Crazy Apple News Site

Apple has sent out announcements for an event happening Wednesday, September 1st. It’s got a guitar with an Apple-logo hole in it, it’s happening at the right time to be a music based event. You know what that means, kids: It’s time to make some predictions of the sort that would make Nostradomus say, “whoa, dude, let’s bring it back to reality, there.”

Not for us the predictions of a new Apple TV, or the demise of the once-glorious iPod Classic. No, we seek wilder, weirder skies than these. This, then, is our ten least likely predictions.

1. Fat.
   Nano.
   Touch.
2. The whole event is actually being held because Steve Jobs is tired of the terrible music people are making in GarageBand, will be spent with him at an iMac, writing an elaborate ballad in his favorite loop based music creation program. It will instantly shoot to the top of the iTunes charts and stay there by force for two years.
3. The event will be a retrospective, looking back at all the special musical guests Apple has had grace the stage over the past few years of keynotes and “special events”. Randy Newman, Norah Jones, John Mayer and Bono will all be in attendance, and the highlight will be a four-way rap battle between them. Norah Jones will make John Mayer cry, and will receive a standing ovation. As well she should.
4. Apple will finally make the iGuitar. The picture on the invite is the real device. It will have no USB ports, no plugin, and will only work with Apple-branded Bluetooth amps.
5. The Apple TV and iPod Classic will join forces and merge into a super-device in an attempt to remain relevant in this world of multi-touch screens and flash memory. Unfortunately, the new device will be no more intelligible or user-friendly than the two old devices¹ . It will, however, make John Mayer cry, and receive a standing ovation.
6. Look forward to seeing Jony Ive covered in a new Liquidmetal skin, resplendent and transcendent, as he takes the stage to explain how he has finally found a way to make the human body entire into a perfect wi-fi and 3G antenna.
7. Sick and tired of all the controversy and hype, Apple, Inc. will announce that they just out and out purchased Apple Corps, and have fired Yoko Ono.
   
   Out of a cannon.
   
   All Beatles songs will be available on iTunes. For free. When asked about this bold new pricing plan, Jobs will reply “take that, Ringo!”
8. iPhone 5 will be announced, with an emphasis on music production. Garage Band for iPhone and iPad will be released by the end of the week.
9. This probably won’t happen, but it would rock: Apple puts someone with an attention span of more than 30 seconds in charge of MacHeist III, because the current people are “making the Apple community look bad.”
10. OSX 10.7 will be announced. Code name: Coltrane. When questioned about the shift, bad jokes will be made about ‘Trane being a “cool cat”.²

1. Can you believe we used to think that click wheels were a good way to browse huge libraries of music? Ugh. [↩]
2. Look, you try coming up with 10 jokes about a guitar with a  Apple-shaped hole. They’re not all going to be good. Or even any of them. [↩]

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Answered Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week we dive into an oddly popular aspect of the iPad: eBooks. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

Q: I really like to read.

A: Commune with the thoughts of another.

Q: But I hate carrying huge books around with me.

A: No you don’t.

Q: So I was wondering if there was a way…what did you say?

A: You’ve never had a problem carrying huge books around with you until you discovered there was an alternative.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Oh come on. Anyone who reads is quite used to having a book or two on their person at all times. It’s not a burden, it’s part of life.

Q: Well, yeah, but it gets heavy!

A: Don’t get me wrong, there are a ton of benefits to eBooks, but don’t pretend you’ve spent the past twenty years pining for your eBook reader.

Q: I totally imagined I’d have one some day, back when I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation! That was about twenty years ago! So there.

A: All right, so now you want me to solve your problems by telling you to buy an e-reader device. Specifically, an iPad.

Q: It’s kinda what we do around here.

A: Well, I’m not going to do that… Oh who am I kidding? The iPad has made reading books more comfortable than it’s ever been. The Kindle is a marvel of transitional technology¹. The fact is, we live in a paradise of amazing ways to read books.

Q: Bipolar much?

A: I’m serious! You can get just about any book you want, delivered to you and ready to read in well under a minute. You can peruse chapters before you start reading, mark your books up, and be assured that you’ll never, ever be able to give them away and furthermore, you can rest in the knowledge that once your device dies nobody else will ever be able to read anything you had in your library.

Q: So the answer to my last question was yes.

