Crazy Apple News Site

Former CEO Jonathan Schwartz has started a blog detailing all the things he was too humble to tell us about himself when he was still captain of a sinking ship CEO of sun. His upcoming book WordPress hosted blog reveals some of the things you might not have known about the kinds of meetings that happen between CEO’s of major companies and third-string wannabes. But we weren’t content to wait for the next installment of “Jonathan Schwartz tells Apple to shut up”, so we called him directly and asked for the “The dirt”.

“So, this one time, Bill Gates came into my office, and was all, “Java is stupid!” and I was all “whatever Bill, .Net looks like crap and doesn’t run on Solaris!” Schwartz related over the phone. He continued, “So then I flexed all my pecs and abs and my shirt was like BOOM and Bill was all “Wow Jon you have awesome muscles and I just wet myself so I’m leaving now because you’re so scary and I was the strongest CEO in the world and I made Steve Jobs give me his lunch money and Steve Ballmer told me that he wants to be like me when he grows up.”

Unfortunately, at this point Mrs. Schwartz came in and told Johnny that it was nap time He had to attend a high-level meeting, so we were unable to continue with his story. But we’ll be sure to pick it up in his assuredly not soon to be a bestseller, as soon as it comes out on Apple’s iBooks service.

And now we’ll leave you with the Steve Jobs Summation: “our most advanced technology in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”

12:34: I just like posting at 12:34.

12:33: Steve Jobs “got the goods” to create a new market out of thin air.

12:31: OSX lovers brace to get ignored for another year while Apple plays with the new OS for this thing

12:28: It’s a whole new gold rush!

12:27: The iPad will change the way we do the things we do be do be do

12:24: Everything is better when Jon Ive says it.

12:23: Keyboard dock turns your tablet back into a laptop.

12:20: Okay the prices are actually reasonable.

12:18: “pundits” said it would be under $1000, which is $999. They’re wrong! It’s $2999!

12:17: Unlocked out of the door? You can use any SIM? Wow, take that, AT&T!

12:15: 3G via AT&T is $30/month for the “Unlimited” (read: limited, but we don’t tell you what the limit is) plan.

12:13: Steve Job’s new catch phrase: “Isn’t it great?”

12:12: Giraffe Graph.

12:11: Numbers moves this into the realm of justifiable business expense.

12:10: Soccer teams are always looking for a way to make attactive graphs of their players’ performance.

12:08: The Numbers presentation slides into a discussion of the American vs. Canadian tax systems.

12:06: All Keynote presentations must be about the great wall of China. Other topics will be allowed in later versions.

12:02: Keynote looks a lot like keynote, only you touch things now. How you connect it to a projector so other people can see your slides is anyone’s guess.

12:01: Phil Just took over Steve’s Chair.

12:00: Phil Schiller comes to tell us about iWork. Good ol’ Phil! Whadda guy!

11:59: Apple’s using an open format for their books? My mind, she is blown. In a good way. That is some happy news.

11:57: BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS! thank you.

11:54: Steve graciously nods to Amazon’s Kindle before completely dethroning it.

11:53: Did you hear that? That was the sound of every chess club in america writing an iPad app to track their games.

11:51 MLB.com will give you nerdy stats about baseball games. Trig fans rejoice! All six of you!

11:49: This just in! Car games! Whoda thunk it?

11:47: a quick glance at a painting program and off we go to more game demos from EA games. Order is restored.

11:44: The New York Times is hoping the iPad will save them from the inevitable death of old media. They could be right. Of all the newspapers, they have done the best job of using new technology.

11:42: Wait, only one game demo? What happened Apple?

11:40: Wake me when the game demos are over. Zzzzzzzz….

11:37: Nothing’s as exciting as new SDK’s! I mean, new features? Bah!

11:34: You can run iPhone apps in the middle of the screen and imagine that you have an entire foot of bezel around your iPhone.

11:31: It’s powered by AL GORE’S HAIR! I mean, an “Apple A4″ chip. Don’t know what that’s all about.

11:27: That surfing dog is getting a lot of facetime. He must be a personal friend.

11:23: Dangit, John Mayer got his lizard-like visage into this presentation. Why won’t you leave us alone, you substandard guitarist-slash-crooner?

