MacDirectory Magazine

FEA TURE THE IWARDS, CONTINUED > APPLE'S BEST (AND WORST) DAY? WORDS AND ANAL YSIS BY BILL TROOP This May brought us a headline nobody ever thought they would see: APPLE Overtakes MICROSOFT as biggest tech company. Thanks to Steve Jobs’s inspired stewardship since 1997, Apple is now bigger than Microsoft, which in 1997, had to bail out Apple with $300 million. At that time, every Mac journalist thought Steve was making a huge mistake to stab the Mac-clone makers in the back. We were all wrong, and we’ve admitted it, but Steve has never forgiven any of us. Even John Sculley, who fired Steve in the first place, has admitted he was wrong. But Steve has never forgiven. QUESTION: How is Steve Jobs going to react to Warren Buffett‘s call for America’s billionaires and near-billionaires to donate at least 50 percent of their money to charity? The record shows that Steve Jobs has never donated anythingto anycharity. That makes him the stingiest billionaire in the world, though the best computer executive. Still, everything could be okay with his karma, provided St. Peter uses a Mac. May also brought us a tragic headline so ghastly and completely unexpected that it defied belief: ‘A GADGET TO DIE FOR? 10 suicides this year at iPhone and iPad factory in China.’ Remarkable numbers of Chinese people find making these devices so unpleasant that they would, literally, rather die than go on. I’m still having trouble digesting this one. Steve says he’s looked into the matter, and says the plant (which employs 400,000) has restaurants and movie theaters. So I guess that makes it all okay? Speaking of the iPad I went on record last quarter as saying I couldn’t really understand what the iPad was for. Now I think I do. It’s the computer you use to relax, as opposed to the computer you use to work. Brilliant. Something like 95 percent of users report satisfaction with the iPad, and sales have been outstanding. Bravo, Steve! Losing your cool At the same time the iPad is being so successful, Apple is also, according to industry analysts, losing its much-envied ‘cool factor’ with 18-24 year olds. We have a solution: How to be cool In the nick of time, a British startup run by 29-year-old Nathan Dunne has come up with the definitive un-iPad, the most cool thing you can buy anywhere in the world. Whatever you do today, visit . Underwood produces limited edition vinyl LPs of . . . short stories read by their authors. Forget about ebooks, iPads, Kindles, CDs, DVDs – the cool trend is vinyl books. These LPs are beautiful objects to behold and touch, and the sound quality is beyond praise. Vinyl sound has an immediacy, a soul, an ability to bridge the gap between performer and listener, that digital technology has never approached. But even if you belong to the underprivileged strata of society – those who don’t own turntables – you can still enjoy this beautiful record. The case and cover art alone make it a truly cool collector’s item. Underwood plans to produce only two releases a year, in limited editions of just 1,000. The first release has almost sold out, despite minimal press coverage. So get ’em before they go! It coulda been ... ... the most hilarious censorship story of 21st century America. We had all thought the question whether James Joyce’s Ulysseswas obscene had been settled in 1933 when a United States court ruled it wasn’t. Fast forward to June 2010, when Apple censored an illustrated comic version for the iPad. After a ferocious couple of days of press coverage, Apple relented. This must be one of the stupidest things Apple has ever done. Fig leaves for James Joyce? We applaud even the New York Times for criticizing this silly move. Unfortunately, Ulyssesisn’t an isolated incident. Just google ‘Mark Fiore Apple’, if you haven’t already. Brrrr! 60 MacDirectory

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