A: Well, it’s a real problem, isn’t it? You can have thousands of books in a device that weighs less than a trade paperback version of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but if you close your Amazon account or erase the book files from your computer and iPad² then your books are gone forever.

Q: So there are real tradeoffs. You lose the individuality of your books: the typesetting that sets one title apart from another, the specific binding, the feel of different papers, but you gain portability and markup. You lose the ability to share, but you save some money on your purchase price.

A: I kinda feel like I should tell a joke here, or something. This kind of article belongs on Coals[2]Newcastle, not CANS.

Q: The bottom line is, we’re not there yet. We’ve created and streamlined digital content delivery, but we’re light years away from making it fair to both the producer and the consumer of the content. The old methods of checks and balances are falling away as data is abstracted from the physical forms that used to be a method of distribution control. New balances must be struck, but, as with any transition, there are still wild swings back and forth, all the power to the consumer, followed by a swing to massively curtailed consumer rights and back.

A: So, are you just writing a thesis paper or what?

Q: Or perhaps we have yet to see how truly free content can still provide a means of sustaining life to the producers of that content. There are virtual galaxies of solution space still unexplored here. But, whatever the eventual answer, we can be assured that, unless more people are willing to see this as a cooperative effort, an affair that takes the cooperation of all parties, then the polarization will assuredly lead to further deterioration of both the media and the messages.

A: Ladies and gentlemen, this has been “Wall of Text”. Friday iFAQ will hopefully return next week. Thank you and good night.

1. does anyone actually think e-ink is going to last more than another three years? Really? [↩]
2. and iPod(s) and Time Machine Backup [↩]

Following their announcement that they are poised to release a tablet that’s better than the iPad, LG further announced that they would be releasing some other world shattering devices:

• A new car that’s better than a BMW
• A house that’s more beautiful than Fallingwater
• A steak that tastes better than a perfectly-prepared fillet mignon
• A supercomputer that’s better than whatever it is Cray and IBM are releasing these days.

These products can be viewed as major departures from LG’s usual line of low end radios and lightbulbs, or Costco-special LCD televisions. We asked them about this.

“The problem with all these other things is that they don’t allow for content creation.¹

Well, supercomputers do, but nobody uses them for that. They just do protein simulations and play killer games of StarCraft II. But that’s not the point.

The point is that, in each of these fields, we will introduce devices that allow the user to be a creator as well as a consumer. I mean, sure, Fallingwater is a good house, but what if you need to, I don’t know, whomp up a 3D movie? The house is totally not designed to accommodate you. Sure you can try to make a movie in the house with, like, a Mac Pro or something, but the house doesn’t really lend itself to your endeavors. Our new house, car, steak, and computer will all specifically aid in content creation.”

LG’s spokesperson declined to elucidate, which is probably for the best. Especially in the whole “steak” arena.

“Look forward to car like devices that will not only get you where you’re going, but allow you to write a novel while you’re doing it. Or maybe a spreadsheet, if you’re a business type. I don’t care. Right now it’s a Dodge Neon with an iPad glued to the dashboard, but that’s just the prototype.” The spokesperson said, followed by “oh, don’t put that in.”

We put it in.

1. Apparently they completely ignored our qustion. [↩]

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Answered Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week, just to give ourselves something to do while we wait for Yoko Ono to kick the bucket Apple Corps¹ to release Abby Road on iTunes, we thought we’d talk about the upcoming Blu-Ray release of Star Wars.

Q: Aaaaaw, are we really gonna do this?

A: What? Star Wars is a cultural touchstone and defined two whole generations of sci-fi fandom.

Q: Yeah yeah Jedis and Jar-Jar and stuff. But that’s not the point. It’s the whole Blu-Ray thing, isn’t it? That’s where this gets sticky from an OSX perspective.

A: It’s entirely possible that Steve will decide that the Blu-Ray bag doesn’t hurt all that bad!

Q: It’s more likely that he gets rid of SuperDrives altogether, and you know it. He wants all media to come down via iTunes, and you know it.

A: I was kinda hoping we’d be talking about hi-def wookies, you know…

Q: And Mos Def as Ford Prefect. Who cares about the content? The MEDIUM is the MESSAGE in this case. And Steve’s message is “you will use iTunes”

A: Some people still like content…

Q: Look, Han Shot First, Chewie will NEVER get a medal, and Hayden Christensen, who grows up to be James Earl Jones,  is Mark Hamill‘s father. We got it. There aren’t any surprises here, just fodder for internet memes and T-Shirts.