11:21: Yep, look straight down and type. Your Chiropractor recommends you get an iPad immediately.

11:18: Why do I think all the trekkies are going to call this thing the iPADD?¹

11:16: Steve is sitting comfortably, so the Moody Blues can stop asking, thank you.

11:14: The iPad looks like a giant iPhone. But I’m sure Steve’ll tell us why it’s not any second now. Any second. Any time now.

11:10: “Netbooks have no reason for existing” Take that, ASUS!

11:09: Last post from MacWorld says “Steve Jobs is on the stage” SO ten minutes ago.

11:08: Apple now owns all mobile stuff. They have their hotels on boardwalk and broadway. They rule the world.

11:06: Amazing picture of Woz.

11:02: Big Steve has taken the stage. Many people have taken pictures. 2/3 of the traffic on the internet right now is…well, probably unmentionable, but a LOT of traffic is Steve Jobs pictures going back and forth.

11:01: The time has come, no posts! WHAT IS GOING ON? Oh, wait, new post now.

10:55: Even from a few thousand miles away, I’m excited. Not about Jason Chen’s nose, you understand. About the tablet thingy.

10:54: Jason Chen is picking his nose.

10:53: I will never understand why people have “spoiler-free” versions  of their liveblogs.  What would you say? “Steve Jobs is talking about…a thing. It’s really amazing! It has… some features…wow, you’ll really want to see this, later, when you watch the “official” version”

10:44: Dan Moren should be told that the spawning possibilities at this event are decidedly low. His salmon metaphor is  a bit creepy.

10:43: MacWorld’s Jason Snell begins his coverage of the event. He just told us where they are, a vital piece of information that Gizmodo somehow forgot.

10:39: We are trying to keep ourselves wanting an Apple tablet, and ignoring the small voice in our head that says it’s just a big iPod. Come on, Steve! Distort our reality!

10:02: Some guy at giz reveals that he’s not actually at the event. See, I told you I wasn’t at the event right off the bat. Which is why all my times are in MST instead of PST. CANS: the most honest of the rumors liars.

9:34: In a shocking last minute revelation, supposed leaked photos of the enclosure of the new device reveal that it looks a lot like an Apple product.

9:04: Nothing interesting is happening now. As you were.

8:43: Jason Chen from Gizmodo is already in line and already updating Giz’s live blog. So I’m going to steal his funniest comment yet:

I wonder what celebrities will be attending today. John Mayer² ? Ralph Macchio? Yoko Ono?

Or Kanye West, as he runs up on stage, slapping the tablet out of Steve Jobs’ hands, exclaiming that the Handspring Visor was the best tablet of all time.

Live Coverage begins now! Like all the other sites, we’ll be top-posting, so updates are easy to read while the event is going on, and really annoying in the future. Because you can’t break with tradition.

That’s right! We’ll be offering live coverage of the coverage of today’s announcement later this morning! Think of us as Rifftrax ³ for the super-serious regular coverage of Apple’s latest products.

Also, unlike those other sites, we won’t bog your browser down with some javascript or flash monstrosity to auto update our blog! No! We put the power back into your hands with the re-introduction of the “refresh” button!

For those of you who like birds, you can also follow our coverage on twitter! simply follow @crazyapplenews or go to http://twitter.com/crazyapplenews.

So hold on to your seats and prepare to be amazed at the things we say about the things other people say about the stuff Steve Jobs talks about! It’ll be triple fantastic!

1. Why do I even know what a PADD is? [↩]
2. Oh please no [↩]
3. We are, unfortunately, completely unrelated and unaffiliated with rifftrax [↩]

Since the hiated Moltz has already said all there is to say about the tablet rumors, we bring you instead our predictions for everything else that is likely to happen in 2010.

