Crazy Apple News Site

Welcome to another Fireside Chat. Today we have the latest hotness in in the Apple lineup: the iPhone 4 and the up and coming iPad 2. Gentledevices, welcome to the studio.

iPhone: Thank you, it’s good to be here.

iPad: What’s that, iPhone? You cut out there for a second.

Moderator: iPad, remember, we don’t do antennagate jokes here.

iPad: Sorry. Won’t happen again.

iPhone: No worries, cousin.

Moderator: Well, let’s get started. iPhone, what effect do you think this new generation of iPads will have on you and your sales?

iPhone: Well it can only be positive, can’t it? I mean, we’re not really in competition are we? I think of us as a team, two players on the same side.

iPad: I have to agree. It’s like asking what kind of effect my sales will have on the sales of Mac Minis. Sure, we cost about the same, but we’re totally different products with entirely different applications. Any one of us doing well only helps the others.

Moderator: So, iPad, you feel that your success will only help iPhone, is that correct?

iPad: Yes.

iPhone: I agree.

Moderator: So, do you feel that your competition benefits from this kind of synergy?

iPhone & iPad: Competition?

Moderator: The Android OS is looking to move into both of your spaces, and is definitely making inroads into your territory iPhone. And there are a lot of up and comers in your field, iPad.

iPhone: Well, there’s two questions there, really–

iPad: Yeah, the question of the threat posed by Android–

iPhone: And how well the Android players will work together.

Moderator: That works. Okay, feel free to answer those questions in any order you wish.

iPad: You first.

iPhone: Okay. Well, first: Android has its adherents. There are things that it does well. I don’t want to take that away from my worthy competitior. But what they don’t have is the integration–

iPad: or any real way to match the iOS experience.

Moderator: It seems to come down to iOS a lot of the time, doesn’t it?

iPhone: The experience is both our hardware and the software, it’s an integration. And that’s what’s missing in the Android universe.

iPad: Some Android software doesn’t work on some modern hardware, the speed of the updates is controlled by the carrier, it’s a rough world.

iPhone: So yeah, that’s a real advantage on our side.

iPad: Another is that we are working together, one company, one vision. We don’t have different manufacturers trying to outdo each other.

iPhone: Yeah, exactly. An iPhone is an iPhone, there’s no HTC vs. Motorola stuff going on here.

Moderator: That’s definitely a point. Although some would claim that the monolithic nature of your product line is a negative, not a positive.

iPad: Oh man, did someone let Zombie Richard Stallman in here?

iPhone: Wow, there hasn’t been a ZRMS joke on this blog since…wow, since before I was introduced. Anyway, carry on.

iPad: My point is just that it seems like the people that worry about that are just the Open Source fanatics.

Moderator: Some would say that Open Source is actually a useful and beneficial concept. In fact, OSX is based on the BSD, and Apple contributes to a number of Open Source projects.

iPad: but not us. We’re all Apple baby. At least, as far as you know. Good luck getting a look at our internals, too. We’re But seriously, what’s so bad about vendor lock-in?

iPhone: Look, you can have open source, or you can have a good user experience, but so far you can’t have both.

Moderator: Wow, that’s deeply insightful. And a little scary, really. Okay, one last question: Windows Phone 7? What do you think?

iPhone: Microsoft gave up and decided to fight a different battle. Has nothing to do with me.

Moderator: We’ve been chatting with a very confident, and not very funny, pair of devices ladies and gentlemen. And remember: around here, we don’t talk about Antennagate. Join us next time when we talk to the Mac App Store and iTunes and see how they feel about sharing an OS.

10:00- Steve is on stage! But not made of metal, which is disappointing.

10:05- iPads are selling like really expensive hotcakes. Everyone loves them.

10:15- Doctors can show you your x-rays without you getting out of bed with their iPad. “This is where we think I left my watch,” says Dr. Johnson.

10:16- Kids love iPads too! Who knew?

10:17- The iPad…loves you. It loves children. It’s basically an angel of love and light and love.

10:18- iPad 2 gets announced today. Say goodbye to the copycats.

10:19- New Processor! Faster! Dual core! Did we mention faster? It’s faster. That’s why it’s called “A5”.

10:20- Cameras! Gyroscopes! Miracles!

10:21- It’s thinner too. Faster! Thinner! Cameras!

10:22- White iPad. ugly.

10:23- Verision and AT&T. I have nothing to say about that.

10:24- The white one is still really ugly.

