Crazy Apple News Site

In the wake of yesterday’s Apple music event, tech critics are struggling to find bad things to say about Apple’s complete redesign of their media consumption devices.¹

“Man, the new iPod Touch? What’s that all about? It’s just an iPhone without the phone, man. Just a really fast gaming device. Just an awesome display for your emails, books, music, and video. Like I would want that! Whatever!” said Isaac N., noted Apple critic.

“Yeah, and that touch screen nano? How am I supposed to read a book on that screen? It’s way too small!” he continued. When informed that the new nano doesn’t display books, but just plays music, he had a hard time with that as well. “Oh great! So now I Can’t read books either! Useless, I tell you! Useless!”

Critics were equally hard pressed to find fault with the new Apple TV.

“Well, sure it’s only $99, and yeah, I guess streaming from any computer in your house, or the internet, or Netflix is kinda cool, but what about…erm…what about…penguins? Yeah! What about set top penguins?” Asked John Cleese, although we’re pretty sure he was joking.

Apple was unavailable to answer his penguin-related questions.

Meanwhile, actual human beings are reported as being interested in (if not excited by) the changes Apple made to the iPod lineup. The “excited” part will come when they get a new iPod during the winter gift-giving holidays.

1. We’ll talk about iTunes 10 tomorrow [↩]

Despite non-true rumors that the 1st-Gen iPod Classics would be getting the Genius feature, there’s a group of iPod owners out there that just ain’t happy.

“We Shuffle owners feel left out,” said S. Huffle, owner of every iPod Shuffle since the one that looked like gum.  “We always get the short end of the stick. I mean, look at what the Shuffle can’t do: It can’t watch movies. It can’t play podcasts. On-the-go playlists? Shuffle need not apply.  And now we don’t get a genius on our Shuffle to help us discover our music in a whole new way.  Frankly, we’re tired of feeling like second-class citizens.”

Apple Exec Tony Fadell was perplexed by the request. “I mean, wanting the Genius feature on the Classic is one thing. That makes sense; you paid a buttload of money for a hard drive with a screen, so I can see wanting your little toy upgraded.  But the Shuffle? Do we even still make those? We do? Why?”

But Huffle and others were not appeased by Tony’s generous comments.  Fortunately, Fadell and the Apple board listened to their complaints, and responded.

“We’re glad to roll out the Shuffle Upgrade Program,” said Steve Jobs in an email to registered Shuffle owners.  “Through the SUP Shuffle owners can get all the features found in high-end iPods, as well as a memory upgrade to 8GB for only $149.  Shuffle owners who are dissatisfied with the level of performance on their current iPods should say this secret phrase to any Apple Store employee: ‘I would like to buy an iPod Nano’.  They will know what to do.”

Apple could not be reached for comment, but that was mostly because they’re tired of us whining that we can’t have the genius feature on our 1st-Gen Classic.

We’re live here in, well, our office, and covering Apple’s groundbreaking event.

• Steve looks like he always does.
• He’s not dead.
• iTunes 8 will tell a “genius in the cloud” that you want to make playlists based on the music of Zamfir and give you a list of songs that will sound good in a mix with pan pipes.
• Is this the same cloud where Mobile Me lives?
• iPods!
• New Nanos! They look suspiciously like the iPod Giga!
• That’ll be announced next. You just watch.
• Here it comes.
• …Or new earbuds. That’s good too.
• And a flying rainbow.
• Of nanos.
• Wow! the new iPod touch looks just like the old iPhone! Kinda!
• Nike built in! If only I ever used that, or even wanted to!
• Iron Man! I’ll bet he has an iPhone.
• Why does John Meyer keep showing up in people’s playlists?
• Spore! Wow! that’s…something we all knew about. Phil looks good, though.
• It’s like Phil has never seen an iPod before. What’s that all about?
• It’s like he wants to, say, kiss each and every pixel on the screen.  Odd.
• If I was going to play soccer on my iTouch, it’d be Philippines vs. Finland.  Yeah!
• Why do games get all the accelerometer support?  I want a “shake and calc” spreadsheet for the iPhone!
• This is the funnest iPod ever”  Is “funnest” a word?
• Updates for money? What is Apple thinking?
• Here comes the Giga. It’s a “One more thing” type of announcement.
• No! No John Mayer! Please! NO! Oh, It’s Jack Johnson. That’s alright then.
• Jack Johnson + “Let’s Rock” = Mellow, acoustic sounds. Huh.
• At least we avoided John Mayer. I can’t stand that little rodent.
• I’d be sleeping right now, but there’s all this static.
• Aaaand another song.
• In what way is Jack Johnson “used to 20-something girls”?
• I don’t want to think about Jack’s friends watching him sing love songs to his wife. I really don’t.
• Well, that’s all folks. Until next time!

Sure, everyone’s seen the grainy picture of the what is supposed to be the new iPod Nano, but nobody seems to ask “why is that picture so grainy?”

Until Now.

We asked.  We dug. We searched. We combed the beaches, we combed our hair, we went to distant corners of our house and the Internet and came back with the truth.

The reason that picture is so grainy is because it isn’t a new iPod Nano. Come on. Who wants a new Nano? Nobody. That’s nothing new. That’s not what we should expect from the company that tells us to “Think Different.” That’s like Microsoft announcing Windows 95: The Revenge Of The DOS Shells.

That picture, my friends, is a picture of the new iPod Giga. The. Largest. iPod. Ever.

The new iPod Giga with a scale picture of Steve Jobs next to it.

As you can see in this picture, the iPod Giga is only photographable from the air, and that’s why it looks all grainy. For contrast, we superimposed a scale image of Steve Jobs next to the Giga.

“With the Giga, entire cities can experience their music in a whole new way,” says a source who requested anonymity, regardless of how hard that word is to spell. “1200 Petabytes of storage. A full-size IMAX screen. over 500 headphone jacks. A click wheel the size of a Buick. With the arrival of the Giga, no one can call iPods anti-social ever again.”

“Steve is pretty excited about the Giga project,” said another unnamed, but highly placed inside source. “The body is made from the same stuff they use to build space shuttles, and the screen–Oh, the screen!– it’s built by the IMAX people, has like, 40 gazillion pixels, and looks so good you would want to kiss each one. On the lips. I mean, I do. Want to, I mean; Steve won’t let me kiss them.  Or him.”

Neither source would give an exact cost, but both said it would be “attractively priced, if the whole city chips in”.