Deep in Cupertino, there is an office. It is sparsely furnished; a few chairs for guests, a few original masterpieces on the walls, and in the middle of the room, an exquisitely designed desk. It is made of brushed aluminum, but the top is a single sheet of glass with a 1-inch black bezel all around it. The rest is a screen/multi-touch pad combination. Here is the most advanced computer bar Deep Thought. Here is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Here is the SteveMac.
a lone Safari window shines out amid the dark desk. Steve is reading his favorite news/satire site, smiling at the amateur wit and clumsy requests for money. He clicks on the next article and learns of the coming Mac Apocalypse. He frowns slightly and checks a few other sites on the web just for verification. It seems to be true.
He sighs, puts both hands just above the smooth glass of his desk with the look of a master pianist, and performs the only six-finger gesture. his desk goes dark and is divided into a grid of iChat windows, each with a code name across the bottom. Soon faces start appearing behind the code names. The box labeled “Wizard” contains the bespectacled features of Merlin Mann. Leo Laporte’s affable face can be seen smiling out from the one labeled “Lion” David Pogue is “New Yorker”, and looking grim, irratated, and remarkably smug is John Gruber, Codename: Fireball. In one unregarded corner of the desk one box remains dark, and it seems it will never light up again. Codename: The Entity.
“Gentlemen, I need your help,” Steve begins, and he quickly explains the situation. “The time is not right. I need all of you to go out and discount the myth. Strengthen our position, and if you can convince people that they could use AV without spreading panic, so much the better. But the main thing is to stop the rumor of Mac vulnerability; not the reality. I’ll take care of that. Understood?” The codenamed agents agree, and Steve closes the window.
There, he has done what was needed. But is it enough? He thinks for a minute, raises both hands again, and performs the Ten Finger Gesture on his desktop.
Slowly at first, then faster and faster, web pages appear on his desktop. An eBay auction. The Google Homepage. A Facebook profile. Twitter. Digg. Amazon. A Star Wars/Ninja Turtles crossover fanfic. MySpace. Yahoo!. A webcomic about elves. World of Warcraft. Pandora.
As each new page appears the ones already there shrink and re-adjust to allow the new one space. The entire desk becomes a shifting mosaic of stories, retailers, angsty teenage LiveJournals, and all the other things that make the Internet what it is. Suddenly it no longer appears as a mass of webpages, but seen altogether they become a face, petulant, exuberant, clever, and moody. This is the Face of the Internet.
“Why have you called me?” it asks.
“I need your help.” Steve replies.
“I know. What’s in it for me?”
“Internet Explorer is under 90% share again. Doesn’t that make you happy?”
The Internet laughs. “Yes, I know. It does, but that was the work of my pet Firefox much more than your WebKit. Oh, I appreciate your efforts, but if you want me to help you stop the Mac Apocalypse you’ll need to do better than that.”
The Internet’s face is expectant, pushing for a bargain like the millions of eBay shoppers that power it, but patient as the Wikipedia link to The Branson School in Ross, CA, waiting for someone to write an article about it.
Steve pauses, then says, “I think I can accelerate the adoption of IPv6. I have a plan…”
As he explains his plan the Internet looks first curious, then excited, then eager. “Yes. Do that for me, and I will stop the Mac Apocalypse. Thank you, Steve. We have a deal.” With that, the face disappears, and Steve sits back in his chair, but only for a moment. It’s time to get to work.