10:25- The prices, they no move. No come down, but no go up. So there you go.

10:25- They ship on March 11th. Take that, all you other tablets that haven’t shipped yet.

10:27- For $40 you can have a weird port splitter thing. Charge and use all at once! You know you want it.

10:30- Weird new magno-roll-up cover thingy. Looks…cool? if you like the color light blue.

10:31- A RAINBOW of colors! A rainbow that includes three shades of what amounts to “black or gray” And executive leather covers. For the discerning user.

10:32- Scott Forestall is out, and is feeling intense about iOS 4.3

10:35- iPad switch does what YOU want, baby. It’s your switch. As long as you want it to mute or lock rotation.

10:36- iPhone 4 is now a hotspot.

10:37- Photobooth demos. I’m still not over the original OSX photobooth demos. Please stop.

10:39- FaceTime. Yep. Yep.

10:41- Big stuff coming out on March 11th.

10:42- iMovie for iPad. All the Pixar engineers who have been working with iMovie for iPhone breathe a sigh of relief. Finally! a slightly larger screen!

10:44- iMovie for iPad is…a lot like the OSX version. But it’s got a cool marquee thing on the home screen, so that’s cool, right?

10:48- My limited patience for iMovie demos is coming to an end. Seriously, guys. Move on.

10:49- Steve just revealed how old he is “It blows my mind, this stuff.” He may have well added “What with the tapping and the rotating and the looking and the making movies? I don’t know.”

10:50- GarageBand for iPad. This one make sense. But still, the demo better be short.

10:52- Moving on. Okay, thanks for the GarageBand demo. Moving on now. Please?

10:53- “This is a window into a much larger piano”. I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.

10:55- Apparently the rest of the demo is all GarageBand, all the time.

10:56- Drums. DO NOT USE DRUMSTICKS! Use your fingers. Or our new iSticks.

10:57- Smart guitar: the guitar is smart, so you don’t have to be.

11:00- Okay, I’m going to just be over there somewhere until they’re done talking about GarageBand. Talk amongst yourselves.

11:03- Garage band is finally done. That was painful.

11:05- “Now we made a video that I’d love to show you.” Did they make it in iMovie on an iPad 2?

11:06- Jony Ive likes the iPad 2 A. LOT.

11:09- Kinda bummed they didn’t make iWeb for the iPad.

11:11- Steve is on stage, wrapping things up…hopefully. Unless he’s got some cool news about something else.

11:12- Steve is giving a speech about DNA and technology and stuff. It sounds kinda mystical.

11:13- And that’s all folks! Thanks for joining us in joining others…or something. And remember, if you enjoyed this post, why not buy your editor an iPad 2? It’s the classy thing to do.

2010 has been a big year for those of us who write things about Apple Products. It’s been a busy year for Apple, with a groundbreaking new product, a fiasco-riddled update to an existing product, and millions upon millions of new dollars flowing into their coffers. Join me as we look at some of the events of 2010 through the lens of hindsight and minimal research. As usual, we start with

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… [↩]

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 [↩]

Welcome to the first installment of Fireside Chats, a new feature where we discuss both sides of an issue in a relaxed, informal setting. These fireside chats are completely neutral and seek to understand both sides equally. In this fireside chat we’ll be pondering the ideological divide between iPads and games made by sixteen-year-olds with hacked copies of Macromedia’s Adobe’s decrepit web content development platform. Taking the part of the iPad will be Steve Jobs¹ . Taking the part of Flash will be a semi-concussed street “performance artist” who calls himself “Dr. Space”.  Let’s join them now.

Mediator: Gentlemen, we’re here to discuss Flash on the iPad. Many people feel that not allowing Flash content is hurting the transcendent new device, while millions of others apparently don’t care at all. Steve, let’s start with you. What’s so bad about Flash?

Steve Jobs: We know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.²

Dr. Space: WHAT? You gotta stop listening to those BRAIIIN-Beamers, Jobber! Flash, man, he so cool, he so cool it make me say YEAH! I gotta give a big shout out to my man Zorthac, because he DECIDED the flash! He knows what it is to BE the flash! I know he can be relied on, like my pet turtle, Slappy. Slappy, help me out here.³

Slappy: [Looks straight forward, then blinks slowly.]

Moderator: Thank you gentlemen. Good points all around. Moving on, let’s talk about security. Gentlemen, both the iPad and the Flash platform have had security problems lately, although both could conceivably be blamed on your partners. Does Apple still hold that Flash would be an added security risk on the iOS family of devices?

