiat well with this campaign. It's a lovely spot, and I could understand it even though I don't speak a word of Sicilian and I've never set foot in Tripoli. I just wish they were paying us a little bit for stealing our ideas. Oh well. Vaya con dios, as you guys would say. Much love to reader Mattia who sent us this link.

A new twist on the Nigerian 419 scam

Check this out here. They pretend they're making protective jackets for iPhones and iPods. You send them a bunch of money and never hear from them again. What's really slick about this campaign is the way they appeal to the kind of left-leaning do-gooders who buy Apple products. Just wrong. I'm sorry.

Best iTard story I've heard so far

Some dame in Dallas showed up last Friday with thousands of dollars in cash hoping to buy out the whole store and sell the phones on eBay. She paid a kid $800 to give up the first spot in line and rushed in, only to find out they were only selling one phone per person. D'oh! Dumbass. Better yet, then the kid who gave up his spot just walked in a few minutes later and bought his iPhone, no problem. See the sad video here. Warning to you freetard advertisement haters: The whores who made this video included a 15-second ad for Toyota before the news clip runs. I know, right? Can you fucking believe it? Jesus fucking Christ! Anyway, there's nothing I can do about it. Talk to your shrink about it this week or something, gentle souls. Much love to Dear Reader Brinke for sending in this link.

Bill Gates is no longer the world's richest man

You've probably seen one of the many news articles on this. The #1 richest dude in the world is now a Mexican card player named Slim Carlos. Lou Dobbs is outraged and promises a full investigation.

Some goofy New Age site has stolen my slogan

And they're using it to sell products like the $13 rock pictured above. See here. And check out this $45 Namaste mat. I'm sorry but this is an outrage. Can you imagine taking spirituality and turning it into commerce? Apple lawyers are going to be all over these flaky froobs for stealing our idea.

Cool chart of Apple evolution

Much love to reader Tom who sent in a link to this very cool chart showing the evolution of Apple machines since 1976. I must admit, I got a little misty when I was looking at this one.

Amazing third-party iPhone apps

This guy is a genius hacker. But what's up with his voice? Is that for real?

UPDATE: We've been informed by numerous commenters (see string) that these are not third-party iPhone applications. They are some kind of video trick performed by a magician from Sweden. FSJ deeply regrets the error. Much love to the Yelp community for setting us straight.

SECOND UPDATE: Mad props and namaste to Mike Cane for sending us the link to this video. Much love, Mike.

Why is Universal freaking out?

You might check their most recent financial results, which were put out in May. They're mentioned in this release from parent company Vivendi.

Key quotes:

* "Universal Music Group’s (UMG’s) revenues of €1,027 million declined 8.7% versus the same period last year ..."

* "Digital sales of €161 million were up 54% versus last year in constant currency, representing 15.7% of total revenues versus 9.9% last year..."

* "UMG’s EBITA of €57 million was down €84 million from the first quarter of last year which included the recovery of a previously expensed cash deposit in the TVT matter of €50 million. ..."

Now I'm no math expert but it seems to me online is the only part of the business that's growing, and it's still not enough to compensate for the decline in CD sales. As for profits, again, I'm no math expert, but this doesn't look like a pretty picture.

More thoughts on music

Naturally the music scumbags are fighting like cornered rats now that they realize how much trouble they're in. And the one big weapon they have is their back catalog. And it's a powerful weapon.

Funny story on this subject. Yesterday we were in meetings with the goons at Universal and they were going on and on about their huge back catalog and how we need them more than they need us because what good is a music store if there's no music in it, blah blah blah. I was trying to explain the position they're in and I mentioned Ozymandias. One of the goons says, I swear to God: "Ozzy? Did you say Ozzy? We don't have Ozzy. He's with Epic, which is part of Sony BMG, you idiot!" Total commentard. I love it.

The music industry nobs have finally figured out what we're doing

So you've no doubt seen this story or one like it explaining that Universal Music Group won't renew its iTunes deal. And you've seen people saying that the majors are trying to "recalibrate" their relationships with us. Actually what's happening is they're crapping in their pants. They woke up one day and realized that we've got 80% share of digital downloads. Suddenly all the power in the value chain resides in one player. Oops.