A: I bought one of those T-Shirts!

Q: Welcome to the herd. The issue here is that Apple is like some kinda Empire, keeping us rebels from …

A: Running windows in bootcamp and buying a cheap little external blu-ray drive?

Q: Well, alright, I guess I could do that, but the point is that I shouldn’t have to! I mean, install Windows on my Mac mini?² I’d–

A: –Sooner kiss a Wookie?

Q: Ugh. Fine, whatever.

A: That

Q:           Can be arranged, yes. Got it.

A: he he he. Wookie kisser.

Q: Very professional. Look, all I’m saying is that Apple seems to be pushing their own agenda here instead actually serving the consumer

A: Okay, jokes aside, I just can’t agree. Network distribution is where it’s at and where it’s going. Both. Somehow. Blu-Ray is as dead as Jango Fett after Mace Windu lops his head off. Sure, his heart my beat a few more times, but we don’t need plastic to carry our bytes around any more.

Q: So, you’d rather download an 8 GB file than just go buy it at the store?

A: It’d take about as long to get it from iTunes as it would to get it from Amazon.com, so there’s no loss there. And then it’s also legally and automatically backed up in my Time Machine drive, and my Mozy online backup as well. Where’s the downside here?

Q: In the middle of the Death Star Throne room?

A: Word.

1. More like “Apple Corpse” amirite? [↩]
2. I’m totally running Windows 7 on my Mac mini. Stupid Grad School. [↩]

Apple now has the exclusive right to use the new Liquidmetal alloy-thing for electronical type communication devices and whatnot. Everyone make the Terminator jokes now. I’ll wait here.

Thank you.

Now, that done, here are some things we hope John Ive does with this new, insanely useful metal:

• Actually Build EVE from Wall*E
• Actually build Wall*E from Wall*E
• Mac Wars Episode VI: RETURN OF THE CUBE
• Shiny-backed iPhones That don’t pick up millions of fingerprints (because it’s magic!)
• Newer, more powerful Phil Schiller
  • For that matter, it’s about time to redo The Woz. The current model is getting kinda ragged.
• bullet-proof mock turtlenecks
• Liquid. Metal. Ponies.
• Summer Glau 2.0: Don’t call her “Autumn”

Well, we’ve wandered a bit from our main point. Here’s to Jony Ive and his shiny new toy. We look forward to the next coolest thing in industrial design.

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Answered Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

It’s just bad luck that our iFAQ for the Kindle landed on Friday the 13th.

Q: Oh, man, hey, sorry I had to call this one in. I can’t make it to the studio, so we’ll just do this over the phone, ‘kay?

A: O-Okay.

Q: Great. Anyway, I just bought this new Kindle, and I really like it, the e-ink screen, the cool graphite shell, the…whoops, man, I almost hit that black cat with my bike. Good thing he got out of the way so quickly! What was I saying? Oh, yeah, I really like it and all, but sometimes I wonder if it’s really enough.

A: What do you mean?

Q: Now, don’t get me wrong. I like having a reading device that’s also got free Wikipedia access anywhere I go, and having books delivered to me in “under a minute” is awesome, full stop. But WHOA! Man! This place is crazy today! I just barely fit under that ladder!

A: You were saying?

Q: I’m just saying that maybe the Kindle could do more.

A: More than just books, you mean?

Q: Well, that’s not entirely fair, because it also does magazines, blogs, heck, even Instapaper, that sweetheart of the iPhone, has Kindle support.

A: So you’ve got a high-tech miracle device that allows you to consume just about any print form of media from anywhere, but you want more?

Q: Look buddy, if you didn’t want that mirror broken you shouldn’t have left it out on the street where anyone could run into it like that! I’m lucky I’m not all full of glass shards and stuff, you know?

A: Maybe this is a bad time, Q…

Q: No, no it’s fine. Look, yeah, I get all the print stuff I want delivered to me wherever I am. But what about music? what about videos? What about long, moonlit strolls along the beach with the person I love? What about living the life I’ve always dreamed of?

A: NO MUSICALS!