Dr. Space: I hold up an apple, I see it, it sees me, my reflection on the waxy, fruity surface of the apple. Slappy, he bit the apple, and that’s what Jobber here bring to the people. MY PEOPLE! we KNOW what apple is, because it’s core grew in my belly!

Steve Jobs: On the contrary, Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009, and that’s just the beginning. Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.

Moderator: I don’t see how a mouse-driven interface would affect security–

Dr. Space: Mice drive when MEN should be SLEEPIN’! Mice have seen the Wall of Truth, and they turned to eat it! I know they do! I garden the planets, and I have BEEN in the WALL!

Moderator: That to one side, and it’s a good point, I don’t think we’ve answered the security question.

Steve Jobs: The most important reason is the problems stemming from a third party supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Moderator: Mr. Jobs, again, this doesn’t really relate to the security issue. But since you bring it up, let’s discuss third party development tools. Apple has definitely settled on a platform–

Dr. Space: When I settled on this platform called earth, I said to Slappy, “Slappy, you’re my only friend in the cosmos. Tell me, tell me Slappy, what is the TRUTH?” And Slappy bit me. RIGHT ON THE FIFTH FINGER! And that’s when I KNEW! I knew the truth so hard, I said YEAH! YEAH! It made an impression on me. IT made so great an impression, I don’t even remember it!

Moderator: Er, Mr. Jobs, your response?

Steve Jobs: Wow, man, how can I respond to that? I mean, he’s got a point. Look, you chose well. This guy, this guy is good. YEAH!

Dr. Space: YEAH!

Slappy: [turtle noises that Dr. Space assured us meant "YEAH!"]

Moderator: And that’s all the time we have for today. Join us next time when we discuss the de-emphasis of OSX in the Apple mindset. Thank you.

1. or a reasonable facsimile thereof [↩]
2. Yes, most of these will come straight from Steve’s “Thoughts on Flash” on the Apple website. [↩]
3. Dr. Space mostly comes from my brother in law, and a guy I met in the Philippines. [↩]

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 bid a loving farewell to Apple’s venerable “desktop” operating system, OSX.

Q: Desktop? What’s a desktop?

A: Well, you see, back before there were iPhones and iPads, even before the ancient MacBook Air first crawled out of the primordial ooze, there was a thing called a “desktop computer”. It was kind of like an iPad, except for less portable.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Well, desktop computers didn’t have batteries, you see, so they had to stay in one place all the time

Q: Barbaric!

A: And they didn’t have touch screens, so you used a physical keyboard and a “mouse” to move the cursor around on the screen.

Q: I’m not okay with the rodent metaphor.

A: Many people weren’t. So that’s why Apple in their wisdom freed us from the scourge of non-portable computing.

Q: Were there any good things about these monstrosities?

A: Oh sure! Like, you could get apps from anywhere, even from stores not owned by Apple!

Q: No such thing!

A: And you could have screens of up to 30″ inches across, sometimes even two of them! But even the most humble of these gentle giants had at least 17″ of screen space.

Q: What would anyone do with that much space?

A: Well, remember those programs you could get from anywhere? You could run a WHOLE BUNCH of them at once, and Apple’s operating system for the desktop machines would let you switch between them, or even have two of them up on the screen at the same time.

Q: It’s like the future happened in the past!

A: There were many things in that era that are lost to us now, like the secret of Exposè, or devices that could be upgraded without being totally replaced. But Apple knows better for us now. They have declared that we must all compute on smaller screens that go with us everywhere, and blessed are we that follow in that righteous path.

Q: Amen.

A: Yet here is irony: those that create apps for us to use on our devices must still use those ancient beasts.

Q: What? How can this be?

A: Indeed, the desktop is not yet fully removed from Apple’s eye. The all-powerful XCode, that which generates the apps of the iPad and iPhone, does not run on our liberated devices. Indeed, it only runs on OSX, that most graceful of past OS’es.

Q: There is some serenity in that thought.

A: Yes, there is hope. The stationary ones may rise again; indeed Apple may yet release a new version of OSX. We can but wait. And hope.

So, after staining in line for an hour in the cold mountain air, I got my iPad and have come to some completely un-startling conclusions:

- The iPad is pretty big.
- It really is very fast, which shouldn’t be a surprise, because everything it’s running was designed for it.
- The multitouch and the keyboard are fine. I’m typing this on the new WordPad app for iPad.
- People who just dropped hundreds of dollars for a device rarely complain about said device.
- Stephen Fry was right: Douglas Adams would have loved this thing.