Here's the thing. These guys could have done what we did. In the early days of the Internet, everyone figured the majors would build digital distribution arms. But they didn't do it, because they didn't understand technology, and they didn't want to invest in building this expertise, and they were freaked out about piracy and paralyzed with fear. So we stepped in. We made the big investment. We hired programmers. We developed software that's easy to use and works flawlessly. (If you think that's trivial, think again. It's huge.) We ran the system. We promoted it, we marketed it, we haggled with all the majors and struck deals. We took all the risk, which was considerable. Now we're reaping the reward. And the majors want a bigger slice. Um, for what? We did all the work. Ain't gonna happen, slick.

Here's the back story. The music companies are in a dying business, and they know it. Sure, they act all cool because they hang around with rock stars. But beneath all the glamour these guys are actually operating two very low-tech businesses. One is a form of loan-sharking: they put up money to make records, then force recording artists to pay the money back with exorbitant interest. The other business is distribution. They’ve got big warehouses and they control the shipment of little plastic boxes that happen to have music in them.

The guys running the labels are pretty stupid -- most are just dirtbags who started out as band managers or promoters -- but now at long last they are kinda sorta finally vaguely getting clued in to the fact that both parts of their business model are fucked. Their loan-sharking business is being eliminated by low-cost digital recording technology that lets people make an album for very little money. And by letting us build the online music store they've taken themselves out of the distribution business. In the days of vinyl and then CDs, the labels managed to control the value chain by having loads of retailers in a highly fragmented market, and playing them off each other. In the digital world they've got us. And that's it.

Ironically the mistake the major labels made was the same one that IBM made when it gave the DOS franchise to Microsoft nearly 30 years ago. They were faced with a new market that they didn't understand. They had a piece of work that they couldn't do on their own or didn't want to do on their own and they didn't view it as critical or important, so they outsourced it to a partner. The partner turned that seemingly unimportant work into a way to accrue power and create a monopoly and control the industry. Today in the music business we're about where IBM and Microsoft were in 1989, when IBM finally got hit with the clue stick and realized what Microsoft was doing.

How will it play out this time? I don't know, honestly. But I like our chances.

A few iPhone units are having some battery problems

Not to fear. Any units that have this defect will be replaced. If you feel your phone starting to get hot, just bring it in to the store and stay calm. Don't make a big deal about it. Don't scream or raise your voice or otherwise harsh the vibe. Just come in, speak quietly to a genius, and we'll slide you a new one. Okay? Everything's gonna be cool as long as nobody panics.

Just think of them as "iAds"

So we're getting some mail about the new ads on the blog. Apparently people don't like them. So let me get this straight. You'll wait in a line for a week and pay six hundred bucks for a phone and walk out in triumph while Apple retail zombies cheer for you, but you're outraged because there's an advertisement on a blog? Um, yeah. Little hint, and I'm sorry if this shocks you: Our goal here at Apple is to prise as much money out of you as possible. The zombies aren't cheering for you because you're cool; they're cheering because you just goosed our stock price. I know. You thought we were in business to restore a sense of childlike wonder to your lives. Frankly I'd like to do that, but Katie Cotton says we gots to get paid like everyone else.

Another thing: I also know that a lot of the ads are not so beautiful. Which for Microsoft users wouldn't be a problem but for Apple fans, let's face it, is tough. You're used to beautiful objects. You care enough to pay more for them. So here's a strategy that might work. Just close your eyes, precious ones, and skip over the advertisements. Try to pretend they're not there. Engage in a little self-hypnosis and maybe they won't upset your delicate sensibilities. Better yet, do what I do and use a little cognitive behavioral therapy. Rescript your personal narrative and apply the RDF and convince yourself that the ads do not really exist. I know it's hard. I'm sorry, gentle ones. Please know that I really do care about your well-being.

Chinese women want Chairman Bill's man gravy

No lie. I mean, it's on Engadget, so it must be true, right? Just like that story about the delays in iPhone. Anyway for the story about Bill's highly prized spunk see here. Oh, me so horny.

Some guy says I'm creating a nation of iTards

See here. This hardcore left-wing blogger says young people today are "a whole generation of iTards who seem to care more for the state of technology than they do the state of America's domestic and international health." Not very respectful, Mr. Left Wing Blogger. Ever wonder why you dicks keep losing elections?

