Crazy Apple News Site

Since the launch of the new Mobile Me platform Apple has extended all users’ accounts by at least 90 days, as an apology for the flawed and awkward rollout process. But that just isn’t enough for Steve Jobs, who in a recent meeting decided that the executive board of Apple need to take this “to the next level” and personally apologize to each and every Mobile Me subscriber by bringing them a plate of cookies.

“Starting this Friday, the entire executive team will be out delivering cookies to those whom we have inconvenienced through this Mobile Me launch process,” states an internal memo that was leaked to CANS early this morning.  Our inside source says that Jobs “feels deeply” for all the people who have “had to live without being able to push their calendars to their iPhones and their MacBooks in the same minute” and would like to make it up to them.

This move has been well received by the pundit community.  “It’ll be nice to see Steve Jobs again,” says Merlin Mann, “I mean, I see him all the time already, ’cause he’s always hanging out at my house. But, you know, he’s been busy lately and hasn’t had time to drop by for a while. But we’re totally friends. I’m serious.”

Meanwhile the various Apple execs are working on their individual door approaches.  From Jobs’ typically restrained “We’re sorry that we failed you, here’s some insanely great cookies” to Phil Shiller’s “these cookies are a financially insignificant way to let you know that we care for you personally,” the entire board is working on letting people know that Apple values them and feels their pain.

Details have not surfaced about the size or quantity of the cookies to be distributed, but some blurry photos that could be from the Apple Kitchen reveal the cookies to be Oatmeal Raisin.

All around the world, people are already standing in line, hoping to be the first to use Mobile Me, Apple’s latest revision of its online storage and synchronization tools.

Which is odd, because they can just buy a .Mac membership and it will work when Mobile Me is launched possibly later tonight.  But still they line up at Apple stores across America, “waiting for the cloud”.

“I can’t tell if they’re serious,” said an Apple store employee, who asked to remain anonymous, which we don’t like because “anonymous” is really hard to spell the same way twice, so we’re going to call him Bob Johnson. “We asked if they were excited about the iPhone launch this Friday, and they’re all like ‘pssssh.  iPhone.  Just a jumped-up Treo!  We want our image galleries instantly synced up across all our computers.’  What was really weird is that they all said it in unison.”

But not everyone shares Bob’s trepidation.  Bob hoards his trepidation, keeping it locked away, safe within a strongbox deep in his soul.  To find out more, we went to one of the thousands of “Mobile Parties” that are happening across the country today, and spoke to one of the raving fans.

“I’m so excited! I just can’t hide it! I’m about to sync my email, and I think I like it!” blared the huge stack of speakers as we entered the high school gymnasium that a group in Des Moines, Iowa had rented.  Inside was a crowd of people, all wearing shirts with the Mobile Me logo, all dancing, singing, eating apple based snacks from long tables along one wall, or plugging their laptops into one of the many LAN-party style stations on the other wall.

“Yes, I too await the coming of Me,” said a man, who would only identify himself as “stevor338@me.com”.  “With the coming of Me we shall all finally be able to transcend the myth of physical forms, not to mention have our contacts available to us from any Mac or PC.  Yes, as we embrace the Me in the Cloud, the purely physical me, the one that doesn’t take stylish vacations to Cancun or Whistler, the one that doesn’t match Apple’s vision of humanity, will be left, a shell sitting in a chair in front of a late-model G5 iMac, while our spirits dance among the servers in Cupertino.”

And with that we left them, moved and impressed, not to mention creeped out.  Will the launch of Mobile Me truly herald the coming of Mankind’s truest self, our ultimate destiny, or will we simply have 20GB of storage space online in which we can keep our plans for a home made radio laser cannon?  Only time will tell.

I mean, if the best Moltz could do is a comment about people’s Steve Jobs watching, then what do you really expect from a hack like me?  WWDC conference was boring.  ”Blah blah blah, we’re changing the world, bloo de bloo, iPhones are cheaper, MobileMe blah blah blah.”  Come on! Where’s the news? Where’s the world-shaping vision, like, say, a new mobile computing API, or new OS? I just don’t have anything to say.

No, now, don’t cry honey. Daddy’s just tired, and, oh, alright, alright, dry your eyes.  I’ll pull something together, if you can stop crying.  There now, all better?  That’s my soldier!  Okay, here goes.

Windows ME and Mobile Me: The Untold Story

Apple’s announcement of Mobile Me on Monday was seen by many as a step towards the future, but for Mobile Me itself, it was a return to the past.

“I had to change my name,” Mobile Me told us in an interview today. “He said we had to be different, he didn’t want anything to do with me. He was the richer one, so he stayed a ME and I changed my name to iTools.”

The Me advertising family has roots in MTV’s famous “Sex me, MTV“ campaign.  So successful was this form of advertising that the 80′s, often called the MTV decade, was also known as the “Me decade”.

“I was on top of the world,” said Sex Me, now living in a seaside condo in Maui and calling himself Love Me, “The whole decade belonged to Me, and the 90′s were good, too.  My childeren were selling cars, investments, drinks, and I had high hopes for my two little guys, Windows and Mobile.  They seemed to get along well at first, but when they got a little older things got bad.

“You all know what happened to Windows.  He fell in with a hard crowd.  The things he did for them made me ashamed to be a Me.  And the things he did to his brother Mobile… well, that was just unforgivable.”

The year was 1999, and Windows ME was preparing a huge launch with his new “friends” at Microsoft.  Meanwhile, Mobile Me was working on a collection of technologies that were meant to make the internet more useful for people around the world.  His time hadn’t yet come, but soon Mobile Me would be the one on everyone’s minds.

“Windows saw Mobile as a threat to his newfound position at Microsoft, and had him sued for the use of his–our–family name,” said Love Me. “What could Mobile do?  Windows had all the Microsoft Money™ and lawyers on his side, and all Mobile had was a dream.  He changed his name.”

For years, Mobile Me — now calling himself iTools– wandered, lost and alone, until a kindly Steve Jobs saw him and offered him a job.

“iTools was in a bad way,” Jobs recounts. “He was down on his luck, had just been hurt by his closest relative, and didn’t have any faith in himself. But I, I could see his potential.”

Jobs was good to iTools, who eventually changed his name to .Mac to cut any connections to the lost, forlorn service he had been. Slowly he rebuilt himself as something better than he had been.  Then, recently, bittersweet news came.

“Windows ME had died a few years ago, driven to the edge by bad code merges and being left in the cold by Microsoft after they found XP,” sighed Love Me. “He took too many upgrades, mixed ‘em with some bootleg MP3′s and drove his device drivers off a cliff.”

Tragedy, however, cleared the way for .Mac to get his respect back.  Apple’s lawyers sought to annul the ruling that forced him to change his name in the first place.  And this Monday, .Mac was as surprised as anyone when Mr. Jobs gave him back his name.

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to be Me again,” said the newly-renamed service, smiling quietly in his Cupertino office. “There’s still some paperwork to do, but on July 11th I’ll be back to my old self again, and better than ever.  I wish… in a strange way I wish Windows ME was still here to see it.  I don’t know if I can forgive him for what he put me through, but I do miss him.”

“It’s good to see my son get his dignity back,” says Love Me.  ”He’s like a brand-new service, and, as his name says, he’s really going places.”