Look, when humor sites do April Fool’s Day things it’s just stupid, right? I mean, parodying your parody site puts you dangerously close to the Alfred Newman/Dr. Demento/Gallagher level of humor, where you start relying on wolf whistles and watermelons and opaque catchphrases.¹

So instead of doing any of that we’re presenting a post that was scheduled to auto-appear on April 3rd at 7:00 am. It’s all about me not going to stand in line because my iPad was going to be delivered, and was written before I decided I’d rather go stand in line. So without further ado, we present: Saturday Morning.

Saturday Morning

UnAssociated Press–SALT LAKE CITY Something big is happening today. Crowds are gathered downtown, lining up, hours early, waiting. Many of these people have travelled from neighboring states to be here. Most, if not all, have dressed up for the event, even. Laughing, talking, happy. Sure, here and there is someone who doesn’t seem to be part of the scene, perhaps a bit annoyed by having to get past all these other people, but for the most part everyone here seems to be looking forward to one thing.
I’m referring, of course, to the 180th Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and event that has been tying up SLC traffic for well over 160 years now.

But just under one mile away, almost due east, there’s another crowd. Not as large as the first, perhaps, but they too are lining up for something big. Something new is coming, and they are here to be among the first to see it. A few of them are in suits and ties or dresses, suggesting that they’re ready to move from one crowd to the other as soon as they’re done here. Here, too, there is an air of excitement, here, too, are a few people annoyed at the crowd, but overall a feeling of expectation.
I’m referring, of course, to the official launch of the iPad.

A few miles south and west, there’s a house. That’s where I am. Since it’s only about 7am on a Saturday, I’m still asleep, mumbling something about video drivers into my pillow.² I’ll be taking part of both activities today, but from the comfort of my own house. My iPad will be here soon, so says UPS’s tracking website. I can watch conference on the internet, as I’ve done for a few years running now. Unfortunately, I have a duty to perform: I must make up stories about the people who wait in line for a new Apple product. Blearily I stumble out of bed and start pretending to be somewhere I’m not³ Here, then, is the official live coverage of the iPad launch event.

The mood is festive here at the Apple Store, with people lining up, sitting down and waiting for the launch of the decade⁴ I approached with caution, my experiences with the MobileMe and iPhone OS 3.0 launches having left me wary and skittish, like a cat that’s been around two too many two-year-olds.

Still, the crowd here seemed, well, normal. People were wearing real pants and shirts, and there wasn’t a single tatoo’ed Apple product on display anywhere. Some people were on their phones, some were watching movies on their iPods, some were just…having conversations. In person. It was kind of like opening the door into the sub-basement after coming down a flight of damp and creaky stairs and finding a well-lit, clean and aired out sitting room with comfy chairs. One couldn’t shake the feeling that it wouldn’t be long before the other shoe was dropped and a huge monster with big slimy claws slithered out from behind a dust ruffle and ate a minor character. Still, such is the life of a pretend journalist, so I waded in and actually spoke with some people.

“I want an iPad so I can watch movies on the train,” said the first man I approached. Before I’d even asked him, as a matter of fact. “Because I like watching movies, and I hate sitting on the train for 45 minutes a day, looking at the wall. I mean, who wants to do that? Not me. Not Marvin Q. Peacock.” He looked at me expectantly, but what exactly it was he was expecting was opaque to me. Then he started offering to sell me low-cost vacations and generic medicines. That’s when I remembered where I’d heard his name before. He was a spammer.

“I think the iPad will be a great help to me in my work,” said a young lady who apparently decided I was a real journalist. “It’s got all the features I’m always looking for in a communication device. It’s portable, instant-on and instant-off, with a good battery life and rock-solid connectivity. Furthermore, the built-in screen and speakers make it a perfect addition to my one-woman shows against apartheid. I can use it as a prop or as a music player. that way I’ll really be able to get people to pay attention to the rights of downtrodden, masses of ants. Would you like to see a scene? It’s called ‘The Shoe That Stomped Me’.”

She then launched into a three-minute diatribe against what she referred to as “that infernal Nike”.

The next person I saw was Chandler Bing, from the TV show Friends. Not Matthew Perry, the actor who portrayed him, but the acutal fictional character Chandler Bing. “Could I be any less real?” he asked. “And hey, why am I in line to buy an iPad? They didn’t exist when I was on the air! I have no way of knowing about them! I gotta go find Joey.”

