Last Notes From Macworld Expo
As Moscone West is abandoned, the booths all closed up and sample products all re-packaged to be resold as “refurbished”1, there’s a feeling of melancholy in the air. In part this is caused by the uncertainty surrounding Macworld Expo’s future without Apple, and in part it’s caused by Apple’s parting shot at all the Apple pundits.
Crazy Apple News Site presents:
Ponies for Pundits2
It looked too good to be true. Tucked away in a corner of Apple’s booth on the display floor was a sign that said:
Ponies for Pundits!
As a “thank you” to the faithful Apple watchdogs, rumor sites, and new media faithful,
Apple has purchased a special pony for each and every Apple pundit.
You’ve done so much for us,
Now we want to give something back.
“I wasn’t sure if I could believe it,” said Leo Laporte. “But there was a nice lady next to the sign who said, ‘Mr. Laporte, right?’ I nodded and she looked on a list on a clipboard. ‘We have you down for a nice roan stallion. Can I get you to fill out a form with a few details we need for delivery?’ Well of course I said yes. I figured that if it was some kind of joke then no harm done, but if it was real, then I would have my very own stallion that I could raise from a pony and ride around on all the time. If I’d known what was really coming, I don’t think I would have been so excited.”
And Leo wasn’t the only one. Through our excellent network of Ruby Ninja spies3 we were able to get a photo of a portion of the list. Some pony-pundit pairs (PPP’s) include:
Andy Ihnatko: Lipizzaner Stallion (Because they’re both hard to spell.)
John Gruber: Night-Black Mare (Useful for terrorizing PC users.)
David Pogue: NYC Police Horse (Faster than taking the subway!)
Douglas Adams: the ghost of a Clydesdale (Sure he’s dead, but so is the horse. And Douglas deserves something.)
John Moltz: Shetland Pony (Not sure why…)
And so forth. Not all of the pundits on the list went to claim their new pony, but many did. They were told they would receive shipment “within the week” and dozens of rumors site operators and Apple faithful wrote ebullient reviews of the moderately tepid Apple products that were released during the Expo.
Then, a few days later, a truck pulled up to the house, mansion, apartment or villa of each pundit. These trucks were matte gray with nothing but an Apple logo on the side. A driver got out of each truck and went to the door. David Pogue shares his experience:
The driver came to the door and asked if I would sign for a delivery. I said yes, of course, and signed the form. The driver then brought a box to my door, which is odd, because I wouldn’t expect a pony to come in a box. Still, this is Apple we’re talking about, and they do some pretty amazing things with packaging. The box was about three feet square, so I figured it must just be some pony supplies. The driver headed back to the truck and I figured he was going to get the actual pony. Instead he just drove away. I was confused, but I decided to take the huge box in the house and see what it contained.
I got the box open, and instead of chaps and a cowboy hat, there was a one foot tall statue. It’s a beautiful representation of a Police horse in mid-stride. I have it in my office.
Disappointed? Yeah, I was a bit. But now I see that what Apple really gave me is far better than what I was hoping for. And maybe that’s a metaphor for the new versions of iWork and iLife…”
At this point he went off on a 30-minute sermon and we tuned him out.
Other pundits, however, were not so pleased with the gift. “I…I…I wanna wanna ponnnnnyyyyyyyy!” was all we could get out of John Gruber as he thrashed and pounded on the floor and kicked his feet like a spoiled three year old. But it seems that the pony statues have hidden powers that Mr. Pogue, as a respectable New York Times journalist, didn’t discover.4
Nicholas Ciarelli shares his experiences:
It looks like a normal statue, until I access the internet. Somehow it’s connected to my iMac, my iPhone, and my MacBook, and whenever I try to access AppleInsider or any other rumors site, all I get is a picture of my horse statue and the words “why do you lie?” If I’m in the same room the statue’s eyes flash and it whinnies at me. That thing is seriously creepy. I’d get rid of it, except, you know, it’s an Apple product, and it’s one of a kind.
Yes, it seems that the Ponies for Pundits are not a new, primitive mode of transportation for largely over-fed new media stars. Instead, they are a wi-fi conscience, ensuring better behavior from those that would detract from Apple’s glory. 5
Other rumors sites operators report similar results. For a while they played with calling Apple’s CEO “The Stevefather” but it really didn’t catch on.
As for us here at CANS HQ, we quite like our pony statue, and we can with unsullied conscience continue our high-quality reporting. 6
- three “re”s in one clause! [↩]
- like the “cold start”? Cinematic effects in blog posts are a sign of fine literature. [↩]
- they’re only twelve lines of code tall, because Ruby methods are short and agile. [↩]
- Mr. Gruber may or may not have discovered them. It’s hard to tell, really. [↩]
- Rumor has it that Mr. Ballmer also got a statue, but we haven’t heard what it looked like. Or what it does… [↩]
- Note from the Androids: it’s not a pony statue. He took one of his sons’ toy horses and propped it up by his iMac. [↩]

