Every Friday week so often 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 cover Pandora|One, the music service that

This Just In!

Q: Wait, so I get preempted before I get so much as one line? What gives?

Breaking News!

Q: I guess so.

The Crazy Apple News Site’s top News Analyst & Team Enthusiast (“NATE”) is being sent by their top secret employer to some top-secret training (the training is so secret that it requires a hyphen!)

In Mountain. View. California.

Q: So? What’s so special about Mountain View?

Home of Google, only seven minutes from 1 Infinite Loop, it’s like finally going to MacWorld or WWDC, only without all the other people there or anything remotely Apple-related going on. Stay tuned for some Crazy On The Road posts soon!

Q: And it’s not even a long post, either. Really? Really? That’s all we get?

We would normally return you to our iFAQ already in progress at this point, but we’re too excited. Also this week’s “Q” is kind of a jerk.

Q: Oh, now that’s just cold.

• March 15, 2010: People finally get tired of calling the iPad “basically a big iPod Touch”
• March 16, 2010: The wave of iPad-sounds-like-maxi-pad jokes fails to slow down at all, sadly.
• April 7, 2010: iPad app sales outpace the sales of all apps on the Android Marketplace ever.
• April 8, 2010: The ill-conceived ZunePad is announced
• April 9, 2010: In a move that earns the respect of Mafiosos everywhere, Microsoft attempts to whack every journalist who covered the ZunePad launch event, hoping to be able to deny they ever dreamed of such a thing.
• May 21, 2010: Apple announces the code name for OSX 10.7; not in a conference, nor in a webcast, but via email to John Gruber and David Pogue. Industry pundits suspect the new name heralds an overall shift to the new iPad when the name is revealed to be “Some kind of cat or something”
• May 4, 2010: Lazarus Long buys an iPad.
• July 24, 2010: Pro-Windows bloggers are forced to admit that, despite its shortcomings, the iPad “seems to be doing okay” as Apple celebrates the sale of the 10 Millionth unit.
• July 25, 2010: Apple announces the iPad 2nd Gen, with all the features everyone wanted in the 1st Gen for $100 less.
• July 26, 2010: 10 million 1st Gen iPads are available on eBay.
• July 27, 2010: iPad OS 4.0 is released to developers so they can write apps for the new 2nd Gen iPad. 4 million copies of the SDK are downloaded, resulting in 10000 new apps released to the iPad App Store, 5000 rejections, and an estimated 6 Million “Hello World” apps worldwide.
• September 21, 2010: The 2nd Gen iPad is released. People who have been standing in line since July find that they no longer have the ability to walk.
• November 3, 2010: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Paul Therrott , all dressed in black trench coats with the collars turned up and sporting dark glasses and fedoras, each buy an iPad from the Apple store in cash. A suspicious mall employee presses the silent alarm and the three are apprehended and taken in for questioning. They  found to be perfectly innocent, albeit perfectly innocent owners of iPads. Apple bloggers are unable to breathe for a good twenty minutes after seeing this story on Twitter.
• December 25th, 2010: Millions receive iPads for Christmas. Dozens receive whatever terrible tablet thing HP is pushing, and immediately list them on eBay.
• January 10, 2011: Apple announces a user base of 20 million iPads, and the new iPad 3rd Gen with all the features everybody wanted in the second gen. 20 million iPads are listed on eBay.

I'm glad they made it simple this year.

Crazy Apple News posts start again on Monday!  Thank you all for your support! It means a lot to me.

-Nate Dickson

Week one got off to a good start when I was able to clear my school schedule all the way until November 12 by the simple expedient of doing my homework early. Things got a little rougher later on in the week, however, when everyone in my house got very sick. Twice.  Then there was a football game at which I had to work.  And today, MacHeist announced a free bundle.  So that’s awesome. Go check out the six free products, and give me a suggestion about which one I should write about in the first week of December.

If you need a more immediate fix, download Hordes of Orcs, then re-read this classic iFAQ written by Grug the Orc from Hordes of Orcs.

Okay, back into the breach!

So, after three days of insane amounts of work at my other job, we finally make it to WWDC: Why won’t dorks co-operate? and the keynote that we’ve all been waiting for.  For those of you who didn’t sit there for two hours watching the liveblogs, here’s a brief synopsis:

• 13-inch MacBook is now a MacBook Pro. It feels special.
• After ripping on Windows 7 for being Windows Vista 2.0, Apple tries to keep you from noticing that all they did was add the word “Snow” to the preexisting leopard.
• The MacBook Pro line gains SD card slots. “This is the digital card format of the future!” proclaims an excited audience
• It’s revealed that the MacBook lineup is so “green” that they all go out and plant trees when you aren’t using them. PC laptops, for contrast, signal a special machine in Redmond that cuts down a tree every time Windows boots up.
• something called Dock Expose gets touted as the best feature ever ever ever.  It looks kinda complex, but we’re sure that’s just because we don’t yet understand it.
• QuickTime X has a new “creepy techno-eye” icon
• At one point, they claim that Snow Leopard will “blow up your thumbnails”, which sounds like an “enhanced inerrogation” technique to us.
• New motherboards can have 16 billion gigabytes of RAM.  Java apps will still be dog slow, however.
• the new iPhone OS will take the iPhone in a completely new direction: GAMES! Okay, it’s an old direction, but boy did they ever demo the heck out of new games today!
• iPhone OS 3.0 will have features that were included in Android 1.0, Pre 1.0, and for that matter, the OS that runs the Motorola RAZR
• If you lose your phone, Mobile ME will go out and tell you where it is, then tell whoever has it that it’s yours and you want it back please. Also, MM will wipe your phone clean, so they can’t steal your. *ahem* passwords.
• Not one but two feature demos failed. This never would have happened if Steve had been in charge.
• Oh, right, there’s a new iPhone. It’s got a compass. You should buy it.  Also, apparently Apple hired MacHeist to make the commercial for it.

