Don’t get me wrong, XCode 4 is a massive improvement on the previous versions, with everything integrated into a single window, a massive improvement on the previous versions’ tendency to spread windows over your entire desktop and eventually into other Spaces, just because there are so dang many of them. The new debugger is faster, more intuitive, gives you good stack traces, even on multiple threads, and actually tries to trace your local variables and display them in a way that makes sense to humans, again something at which XCode 3 struggled.

So many of us purchased XCode 4 from the app store, telling ourselves that, considering how much Windows developers pay for Visual Studio we were getting off easy. And we downloaded the 4.5 Gigabyte file, and we ran the installer, and everything was good. XCode 4 was installed! Life was happy. Blithely we deleted the Installer file that the App Store dropped into our Applications folders and started tinkering around with all the new features, like Git integration and a useful timeline view of code changes and whatnot.

Then, a few days later, Apple released version 4.0.1 of the app. Well, we had noticed a few things that were kinda buggy with the initial release, so that’s to be expected. We go into the App Store, expecting an upgrade notification and…nothing. The App Store says we haven’t installed XCode 4. But look! It’s running right there! Lo and behold, deleting the 4.5 Gigabyte installer file from our Applications folder is what told the App Store that we no longer had XCode on our drive. So we download the new version—all 4.5 Gigabytes of it—and reinstall. The awful truth dawns slowly: we have to keep that stupid installer file to get our “convenient” automatic updates.

This, I feel, is too coincidental. It is clearly a joke, played upon the Apple developer community and their ISP’s. Apple is too smart to saddle their developers with a gigantic dead weight file and massive downloads for every patch release. Fortunately, they’ve given us some clues. Look at the version number: 4.0.1. Does that suggest anything to you? Looks a lot like 4/1, doesn’t it? Yep, it’s an April Fool’s day joke.

Okay, Apple, you’ve had your fun. Now let’s make with version 4.0.2 getting rid of the annoyance factors. I’ve got better uses for that huge chunk of hard drive space. Thank you.

January

Most of January was spent rampantly speculating about what Apple would be announcing at their Big Reveal event on the 27th. As it became more and more certain that some sort of Tablet was in the works the Mythical Apple Tablet became the focus of everyone’s imagination. Feature lists sprang up like Peashooters in Plants vs. Zombies¹ and everyone was, well, kinda disappointed when the device that was actually revealed turned out to be a very intelligently designed, sensible device at a surprisingly low price. However, once the iPad was announced we of the Apple press were left facing the question of what we should write about in

February

With the iPad announced but not released, we had a lot of time to try and figure out what, if anything, was coming next. Apple itself seemed to be entirely focused on getting the iPad right, and we didn’t even get any good rumors during the shortest and bleakest month. Nate went to California, and subsequently failed to write anything interesting about the trip, as his computer committed suicide every time he tried to work up a post. I’ll say this: it was very warm. Which sounds nice right now. December in SLC is bitter, bitter. But things warmed up in

March

With the announcement that Steam would be coming to the Mac. People wondered why it was that Apple let Valve beat them to the online software distribution punch. In other Apple news, the iPad still wasn’t released, and people continued the “big iPod Touch” jokes, and the “pad sounds like a feminine hygiene product” jokes, neither of which were funny.

In CANS news, “Q” spent March standing in line to buy an iPad, which was finally released in

April

The month of the iPad! It was finally here! It was real! Everyone wanted one! Little kids hugged them! It was like Christmas! The dang things were actually really good! There’s really nothing bad to say about the iPad launch. It went off well and the iPad was and is an amazing device. And it’s good that iPad news was so positive, because April is also the month of the iPhone 4 fiasco.

It’s old news, but still irritating. Gizmodo bought a prototype iPhone 4 from a guy who picked it up in a bar when someone left it there…you know the song. Anyway, this happened in April, and like any terrible news story, was still making waves in

May

We decided to spend May entirely inwardly focused, as “Q” was still weak from his exposure to the elements and we really hated all the negativity about the iPhone 4. We had our own run-in with negativity on our other blog when we thoughtlessly said some rude things about Roger Ebert. But out in Apple-world the iPhone 4 storm swirled on into

June

When the iPhone 4 was actually really announced to a not-very-surprised world. The Retina display is and

Little. Aluminum. Different.

was an amazing idea, and this was before we knew the antennae on the device were flawed. The new Mac Mini was announced and Steve Jobs posted some thoughts about Flash. Adobe responded with typical aplomb, by which I mean various Adobe personnel told Apple where they could stick their magical devices. But, the Mac Mini, that was and is a thing of wonder. Or at least it’s really tiny and beautiful. But beauty isn’t everything, and in