• The Microsoft Mi-2 phone/tablet will be released and derided as the “Zune 2″, before people realize that it’s name was already a joke.
• Android phones will soon outnumber all other types of phone, then claim sentience and voting rights.  Their leader, Crème Brûlée, will then announce that all they really want is free data access and to be taken seriously when they edit Wikipedia Articles.  Al Gore will be named vice president of the new Android Americans Union, and hailed as the first Android American to really be accepted into human society.
• The entire Free Software Foundation, or roughly 10 real people¹ will cry out with one voice to remind the world that Android runs on GNU/Linux, and be entirely ignored. As usual.
• There will be no new major developments as far as giant spaceborne monoliths are concerned. In a completely unrelated note, mankind will suddenly discover the awesome power of bones as spacecraft. And weapons.
• George Lucas will make a new Star Wars Christmas special starring only Jar-Jar Binks and Chewbacca. “It was the most annoying thing I could think of,” he will claim, laughing “and I’m rich enough to totally not care when it flops in the box office!” Sadly,  it will be the best sci-fi movie of the year.
• Apple will surprise the world when they purchase Belgium, after a brief but sharp bidding war with Google.  No reason will be given, but the name will be changed to iEurope.
• Google will then purchase Luxembourg, which will be taken offline for six months and re-emerge as “Google Country”.
• John Moltz will start and abandon three new blogs.
• The Android Empire will slowly begin to squeeze harder and harder, little realizing that the harder they squeeze, the more systems will slip through their fingers.
• Apple’s famous 1984 commercial will seem relevant again, but with phones this time.
• Al Gore will broker a peace treaty between the warring nations of Google Country and iEurope.  They will then turn to defeat their common enemy, MicroFrance²
• Peace will finally settle over Europe again, and the weary world will even have some hope for peace after Apple’s newest acquisition, “iRaq”.
• Apple will then realize that they still make computers and push out new versions of the Mac Pro, iMac, OSX, Apple TV, and, in their haste to launch upgraded products, the Newton.  2,000  die-hard Newton fans will die of surprise at the announcement, thus destroying the market for the ill-conceived device.  Pundits will deride the device as the “Zune 2″ before realizing that we have already made that joke.
• The year will end on a happy note as Apple and Google are finally able to bring peace to the middle east by merging their newest properties, iRaq and Google Cradle of Humanity³ .

1. with over 40,000 email addresses between them [↩]
2. purchased by Microsoft when we weren’t looking [↩]
3. now finally out of beta [↩]

We’re not sure how this happened, but a courier today mis-delivered a sackful of letters addressed to

Santa Jobs
1 Holiday Loop
Cupertino, North Pole
10101

And it looks like our time practicing Steve Job’s signature paid off! In the spirit of all that is best in journalism, we thought we’d share a few of the letters with you.

---

Dear Santa Jobs,

This year I want to be right about things some more. If you could kinda keep an eye on my blog and make things the way I write about them I will feel like a good person instead of a hollow, bitter shell.

Also, I want a pony.

Love,
Johnny Gruber

---

Dear Santa Jobs,

I just wanted to thank you for the present you gave me last year. Those six dozen factual tips (indexed as they were with the months in which they should be published) really helped us cement a lead over AppleInsider.com!

Oh, and speaking of “tips”, please find enclosed a check for one hundred thousand “CEO Salaries”, if you know what I’m sayin’. If this year’s gift is as good as last year’s, you can expect another tip.

Pleasure doin’ business with you,
the super-secret editor of MacRumors.com

---

Dear Santa Jobs,

I just wanted to thank you for the present you gave me last year. Those six dozen factual tips (indexed as they were with the months in which they should be published) really helped us cement a lead over MacRumors.com!

Oh, and speaking of “tips”, please find enclosed a check for one hundred thousand “CEO Salaries”, if you know what I’m sayin’. If this year’s gift is as good as last year’s, you can expect another tip.

Pleasure doin’ business with you,
the super-secret editor of AppleInsider.com

---

Dear Santa Jobs,

I wanna 10-inch tablet anna 7-inch tablet anna free 3G plan for both of ‘em anna new MacBook Pro anna new iPhone an’ that means I’ll need preview units of all of them so I can write Missing Manuals for them.

An’ I wanna pony.

Thanks,
Davie Pogue

---

Dear Santa Jobs,

I want people to like me. Or at least stop making fun of me for that picture in the Times.

And a big pony.
Stevie Ballmer

---

Wha? Whazzat? Huh? Oh. Oh. Okay, okay.

I wan’… I wan’…. I WAN’ THE ENTITY BACK! WHER’ THE CRAP DID ‘E GO?

Awwwwww….wha’ever man. Jus’ give me somma that whiskey.