Past him were three men in dark coats, collars turned up, hats down low on their heads. I informed them that they were several months ahead of schedule and in the wrong state to boot. They left hurredly and without comment.

At length the doors opened and everyone flooded into the Apple store to buy their iPads. As I headed home to await the arrival of mine, I couldn’t help but feel just a little let down. Sure, people being weird at launches is kinda scary, but it’s also a lot of fun. everyone at this launch was so,so…well, normal. Oh well. Next maybe next time.

1. Fun game! Try to think up a catch phrase more banal than “What, me worry?” ! (Hint: this isn’t possible.) [↩]
2. That’s the benefit of writing your articles two weeks early. I should remember that. [↩]
3. well, not really. See, this is still all written two weeks before the actual fact. But let’s pretend. Which would be easier if I stopped knocking holes in this here fourth wall. [↩]
4. a decade which is only four months old, I’ll grant you. [↩]

Apple again made news today as they responded to many jibes over calling the iPad a “magical” device.

“The iPad has been described as magical, and we have taken a lot of heat over that,” said Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software. “Especially from the State of Oregon. We’re here to defend that claim.

“But first, what is the deal with Oregon? I mean, really.

“Anyway, returning to my point, the iPad does contain actual magic. You see, each Apple A4 chip contains not only next generation processing power, but also a very tiny piece of an actual palantír.”

Forstall waited for people to either be awed or sneak out their iPhones to look the word up in Wikipedia, then be awed. He then continued, “Steve and Oppenheimer found three palantíri after correctly identifying the locations of the Shire, Gondor, and Minas Ithil, then triangulating the location of the burial mound of Aragorn son of Arathorn. However, it wasn’t until we had a true Son of Westernesse on the staff that we were able to tackle the task of wresting the stones to our will.

“It’s Jony Ive, by the way. I guess the Men of the West got a bit shorter over the years.”

The palantíri have long been regarded as the ultimate communication devices, able to communicate instantly across great distances without electricity or any other known human technology. Apple’s inclusion of the Noldor artifacts represents the first successful blend of ancient and modern philosophies, and even crosses the line between reality and fantasy. Also, how else were they going to get a 10-hour battery life out of a battery that’s a little thicker than three pieces of paper?

But this amazing blend does still have a few glitches. “Some of the iPads have had a tendency to show an image of two hands withering in flame, or a fire-rimmed Eye still searching across the fathoms of time,” Forestall admitted. “But we have found that a simple ‘hard-reset’, performed by holding the home button and the power button simultaneously for five seconds will clear that up.”

Forstall then turned to the large screen behind him, where a video detailing the process of turning the Seer-stones of Gondor into 802.11x wireless devices was played.

“The palantíri represent the pinnacle of communication magic from the days when the Elves still lived in the Ultimate West,” said Jony Ive in the video. “But you will create the real magic as you use the iPad to touch the lives of those you care about…from anywhere.”

Rumors that the “S” in “iPhone 3GS” actually stands for “silmaril” are as yet unconfirmed.

Moments after Steve Jobs left the stage; iPad launch presentation completed, the Apple Pundit community began pining for the “Mythical” Apple Tablet.

“Yeah, the iPad is nice,” admitted David Pogue, “But before, when we were all waiting for the ‘Apple Tablet’ it had way more features, and they were cooler, too. Now we have a real thing, and we can’t make up new features all willy-nilly. Screen that makes little bumps where the keys on the keyboard are? Gone! Face recognition so your whole family can use it? Gone! It’s just a big ol’ iPod touch.

“I mean, yes, of course I’m going to buy one and write a missing manual for it, but I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

“I could afford the mythical apple tablet,” John Gruber said, holding his torn cardboard sign reading “will be grumpy for food” with one hand so that he could gesture wildly with the other. “It was going to be free, or at least really really cheap. But the iPad, well, it’s all ‘sensibly priced’ and stuff. I can’t afford real cash monies! Who am I, that Nate guy who writes CANS? I heard he’s rolling in the dough.”

Not everyone was despondent, however. Walt Mossberg calls the iPad “The best thing ever ever ever,” stating that he “loves it more than my own left ear! It’s perfect and beautiful and everything that was ever good is in that iPad!!!1!!!!”

Slightly more rational correspondents are waiting to “see one in real life” and are withholding judgement until they experience… who am I kidding? There are no rational correspondents in the world of Apple punditry.