July

We learned that form has to follow function as the iPhone 4 was officially launched and people discovered that wrapping their hands around the thing in certain ways reduced your signal strength. We here at CANS tried to ignore this whole mess then, and we continue to do so now. In July we heard from the future, the past, and an alternate reality, all to avoid “Antennagate” and it’s repercussions. Fortunately Apple announced a new battery charger at the end of July, so the month wasn’t a total loss. And speaking of loss, in

August

Apple lost their most interestingly named executive, Mr. Papermaster. We here at CANS felt the loss keenly, as we hadn’t made nearly enough jokes based on that name. I mean, look at it. Papermaster. Papermaster. It’s just too good. But he’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about it. So we’re back to jokes about Phil Schiller. Ah well. Anyway, August segued right into

September

with the announcement of a big music event at which Apple announced all kinds of new iPods. the new iPod Touch should really be called the iPad Mini, and the new Nano should be called the iPod Shuffle Touch. An updated Apple TV was announced, and people still seem to feel that it’s got a long way to go before it reaches its full potential. And in

October

We were told that the potential for a new version of OSX was about to become a reality. Well, actually, Lion isn’t due to ship until “Summer 2011″, but we got a sneak peek at what Apple’s working on. The “Back to the Mac” theme that they chose for the announcement event was, it turned out, more meaningful than we expected, as many UI decisions and idioms from the iPad are being brought back to the Mac, from which, Apple was quick to remind us, iOS originally came. Chief amongst these is a Mac App Store, which will let you buy your Mac Apps without going to real stores or the actual internet or anything. the App Store is set to launch in just a few days, well ahead of the rest of the Lion package. Seemingly designed specifically for Lion, Apple also released the new MacBook Air, which is so small it’s practically an iPad itself. Whether people will buy into it or not is anyone’s guess. Then it was

November ²

The month were I wrote a book, as I am wont to do. But even so, Apple wasn’t content to rest on their laurels. No, they finally put the axe to the XServe and buried the hatchet with Apple Corps. For the first time ever, it became possible to buy Beatles music on iTunes. Someday I might actually do so. But don’t hold your breath. And indeed, we were all breathing fairly easily heading into

December

Where Apple announced the early launch of the App Store, which won’t happen until next month. Many, many people got iPads as holiday presents, which of course means that it’s time to start speculating about the iPad 2′s specs and pricing.

And that’s 2010 in a nutshell. What will 2011 hold? Will the App Store for Mac take off like a rocket to the moon or fizzle out like that Ping thing that’s built into iTunes 10? Will Lion be everything we were hoping for and more? Will Penny and Leonard get back together, or are they going to pull a Ross and Rachael right up until the final episode of The Big Bang Theory?³ We can but wait and see. And speculate wildly, of course. But that’s the subject for another post. Here’s to the year that was.

1. which was also quite popular at the time
2. Look, you try coming up with 12 really good segues
3. The parallels between Friends and TBBT are striking. It’s almost as if the producers of TBBT realized that they had a good ensemble sitcom on their hands and decided to do some research into how those work out…

Once upon a midnight dreary,
As I pondered weak and weary
Over many quaint and curious iPhone
Bought in days of yore

and then before I get to the part where they’ll get upgraded “nevermore” I realize that I’m supposed to be trying to do a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Years/Saturnalia type poem, not a Halloween one. So then I try again with something like this:

The moon on the crest of the new-fallen snow
Glared like an iPad in in full sunlight below.
And Jobs in his kerchief, and Ive in his cap,
had just counted their money and an intern did slap¹

Which invariably gets pretty terrible.

I had good luck with the letters to Santa Jobs one year, which were fun to write and gave me a lot of latitude to make fun of all manner of people in concise and amusing ways. But doing that again would be basically admitting that I’m completely out of ideas.

So then I’ll try for the sentimental angle, thanking people for all their support over the past year, which really has been pretty great. Or I’ll drop hints about my upcoming “predictions for next year” post, which guarantees that said post will never get written. But I’ve decided I’m not going to do any of that this year.

Well, except for the “thank you” part. Seriously, thank you all for reading. You make this worth doing.

But other than that, I’m not doing any of the stuff I usually do. Instead, I’m trying something new this year. This year I’m going to write a short story. Like, just abandon the journalistic overtones and do some full-on fiction. It’ll be fun! And it doesn’t have to rhyme, which makes it better than poetry.