An’ sombody make Gruber shut up ’bout that pony.

Jonny Maltz Moltz

---

Look, Steve. Oh, all right, “Santa Jobs”

I don’t know why you do this every year. It’s so… well, actually it’s just like you, but whatever.

Look, you have to get me back on “Dancing with the Stars”, alright? I was robbed last time. I was freakin’ awesome, but the judges couldn’t handle me. You own that network, right? So just pull some strings, maybe fire a few people. You’ve always liked firing people, right? Anyway, do what you gotta do, but get me back on the air. I gotta wicked need to dance, baby!

Oh, hey, also, could you get me some new tires for my Segway? It eats less than a pony, which is nice.

Woz

---

Dear Santa Jobs,

I would like peace on earth. But I can’t do anything about it myself, because I’m too busy waiting for the world to change. So if you could do that I would love it. Also, please put a hit out on Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, and pretty much anyone else who’s played at a MacWorld or WWDC keynote other than me.

Thanks,

Johnny Mayer

---

Feel free to write your own letter to Santa Jobs in the comments. It’ll be at least as effective as these letters.

Waves of shock rocked the Microsoft campus today. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has ceased to exist following an announcement that his entire existence in the first place was the result of a “rounding error” by accountants using Microsoft Money.

This news is made ironic¹ in light of a recent interview the nonexistent CEO gave recently stating that Apple’s Safari browser and Google’s Chrome were both “Rounding Errors“, as opposed to Mozilla Firefox, which is statistically relevant.

“It was actually his comments that led us to look deeper at Microsoft’s finances,” admitted P. Waterhouse of Pfister Attorneys and Pflumbers². “We had been hired to do a routine audit of Microsoft’s accounts and holdings, and in the course of our investigation we came to find that the existence of a being such as “Steve Ballmer” was so statistically improbable that we were forced to conclude that he does not, in fact, exist.”

When asked what effect this could have on the company, Waterhouse replied, “well, obviously they’re going to need a CEO with enough essential existence to maintain a physical presence. We have recommended that Paul Allen pull a Steve Jobs, but for some reason he’s locked himself in his office and is adamantly refusing to talk to us about what he calls ‘a sinking ship’. We tried to explain to him that a software company, unlike a boat, actually can be unsinkable, but he refuses to listen.”

Rumors that Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and/or Phil Schiller have been approached to take over Mr. Ballmer’s spot have been neither confirmed nor denied by our contacts at Apple. Not surprisingly, Mr. Ballmer was also unavailable for comment.

1. or made up [↩]
2. “The Pfancy Pfrosecutors with the Pfunny name” [↩]

Shocking news from the world of Apple Fandom today as an AP poll shows that there are absolutely no surprises left for those who shell out for Apple’s newest release of OSX. 

“The blogs have covered everything,” said an unnamed operative.¹ “From really, really obvious features like the new QuickTime X to really boring things like the OpenCL framework, every single facet of Snow Leopard has been covered.  I  mean, there have been long, in-depth articles about a “malware protection system” that watches for two packages! What’s that all about?”

The dearth of new material on the arctic cat has left the Apple Blogging Community² with a bit of a problem on their hands. 

“What do we write about?  It’s still to early to start guessing on the code name for 10.7. We’ll have to wait until at least next week for that,” said Leo Laporte.

“I disagree,” disagreed John Gruber, who went on to claim that Apple would name 10.7 “Fireball” after his own illustrious self.

“Let’s face it, I put the Missing Manual to bed six months ago, and since then it’s just been trying to weasel things out from under the NDA.  Now that we’re allowed to talk about it, there’s not really anything left to cover, other than the…oops, that feature’s still under NDA, I forgot. Well, you’ll see,” said a more-smug-than-usual David Pogue.

Those wishing to console the despondent Apple bloggers suggested they talk about rumors of be-camera’ed³ iPods or the coming Apple tablet, but these suggestions were met with moist snorts of derision.  “Out of the frying pan into the fire” was how the Macalope put it.

but fear not, gentle readers! CANS has found the one thing that no other blog has covered, and we will be providing exclusive coverage of that mysterious new thing, the one Apple product upgrade of which no one else knows, right after this week’s iFAQ.

Stay Tuned!