Anyhoo, for the record, I didn't create the iTard nation. It's been around for a while. Read some Mencken. Or look up "P.T. Barnum" on Wikipedia. I'm just dealing with the world as it is, my brother. Namaste.

How cool is the iPhone?

Amish people are quitting their religion and buying them. Yeah. Stunning. Next up, Mormons.

What a weekend!

I can't tell you how many emails I've received this weekend from people telling me how iPhone has transformed their lives. In just 48 hours this product has utterly changed the way we live. People are blown away by having a single device that combines phone, music and Web browsing. To all those who are writing in, please know that we're trying to get a personal response out to each and every one of you. Meanwhile just know that your letters mean so much to me. I really, really appreciate them.

Meanwhile there is one story I need to share with you. iPhone has already saved a life. A young woman in southern California called to tell us that she accidentally locked her keys inside her car, and her dog, a tiny bichon frise, was in there too. Luckily she had her iPhone in her purse and was able to call for help. The dog was fine. "The police told me that if I hadn't been using an iPhone, things might not have turned out so well," she told us. "They all said that they're getting iPhones for every member of their families, just for safety reasons. I hope you will let people know about iPhone's special safety characteristics. And thank you, Steve Jobs. God bless you for what you've done for the world."

Much love, iPhone lady. Namaste. Peace be unto you. And your little dog too.

To everyone else: If you have a story about how iPhone has transformed a life, or even saved a life, please send it in. We'd love to share it with everyone.

Hey I'm a Mac and I camped out in a mall for a week to get these clothes even though I could have just walked in and bought them

So Bill Gates just called up to tell me about his next FUD campaign. He says his favorite line out of all the coverage was in this story from the Saturday New York Times where some moron named Norbert who'd waited on line outside the Fifth Avenue shrine since Wednesday was struck by this huge revelation: “I guess I didn’t need to get in line because they have thousands of them in there." Ahem. Yeah. We didn't want to ruin it for the campers but there really wasn't any need to line up like that. All you had to do was wait until Friday night, walk into the store, and get one. Oops. Sorry.

So Gates says Microsoft's black ops PR folk are going to start working this story -- that the kind of people who use iPhone are people who would wait in line for days to get a mass-market product that isn't in short supply. And the kind of people who don't even know what the iPhone is but they fall for every fad that comes along. Lemmings, in other words. But not just ordinary lemmings. Pretentious lemmings who think they're cooler than everyone else. People who are so stupid that even after it becomes obvious that they needn't have waited all that time they don't feel sheepish about it. In fact they're all proud of themselves.

"We're going to create a character called Norbert who thinks he's cool and who camps out in front of stores even though he doesn't need to," Gates says. "Like he'll go to the mall and camp outside Abercrombie and Fitch, while other customers walk in and walk out. Or he'll go camp outside a Toyota dealer for a week. Norbert and his loser friend will sit on folding chairs out front, thinking they're really cool and using iPhones to order pizza deliveries and using the Web to configure options for the car they want to buy. Only it takes two minutes for the browser to pull up a Web page, and their calls keep getting dropped. Meanwhile the sales guy keeps coming out and telling them if they want to buy a car they can just come in and get one, and they say no, they're going to wait for a few more days. When they do buy their car, the salesman will say the price is $21,595, but Norbert will insist on paying $30,000. Then Norbert will say, `So this is a one-of-a-kind car, right? Nobody else in the whole world has this exact configuration right?' The sales guy will explain that in fact Toyota sells thousands of cars exactly like this every week. 'Cooool,' says clueless Norbert, knowingly nodding to his pal. 'Yeah, totally,' says his loser friend. 'Dude, it was so worth the wait.' Then we'll put up a slogan: Apple -- for people who wait in line even when they don't need to. Or, Apple -- for people who pay more because it makes them feel special."

Bill's like, "Hilarious, right? And we're going to hire Justin Long to play Norbert."

Okay, Gates. I get it. You're jealous. You'd give your left nut to have customers show one-tenth the enthusiasm for your products that they show for mine. Anyway, your idea isn't even funny. But knock yourself out.