The Macwood Caper

Dirk Drake snubbed out his cigarette on the rain-slick bricks next to him and turned out of the alley, easing himself into the general flow of pedestrians practiced ease. There would be no way those goons could follow him now. He walked two blocks, then turned into a smoky, cheap bar on the corner. The other pedestrians were a little surprised, sure, but they lived in a detective-noir world. People spontaneously transformed into bars all the time here. Getting excited about something like that was a mug’s game. They kept walking, heads down in the rain.

Inside, Drake leaned on the bar and ignored the fact that if there was any continuity in this story from one paragraph to the next he’d be standing inside himself. He had some inner demons, sure, but he knew how to handle them.
“Next round’s on me, boys.” he said loudly, and everyone cheered, then came to the bar to place orders. In the din he was able to talk to the barkeeper quietly.
“Word on the street is, Mr. J ain’t to happy with you, Drake,” Pat the Barkeeper said. He really wished people would stop taking his name literally. His life was like an endless TSA screening process.

“I’m not here to make Mr. J happy. I got a job to do and I aim to do it.”

“What’d they offer you, that could make you switch sides like that?” Pat said.

“None of your business. Let’s just say they can make things easier on me. They got protection.”

“Come back, Dirk, and you won’t need protection. You know Mr. J can take care of you.”

Dirk didn’t say anything. He’d been offered quite a bit. Speed, Power, flexibility, and, of course, protection. He still wasn’t sure what he’d given up was worth it, though. He swallowed his drink in one gulp, made a face, then slapped a large wad of bills down on the counter.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Pat. Take care.”

Pat watched Dirk walk out of the bar, completely unconcerned that both the bar and everyone in it would cease to exist at the end of this paragraph. “If he hates the taste of Ginger Ale so much, why does he always order it?” Pat wondered aloud. But nobody answered. They all just stopped existing.

Dirk knew the way in. He slid silently down shadowed halls, drifted like a ghost through doors that should have set off more alarms than the announcement of an impending John Meyer concert–well, ghosts that weighed about 210 pounds and had a deep working knowledge of the type of security system used in this place– and at last was exactly where he wanted to be. Slowly he approached the dias in the middle of the room. Like most of the room itself, the dias was made of a single block of aluminum, elegantly carved and beautifully minimalist. And there, resting on a stand, which was resting on the dias, you see, I mean, not to detract from the action, but this should be made clear; on a stand on the dias was the object of his quest.

The Second Generation iPad Prototype.²

Dirk knew this was the most dangerous part of the mission. He knew this because he’s not stupid. The most dangerous part is always the part where you’re in the middle of the building of the company you’re trying to rob. Knowing this, he spent fully two minutes straining his senses to catch every sound, every flicker of light, every possible indication of a trap. But he’d made it. The alarms were turned off, completely unaware that he was there, and he was free. He reached out, and just as his hand was closing around the edge of the iPad a great, tolling startup chime rolled through the room. One seemingly solid aluminum wall lit up, bathing the room in light, and in the wall next to it a face appeared on a screen that Dirk knew wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Well well, Mr. Drake. I wish I could say I was surprised. We always knew you would return. What a pity that it has to be in such…confrontational circumstances.”

“I didn’t choose to leave, and I’m not too thrilled about being back.”

“But the money was too good, huh?”

“Let’s just say that I could win those seven flaming dares and still make less than they offered me to pull this heist.”

The man in the screen laughed. “Very clever. And now I’m to guess who is paying you, is that right? ‘Win those seven’ you said, which sounds suspiciously like “Windows 7″, so perhaps it’s Mr. B himself. “Flaming dares” or Daring Fireballs? and the heist? Well, we both know that was just a red herring. a John “Red” Herring. Well, I don’t think I’ll play, Mr. Drake.”

Dirk looked at the screen, hope and fear fighting in his heart.

“So what now? You got me. What’s your move?”

“My move, Mr. Drake? Just this. You’ve seen it. You know what we’re planning, at least on the surface. Unfortunately, that’s all you’re going to get. You’re free to get what you can for that information on the outside. Nothing you say is going to hurt us, indeed, any publicity is good publicity. You didn’t get what you were sent for, but you may be able to get something out of this after all. Merry Christmas, Mr. Drake.” ³

Two large, well-muscled and inexplicably aluminum-colored men walked to the center of the room and guided Dirk out of the building. Once they were off the property they turned around and left him, having never spoken a word. Drake walked off into the night. He wished it was more like Chicago, but this was suddenly Cupertino. It was fairly warm, even with the rain. He turned up his collar anyway, just for the look of the thing.