And that’s all folks!  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get some sleep.

So, with Apple’s huge reported stockpile of cash, rumors of the technology superstar acquiring other major players–such as Twitter or even EA games–abound. But all the pundits have overlooked the most obvious and affordable possible acquisition that Apple could make:

This site.

That’s right, we have it on good authority¹ that Apple has been looking at getting a sense of humor any time now, and we feel that a good way to start would be to purchase the craziest of Apple News Sites.

For only $.5Million Apple would have access to all of the following:

• Friday iFAQs!
• Ruby Ninja Androids!
• Made up stories about their board of directors!
• Up to three (3) loyal comment-makers per post!
• My, er… My Twitter Updates!… over there…?

And so much more! Just like Twitter we have no revenue, no income, and no real business model, yet we are rumored to be available for so much less and can thus theoretically  pass the hypothetical savings on to Apple!  What’s more, we are actually somewhat related to Apple, unlike some Pogue-centric microblogging services.  Yes, CANS is² an amazing bargain!

But wait, there’s more! If Apple acts now we will also throw in, absolutely free of charge, my vintage Core³ Duo iMac, and 40% interest in coals2newcastle.com, my other technology blog!  All for a mere fraction of what the rumors sites think Apple would pay just one web-texty messagey site people keep talking about!  So, if you are a major innovator in the personal electronics industry, don’t wait! An offer this good comes around only once every couple of weeks! Call now! Operators are standing around.

1. our dog at 2:30am in a dream [↩]
2. the grammar is correct in this case, I promise. [↩]
3. note that there’s no “2″ here [↩]

Not funny things are happening at CANS HQ. More when they stop.

For more information please see my personal blog, and the entry on this topic:

Natedickson.com

Is cheaper than ever before, and still basically awesome. If you want to give a blogger a hand, please consider using the following link if you decide to buy it:

http://www.macheist.com/bundle/u/33343/

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

Today, in response to user input, we are doing our first ever iPhone App article!¹ So sit back and learn all about the many uses of the Kindle App for the iPhone!

Q: I can’t read me enough books!

A: Me neither!

Q: So I was six kinds of excited when the new Kindle app came out, because it meant I didn’t have to buy non-Apple hardware!

A: Very loyal of you. So you just loaded it into your iPhone or Touch and were glad you saved the $350, huh?

Q: Weeeeeell, I had to go buy a touch first.

A: But you were planning on buying one anyway, right?

Q: Nope, not really.

A: So, you bought an iPod Touch just so you wouldn’t have to buy a non-Apple Kindle.

Q: Yeah. I figured, I’ve already got a 120 GB Classic, I don’t really need another iPod, but books, well, that’s something different. I have to carry my Kindl…Touch and my Classic in different pockets, though. ²

A: You still use the Classic, even though you just bought a Touch. You must have a lot of music.

Q: Oh yeah! I’ve got, like 5 GB of songs on that bad boy. Do you know how long it would take to listen to all that?

A: About two and a half…

Q: Two and a half days!

A: So you have a 120 GB Classic in one pocket, nearly empty, and an iPod Touch in the other pocket, with no music, just the Kindle app.

Q: Wait, you can put music on an iPod Touch? I thought they were just for accelerometer games! That’s what the ads show!

A: Well, at the end of that first ad The Hands use Cover Flow to find one of my favorite albums ever,³ but yeah, that’s what the ads show.

Q: What else can you do with it?

A: Um… Everything? Check email, weather, keep your calendar, use different apps from the App Store besides the Kindle app…

Q: What? The App Store isn’t all just accelerometer games and fart sounds?

A: Well, that’s most of it, sure, but there are other things as well.

Q: Wow. Now I’m really glad I bought the Touch instead of a real Kindle. I figured the extra price was worth it just for the color screen, but now…wow. Just wow.

A: And we wonder why we’re in a recession.⁴

1. Except for the Fromage one. So we’re really doing our first ever iPhone app iFAQ [↩]
2. Because they fight. You didn’t see it in the last article, but the Classic makes fun of the touch for not having a click wheel. [↩]
3. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips [↩]
4. Also introducing: My first ever political commentary! And probably my last! [↩]

Sorry, Can’t blog now. I just got a brand new, free Kindle from Amazon.

On my iPod, baby!
Oh yeah! Now I can spend even more money on Amazon.com.
With my free Kindle.
Awesome.