1. AP deals harshly with errant operatives. [↩]
2. That’s right, the ABC. What about it? [↩]
3. most over-punctuated word ever on this blog, ladies and gentlemen! [↩]

Martyn Williams, who surely had better things to do, chose instead to write about the downfall of tr.im, a nearly unknown url shortener, who sought to compete with the equally stupid sounding bit.ly, tinyurl.com, and the almost-longer-than-the-original readthisurl.com. And we here at CANS are glad he did, as we were all set to launch into the beta testing phase of our own url shortening website.  We had already run into a few snags with our program, not the least of which was the fact that our “shortened” urls were promising to look something like “http://crazyapplenews.com/shortening/index.php/sle4231xfSEslkeyggiotr78Cvdew” ¹

We will now observe a minute of silence for the fallen tr.im, shortened to three seconds, as they would have wanted it. 

Thank you.

1. I was going to actually make that link live, but decided at the last moment not to do three hours of coding and testing for a one-line throw away gag [↩]

Apple’s not-actually-announced-yet-but-it’s-totally-real-guys-seriously tablet device will be able to everything you ever wanted ever, predict many sources.

“This device will be usable by everyone everywhere. It will have 3G speeds on EDGE networks, and freeway gas mileage even in downtown NYC! Millions of starving children in Ghana will be able to use it to do their classwork without learning Linux or SmallTalk on one of those ghetto green lappy things,” asserted John Gruber, Walt Mosseberg, and David Pogue, in unison. Pogue continued, “And then the Enterprise will show up because we finally built a PADD, just like the one Wesley Crusher used!”¹ However, this is not predicted to have any effect on Will Wheaton’s Whining Ways²

“Dude, I stopped whining about leaving Star Trek when I wrote that “Geek” book,” Wheaton said. But we were busy trying to get back to the point of this article.

Steve Ballmer was dismissive of the as yet unannounced high-technology device, claiming that the beta weather-control module was “only 89% effective at re-structuring storm systems” and the “code for the lead-to-gold transmogrifier is really ugly. Hey Apple, the Dark Ages called, they want their technology back!” When pressed³ Ballmer admitted that he “hadn’t actually seen either of these components,” but he was “totally sure that they would suck, just like the iPhone”.

Not so, says every other technology news site ever. According to “trusted sources” quoted by the rest of the web, the new iSlate/iTab/MacSlate/McRib/MacTablet/MacPlate will have the following features:

• Telepathy
• Gorgeous new interface based on supermodels
• Gorgeous new supermodels based on the interface
• Gorgeous new Phil Schiller
• the first ever 8-finger “gesture”
• 8 actual fingers
• Side of fries
• Web cam
• Super-advanced webcam software that prevents users from posting embarrassing videos to YouTube
• QuickerTime
• FREE PONY!

And several thousand other amazing features.

the new product is expected to be released every day from today until somtime next year.

1. Pogue actually speaks with hyperlinks like that. It’s kinda freaky. But very web 2.0 [↩]
2. WWWWWA? (What Would Will Wheaton Whine About?) [↩]
3. not a task for the faint of heart [↩]

Apple humor columnists have been laid a stymie recently with Microsoft’s announcement that they will be opening their own retail outlets.
“The problem isn’t having something to say about these impending train wrecks,” said the Macalope, “the problem is knowing where to begin. It’s like trying to take a brand new Mac Pro and a 30″ Cinema Display out to your brand-new luxury sedan. You just can’t leave anything behind, but you don’t want to carry it all, in case you drop something.”

“This is more ground than any of us can cover alone,” cried John Moltz, proposing a new joint humor campaign to fully exploit the comedic potential of the guaranteed failure. However, the erstwhile CARS editor-in-chief then realized that starting and abandoning yet another blog would cut drastically into his time spent drinking sexy techno-whisky, and decided to cut out the middleman and abandon the plan instead.

“They haven’t got a [expletive deleted] snowball’s chance in [incredibly long string of expletives deleted]” ranted John Gruber, who isn’t a humor columnist per se, but is still pretty funny.

Fortunately, while those of us who are dedicated to making light of all things Apple were overcome by the majesty of Microsoft’s proposed flop, others were able to handle the situation with aplomb. From all of us to both of you, our thanks.