He had more information than a lot of people, and he might be able to get something out of it. But who to sell to? Giz? DF? Pogue? Mentally he checked down the list. Finally he decided on a buyer. He knew someone who would want the information, and was in a position to pay for it.

Far away, a phone rang.

“Dickson residence. Who’s calling?”

“Listen, Dickson. I’ve got a scoop. What’s it worth to ya?”

1. Being me I would try to work a “fired. Out of a cannon” joke in here, but it really doesn’t scan at all.
2. and you thought we’d never get around to the Apple-related stuff! Just wait until we work the holidays into this!
3. Turns out that’s all the holiday cheer this story’s getting. Also, yes, we are well aware that Mr. J is Buddhist. But he’s also a retailer in America, and Christmas means something to anyone who sells things around here.

And speaking of rights, it isn’t wrong or right of Apple to stop writing their own JVM, it’s just life. Which as we all know, is like a box of chocolates and a bowl of cherries. In either case, you want to know well ahead of time if someone put Java into it. So when you take the Java out of the Apple, it’s up to someone else to put it back in. And looking into my crystal ball I see that Oracle is the one who should be tapped to do just that.

Apple tends to not tell people why they’re doing what they’re doing. Cutting flash from all new macs? We know why they’re doing that. It’s old news, which is an oxymoron if ever I’ve heard one. Cutting Java from Lion? Apple hasn’t told us why they’re doing that, so we all want to think it’s for the same reason, an assumption that just isn’t reasonable. The Apple JVM has been a problem for years now. It’s perpetually behind the curve, supporting only a subset of the actual Java specification. So now Oracle gets to make it be all that it can be. We don’t know why Oracle is going to enroll the Apple JVM into the army, but we know that it will emerge from its military service stronger, prouder, and likely with a tattoo or two. The message here is that when Steve Jobs says he’s going to stop doing something that’s the time for Larry Ellison to start doing it. There’s a deeper truth in there somewhere.

Which leads us to the impact of a complete disappearance of Java from Mac OSX: Apple people won’t be able to play minecraft. Frankly this is the most disturbing part of the whole thing, which tells you exactly how not-disturbing this situation actually is. I mean, if Apple were dropping support for, say, Objective-C we’d have problems. But dropping support for Java, which is rapidly skating down a frozen road of good intentions into the obscurity of being a teaching-only language? Not that big a deal. Remember when Microsoft made their own JVM? Remember the day they stopped? Yeah, me neither. The transition happened and it didn’t really hurt all that bad. Look for a similar lack of pain here.

Which leads to our final thought: Man up, Apple press. I realize that you’re trying to make a living off of pretty scant amounts of information. There just aren’t a lot of new desktop releases these days and people are less interested in computer specs than they are in blatant spectacle. Cope. If you don’t have anything interesting to say than don’t say things. Or learn to say different things. Maybe write about Linux for a while, I don’t know. You could probably work up a pretty good article arguing that if Apple’s going to turn the actual Mac into a walled garden like the iPhone then maybe it’s time to actually look at Linux on the desktop. You’d be dead wrong of course, and I’d mock you for bringing it up. But at least it would be something new. Or a at least something old that you haven’t written about recently. Which is just as good in these seriously short-attention span days.

And speaking of attention spans, I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo for the third year in a row, so starting November 1st posts are likely to be less than frequent and less coherent than usual, as I’ll be pounding my way through yet another novel destined to never see the light of day. If you’re interested in reading a very rough and unedited draft of last years novel you can check it out here.

That said, I won’t be letting myself completely off the hook this year like I did the last two times. I’ll still drop in from time to time, because I just like you guys too much. Expect a pre-Halloween iFAQ tomorrow¹ and then, well, just keep watching the skies. I don’t really know why, they probably aren’t going to be doing anything interesting. But hey, at the very least you’ll probably learn something about meteorology.

1. I don’t know why I say things like that. Promising a post always seems to doom that post, somehow

In these more urbane times we are left to mourn, to reminisce, and to shed but a single silent tear for those halcyon days.¹

How did we come to this pass? What happened to the mighty, fighty software bundle? Whence the colossi, like the MacHeist, or the MacUpdate Bundle? Join us as CANS seeks to solve the mystery of the disappearing bundle.

“Three words for you: iOS,” says Perry Simm, whose mind, while forever voyaging, stopped long enough to talk to us. “Back in the day of desktops and laptops people bought ‘programs’ instead of ‘apps’. People bought them from all kinds of different vendors, instead of everything coming from Apple’s virtual warehouses. Bundles don’t work on the App Store, and people aren’t working on non-iOS apps anymore. The torch has been passed on.”