Q: Sorry about that. Man, that lady across the street seems to agree with you. She’s totally givin’ me the evil eye. My singing isn’t that bad.

A: It kinda is. So, you want to know what you should do to satisfy all your other media-based lusts, right?

Q: You make it sound so dirty.

A: And you don’t want an iPad?

Q: Can’t afford an iPad.

A: Well then. Get ready to squint.

Q: What’s that now?

A: Grab yourself an iPod Touch or an iPhone and watch your movies and listen to your music on a more handheld device.

Q: And my Kindle?

A: You can read Kindle books on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Or your Mac. Or your PC. Or just carry two devices. You’re not really losing out.

Q: Well, okay, yeah. But… hold on… Daaaaaang, that piano almost landed on me! So that’s your answer. Get an iOS device and call it good.

A: Pretty much.

Q: Hey, I just found $100 in the gutter! Maybe I CAN afford an iPad after all. Wow, today must be my lucky day!

A: Must be.

We here at CANS are saddened at the loss of Mark Papermaster, recently axed VP of device hardware engineering. Instead of pointing at all the “i-word” possible reasons for him being axed, we thought we would instead take a look back at all the highlights of his time at Apple. Mark, this is for you.

Mark Papermaster Joins Apple

Apple® today announced that Mark Papermaster is joining the Company as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Mark Papermaster Leaves Apple

According to sources who spoke with The Wall Street Journal, Papermaster’s departure came as a result of a “falling out” with Jobs. How much the iPhone 4 antenna controversy played a part in his exit was said to be “unclear,” as those anonymous sources said the departure was chiefly a result of “cultural incompatibility.”

Ummm…yeah. that’s pretty much all we knew about Mr. Papermaster, except for the fact that he had an awesome name. Well, anyway, he’s gone. And so it goes.

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Answered Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week we venture timidly forth into the future and preview Office 2011 for Mac.

Q: So, why would I want Microsoft Office on my Mac? I’ve got iWork.

A: You wouldn’t.

Q: Really? So, you’re just gonna walk away from this one?

A: Pretty much.

Q: No witty explanations, no declarations of love for Redmond’s latest and greatest?

A: Sure. “Windows 7 is a pretty good OS”. But I won’t say anything nice about an office platform that can’t figure out how to go fully Cocoa by 2011.

Q: Oh, it’s a nerd thing then. You’re angry about one of those things that nobody else on earth understands.

A: Understand this, laughing boy: Microsoft won’t be shipping a 64-bit version of Office anytime soon. They say it’s because they’re so focused on compatibility between the Windows and Mac versions of Office.

Q: Compatibility? Really? that’s their line? Even AbiWord can claim 95% compatibility with Microsoft Office.

A: Exactly. So while they “support” the Mac platform with a new, slightly-less-crippled-than-before version of Office, it’s pretty clear that what they are really trying to do is push people back on over to the Windows side of the tracks.

Q: Surprised?

A: No. But I’m not buying in. Instead, I’m getting EVEN.

Q: That doesn’t sound good.

A: Yes! I’ll show those buffoons in Redmond a taste of their own medicine on the other foot now!

Q: You’re going to email them that sentence and then release service packs for it until it’s finally intelligible?

A: I’ll start releasing mediocre versions of popular Mac software for Windows! Then everyone will see the obvious superiority of our glorious Mac platform! It’s brilliant!

Q: It’s something else all right.

A: I shall start with a sub-par version of iWork. I shall force all your tables to reside in the same spreadsheet! I will make an email client that uses more resources than most Linux distributions! I’ll turn Keynote into a boring and unispired collection of slides that would have been perfectly at home in 1985!

Q: You’re mad! Maaaaaad!

A: And I shall call my creation…

Q: No Doctor! Don’t name it! You can’t go through with this! Please, come back down from that improbable tower in the lightning storm! Give up your mad dreams of revenge!

A: Nay! I shall release my ghastly creation on humanity, and it shall be called:

Office 2010

Q: Wow.

A: Bwahahahahahahaha!

Q: That was a lot of setup for a fairly minor joke.

A: The joke is on Ballmer! He’ll never know what hit him! Their sales numbers will plummet!

Q: I’m…I’m not playing any more. Have fun [leaves]

A: Bwaaaahahahahahahahahaaa! I’m a genius!

Here’s why.

This is probably the best excuse I’ll ever have.