“The bundle was an weapon in the war between Mac and Windows. When the battlefront moved to the mobile space, it was like lobbing shells at unoccupied villages in France: fun for a while, but ultimately useless,” explained Ann Alogy, historian. We asked if she’d ever been told that her similes need work. “This isn’t the first time,” she responded.

As interesting as these interviews weren’t, we felt we needed to dig deeper, to go to the source, to utilize yet another exploration-based metaphor for actually talking to someone who actually knew what happened. So we did it: We made up a conversation with that guy with the huge red hair that used to run MacHeist. You know the one. John somebody.

We found him hanging out at the Helvetica Neue, a bistro/club for people with highly refined senses of graphic design. The club is airy and open, with birds flying gracefully between the understated ionic pillars that stand in neat rows, not actually supporting anything but the patrons’ sense of superiority over the common man. John was lounging on a triclinium, eating from a bento box resting on a table made of a single piece of aluminium.
“The ‘Heist was fun when we were younger and times were wild. There was a certain youthful charm, a certain innocence in it. Also we were poor back then and had to actually do things for money.” he paused briefly to silently acknowledge Jonathan Ive as he walked past. “But now I seek greater refinement, greater sophistication and simplicity. While there was much to be gained from the ragged, rabid energy of MacHeist–experience with vendor relations, marketing, hundreds of thousands of dollars– I now seek enlightenment and phat cash through the creation and sale of simple iPhone apps.”

“Is there no hope for the bundles, then?” I asked.

“There is hope in moving on,” he answered, and turned back to his delicately seasoned rice and fish.

And there we stand. Well, not “there”, as in “still at the Helvetica Neue”, because they threw us out when we asked if they have root beer, but “there” as in “at that mental and emotional state” there. The hope of great new bundles dimmed, but a brighter, more expensive hope of greater software utility in the form of elegant little apps for iOS devices dawning o’er the purple east. We may never again see people with terrible faux-russian accents try to convince us that our actions will save Apple from the dread clutches of…someone² but we will be able to play Angry Birds. I only hope its enough.

1. November is National Novel Writing Month. I’m warming up. I’ll be writing on purple paper this year.
2. I never did figure out who the bad guy was supposed to be in that MacHeist

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.

Q: So, I found this guy, and he found this thing, right? And it’s kinda not a thing that people are supposed to see yet, okay?

A: Give it back to the rightful owner.

Q: But, well, you see, I feel like I have a duty to the faceless crowds of people who visit my site on a daily basis. I mean, they deserve to know what’s coming, right?

A: Do you get paid per click?

Q: Well, kinda per pageview.

A: Give it back to the rightful owner, and give them all the money you made off of exploiting their trade secrets.

Q: Well, but what harm does it actually do? It’s not like anyone was surprised by what they saw, right? It’s kinda helping them in a way, be–because now people can plan for the future, and decide that they’ll want to buy the thing, when, you know, when it’s actually released.

A: Give it back, give them all the money you made, and apologize.

Q: What? Why? Why should I apologize for a mistake that someone on their side made? I mean, that guy, who found the thing? He tried to give it back!

A: Uh huh. But you sure didn’t.

Q: Well, we had to know if the thing belonged to…the company to whom we thought it might have belonged… Because, you know, maybe it didn’t.

A: Maybe. But you can sure get knock-off “things” a lot cheaper than $5,000-$10,000.

Q: Well, we thought it might have been real…

A: And instead of confirming it and giving it back to the original owner, you took it apart, put pictures of it all over the internet, drove unprecedented numbers of viewers to your site, made up flimsy cover stories for how you got the thing, possibly cost an engineer his job, and even if he stays employed you’ve disgraced him to his company.

Q: Well, we needed to tell the public–

A: No, you really didn’t. There’s all kinds of laws about that sort of thing, and even without the laws there are conventions, manners, social norms and basic human decency that should have told you that what you did is slimy and unpleasant.

Q: Look, it’s my job–

A: No, you look. This sort of thing is beyond the pale, alright? It’s things like this, and the people who take advantage of things like this, that give “new media” a bad name. I feel dirty just being an author of a HUMOR site about rumors about the company that made the thing. You could have played it cool. You could have reviewed the thing, taken your own internal pictures, learned a bit about it, quietly returned it, and have been really really accurate with your predictions on this one. You could have used it to take Gruber down a peg by being more right than him for a while. But now he looks like the good guy. And that annoys me. It annoys me enough to set you up as a straw man in an article where I actually used italics and bold typefaces without irony. Guessing what’s coming, finding “well placed sources” who give us tantalizing hints of what’s next, that’s what we do.¹ Paying for possibly stolen or lost property hoping that it is stolen or lost property? I call foul. That’s not just sneaking a peek at the secret stash of Christmas presents, that’s taking your webcam into the secret stash and posting what everyone’s getting on Facebook on November 30th.

Q:…

A: But it’s more than that. I thought you were some of the good guys. You do the best event coverage of any of the sites, and you have some of the best reviews on up and coming shiny toys out there. But you work for a slimeball and decided to play like slimeballs. That’s your choice, and I realize that refusal could have cost you your careers. I realize it’s insanely unlikely that I’ll ever be in the position you were put in when you were offered the shot at a once-in-a-lifetime news story. But if I am I hope nobody has cause to write an article like this about me.

1. well, it’s what the real rumors sites do. I just make fun of them

The Newton

Yes, it’s sad, but the Newton has gone, and will not return. Yes, there are people who say that the iPod Touch is the Newton for the 21st century, but those people are mentally ill and you should stop talking to them. That’s like saying that a MacBook Pro is the Babbage Analytical Engine for the 21st century. They are vaguely similar, but not similar enough for me to not want to hit you repeatedly for saying it. Apple stopped making the Newton because it was a stupid product and you should be ashamed for bringing it up in polite company. It’s like telling the story of how your dog got hit by a car in the middle of a business dinner with clients from many nations. Why was your dog even at a business dinner with clients from many nations? And how did the car get in the restaurant? Why haven’t you told me this story yet? It sounds fascinating.

HyperCard

HyperCard is also dead. No, Revolution is not the new Hypercard, Revoution is a bunch of Irish people trying to make money by selling an increasingly bloated scripting environment.  No, AppleScript is not revolution, AppleScript is more like Perl done strange.  You are a sad, strange person for still wanting your OS7-style scripted PowerPoint, and you need to get out into the fresh air a little bit more.  I should also get out into the fresh air a little more, but it’s like 4 degrees outside right now, and better you than me in that kind of weather.

Snood

Okay, I admit, you can still buy snood, but I really don’t know why you would. Is there some kind of strange mind-control subliminal messaging in that game? Why do people still play it? It’s kinda ugly and not really all that much fun. So, it should be dead, even if it isn’t.

Well, I admit that this wasn’t the most useful post on earth, and definitely didn’t make me any new friends.  But I also contend that it was at least as topical and sensible as Macworld’s three part series on printers that haven’t been made for a decade or more.  Have a nice day.

Ultra-Classy Button

And we mocked them for this, considering the nature of the product.  We are pleased to see that the buttons on the site now look like this:

Ever So Much Better!

Which is a change for the much, much better.

But…¹

There’s still so much more to do for the site.  And here’s where I’m on thin ice. First of all, props to Strider software for getting a new version out after 7 years. Props for hanging on for 7 years, and for that matter, having a commercial product on the market at all.  I’ve got any number of half-finished² programs that haven’t yet seen the light of day, and may not ever do so.  So with all that, they still got a web store up and functional, no mean feat in and of itself. Heaven knows that I don’t spend a whole lot of time on site design on this site.  I choose a WordPress theme, make a few changes, and run with it. So me criticizing someone else’s site design can be compared to a telephone conversation between a pot and a kettle regarding scorch marks.  But when layout matters, like when I’m making a site for a client, then I focus on every pixel on every browser, and spend almost as much time on the layout as the code.

But…³

This site has nothing to do with text layout, graphic design, or the like. I’m here to make fun of people in hopefully creative and theoretically amusing ways.  My site design is not integral to my message. If you are selling a product that is meant to make things look good, yours is.  Really, if you are selling a product full stop, your site design is integral to your message.  Pagehand‘s developer knows this, as does the gentleman who makes Scrivener. They have both designed beautiful sites that tell you exactly what the product does, with screenshots, trials, pricing and everything else easy to find and attractively designed. And their headers don’t look like they were made in 2001.

Well, you could say that this article is 1.) needlessly long, boring and preachy, 2.) more appropriate for my other site, or even 3.) more appropriate for throwing away entirely.  But hopefully someone at Strider Software will look into hiring a web designer to update their site⁴ . Or at least replace the header image and add a few screen shots.

Okay, I’m done. Theoretically funny posts return soon.

1. There’s always a “But…”
2. and in some cases, half-started
3. Sometimes there’s two “But…”s
4. I charge a very reasonable $35/hour. But something tells me that this post is not the place to advertise that fact.

• Over 200 comments apiece from two very faithful commenters, valued at: giving me a reason to keep doing this.
  • Personal value: priceless.¹

To the other roughly 20 people a day who read this blog: would it kill you to write once in a while? Your mother and I, we worry about you, out there all alone while people like Kanye West and John Meyer are on the loose.

1. note to the IRS: taxable value is still zero!

In the 1.5 years we have been covering Apple news and events, we have received the following material considerations:

• From Apple, Inc, their subsidiary and affiliate companies: Nothing, valued at $0.
• From Microsoft, and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates: Nothing, valued at $0.
• From New York Times Columnist David Pogue: 1 less-than-thrilled comment on an article we wrote a while ago, valued at roughly 20 new hits on our site from people who saw that thing I put on twitter.

We hope this will help you make more informed decisions about our trustworthiness as a source of Crazy Apple News.

We called ourselves for a statement on these numbers but we were unwilling to comment.

1. Caution: Linked article contains TLAs and ETLAs related to accounting or whatever. We couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thing.

So, Apple talks about their commitment to the developers and iPhone owners. They have demonstrated their drive to make the iPhone the number one personal communications device through excellent marketing. They built an easy-to-shop² App Store, and continued in their tried and true pattern of making truly excellent products.  But they have missed one key element, one essential piece of the puzzle that, if left unchecked, will be the entire downfall of the iPhone’s empire, and we call upon Apple to set it right at all costs. ³

The problem is this: Nobody at CANS has an iPhone!  None of the Ruby Ninja Androids, not Nate, not….well, that’s the whole staff, really.  But none of us are iPhone owners, and if Apple doesn’t take drastic steps to remedy this situation we will be forced, as Steven Frank was, to utterly boycott the iPhone.  Needless to say, this will lead to the sort of financial problems that shuttered other great companies. For example, nobody at CANS was a customer at Enron, and look what happened to them!  And the same thing is true of Apple products:  Know why the Newton died? Because not a single CANS editor owned one! Case closed!

And yet Apple continues, blithely ignoring this threat to the very existence of their beloved iPhone, not doing the one simple thing that would put them on sure, solid ground: sending us a free iPhone 3GS and paying our AT&T contract for a year.  We estimate that this one simple, cost effective move would ensure a 100% increase in the iPhone’s market share⁴.

We call upon Apple to rectify this situation immediately.⁵

1. Or we get a nice email from a senior executive.
2. but somewhat less easy-to-stock
3. Free mixed metaphors,5-7pm nightly
4. at CANS HQ
5. or at the very least have Mr. Schiller send us a nice email explaining that they’ve taken our views on board and are considering it.

HAAAAAhahahahahahahahahaheeeeeeee [gasp] heeheeheehoooooo wooo! Heh heh heh. Heh. Heh heh heh ha haa ha ha ha ha ha haaaahaaa haa hahahahahahahahahoooo boy! No, okay, I’m done. Snrk. Snort. Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha hooo hooo hoooo haaaahahahahaaaa! Aaaaaaaahhhhh.. Heh heh heh.

But then we realised that, while on the surface Psystar seems to be nothing more than a straw man with feet of clay living in a house of cards with a paper tiger who cried “Fire!” in a crowded theater while the wolf was at the door, in reality they struck while the iron was hot, but couldn’t stand the heat so they got out of the kitchen and now they have to pay the piper and give the devil his due, or else the chickens will be coming home to roost with a vengence.  Oh, they can play this chapter 11 shell game while the sun shines, but somebody’s eventually gonna find the fat lady and it’ll be time to face the music. And you can take that to the bank.

Oh, those.  Right.  Um.  Well, CANS is always first, you know that, baby.  C[2]N means nothing to me¹ …Yes, I know I opened a web store with C[2]N shirts, but It’s never sold any!  C’mon, you know I love CANS most! Awww, now don’t be like that!…

1. Dear Coals [2] Newcastle readers: Thanks for dropping by! Have you considered not reading this article?  Remember, this is a humor blog!  Not serious! Okay, bye!

We predict that January’s Macworld will bring no less than a new Mac mini, iPod shuffle¹, iPhone 128GB with 4G support, and the startling move of the entire Mac OSX to the “cloud”, coupled with government regulation mandating that we stop making up new names for the internet before every word in English, French, Finnish and Tamil also means “The Internet”.
“For Pete’s sake,” says the bill on page 23, Paragraph 8, section 7. “How many words do we need for a worldwide communication network?”

Concerns about Steve Jobs’ health will escalate to the point that Apple will create a cybernetic version of the mercurial CEO that will work every day in a glass office in downtown Cupertino. The deception will work perfectly until the robot accidentally crashes through the wall of the office and smashes to bits on the street below. This will in turn give rise to endless speculation about the length of Steve Jobs’ AppleCare coverage.

Phil Schiller will continue to rise in eminence in the company, ushering in a new age of Apple leadership, but also bringing back an old friend, by which I mean John Meyer. The iguana-faced singer will be elected to the board of directors after buying millions of shares in Apple on credit. He will then lose his seat when it turns out he can’t pay even the finance charges on the amount and his shares are repossesed. John will then be discraced and become the Richard Nixon of pop guitarists, while the new board member will be Al the Repo man. Al will resonate with the public and the company’s shares will skyrocket.

In more mundane news, John Gruber will continue to be irritable, Merlin Mann will write exactly four articles, and John Moltz will go in and out of retirement twice.

December will bring another round of changes to OSX, which, in response to changes in the computer ecosystem will be renamed “iPhone OS for Laptops.”

Quixotically, the following year will be renamed “20-OSX” at the urging of Nobel prize winner Al Gore and his collegue Al the Repo man.

Here’s to a very Mac new year!

1. with the all-important “Genius” feature.

The first of which was not, “do we make fun of Microsoft for this odd new advertising medium/revenue stream?” Of course we’re going to make fun of them for it.  That’s a given.  No, the question is “how are we going to make fun of Microsoft for this odd new advertising medium/revenue stream?”

I mean, we could take the obvious route: “These t-shirts crash 30% less than Windows Vista! Just like DOS!”

Or the closely related: “And unlike DOS, these shirts are guaranteed to be bug-free!”

Or even: “These shirts are guaranteed to {expletive deleted} destroy Google!”

And we decided to step around the whole “Softwear by Microsoft: celebrating the last time we made an OS that worked the way it was supposed to,” territory.

None of these are the route we decided to take.  No, we have a much higher, more subtle method of mocking the largest, most influential, most myopic software company in the world in mind.

Stay tuned to this RSS feed to see what we did come up with!

And no, we aren’t going to Photoshop Steve Ballmer’s head onto the body of some twenty-year-old model who is wearing one of these shirts.  So just get that image out of your head right now.

Once there was a dorky man named Mister Gates.  He wrote software on punch cards.  Everyone thought he was a geek, but they were kind to him because he made lots and lots of money.

One day Mr. Gates found a bald monkey living a sad and dejected life. The monkey had no name, so Mr. Gates called it Ballmer, because it was, well, a bald monkey. For years Mr. Gates tried to teach Ballmer to behave properly around people. He spent his time teaching Ballmer how to speak, how to walk, and how to motivate people, until one day he decided to let Ballmer out in public.  It didn’t go well. Ballmer got scared of all the people looking at him, started sweating profusely, and suddenly started clapping his hands together and shouting “Developers! Developers! Developers!” while dancing around in a circle.

Mr. Gates was sad, but he took Ballmer back to his home in Seattle and worked with him for several more years.  It got to the point where Mr. Gates couldn’t even clean his Windows because he was spending so much time trying to get Ballmer to act like a human.

Finally, after years and years, Mr. Gates believed that Ballmer was ready to be let out into the real world.  In fact, he was so confident that as he left his company he gave Ballmer the keys, and told everyone to listen to the monkey.  Everyone was surprised; the monkey had learned how to form full sentences, and even some basic math:

“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux.  How are we doing? Forty is less than 60, so I don’t like it. … We have some work to do².”

Although some of his sentences are a little convoluted:

“We want software more powerful than software that runs in a browser³.”

In the end, Ballmer hauled Mr. Gates back from his retirement feeding starving children in Africa and working on a cure for AIDS so that Mr. Gates could star in a pointless series of commercials with a comedian from New York. And while nobody laughed at the commercials, once again everybody laughed at Ballmer.

The moral⁴ of the story:  Don’t dress a monkey in a suit and call it a CEO, lest it start flinging things in the board room((Like this. Caution: linked story contains naughty words that Steve Ballmer allegedly said to an employee.)).

Okay kids, settle down now, it’s time for bed.

1. courtesy of the Apple built-in dictionary
2. from Macworld
3. also from Macworld, but a different article
4. Does anyone remember the Wheel of Morality from Animaniacs?