Mac|Life Hilarious RSS Feed

Satire: 10 Ideas Steve Pitched to Disney

Michael Simon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:53:18 -0600

It might not be as exciting as another tablet rumor, but the recent New York Times’ report that Disney and Steve Jobs are collaborating on a radical new retail shop design certainly piqued our curiosity. But the tip that landed in our inbox a few days later really caught our attention.

Titled "Top Secret Apple/Disney Ideas," it contained a handful of proposals that came straight from the Mouse’s brainstorming sessions with the Man himself. We’re not going to divulge our source (bring it on, Apple legal), but our Duc—, er, Deep Throat used his significant clout with Walt to gain access to one of the early meetings. Unfortunately, he was quickly thrown out for not wearing pants, but not before he snagged a handout of Steve’s Keynote presentation.

We’re pretty sure these didn’t make it past the first round of discussions, but you never know what might pop up.

Mighty Mickey Mouse

If not for the sudden introduction of Magic Mouse, we never would have believed this one, but apparently there’s a reason Steve didn’t retire Apple’s once-Mighty Mouse. An odd step backward from sleek Multi-Touch mouse now shipping, Steve proposed fitting Apple’s old pointer with a pair of black Mickey ears that added an extra pair of programmable buttons--and, from the best we can surmise, a bit of clunkiness and a whole lotta cheesy corporate branding.

Conscience Bar

Instead of dishing out computer advice in 15-minute intervals, Steve submitted an idea for a Conscience Bar staffed by a team of semi-professional, kid-friendly counselors. Obviously inspired by Pinocchio’s pal Jiminy Cricket, the station would dispense words of wisdom to toddlers and young adults who get in trouble and don’t know right from wrong. But here’s the really cool part: Little iPhone users could whistle into a special app to book the next available appointment.

Circle of iLife

Steve’s Lion King-inspired suite contains a trio of digital hub apps--Idol, Popcorn and Pictures--bundled together and given the full kiddie treatment. With an emphasis on simplicity, Circle of iLife strips GarageBand, iMovie and iPhoto down to its barest necessities and lets kids sing along with their favorite songs, direct their own Disney cartoons, and add fun effects to photos without worrying about submenus and pallets. As Steve so cleverly put it, "There's more to do than can ever be done."

Snow White Leopard

We know Steve’s in for some serious competition now that Microsoft has made an operating system people actually want to use, but rebranding OS X Snow Leopard seems a little desperate to us. So does dressing the dwarves in cute little cat costumes on the box. And that Magic Mirror Photo Booth effect ... OK, we kinda like that one.

Whistle While You iWork

iLife’s Disneyization was fairly inevitable, but we were surprised when iWork made the list, too. Clearly another Snow White reference (and, oddly enough, the second proposal to involve whistling), Steve’s Whistle While You iWork vision consists of another trio of apps--Show, Count and Tell--designed to stimulate creativity and help kids learn their ABCs and 123s. We just hope he wasn’t planning on hiring a nauseatingly cute kid to pitch it.

Poison Apple Care

More of a return policy than a warranty, Poison Apple Care is Steve’s version of a gift receipt on steroids. For a small fee, kids or parents buying a present could pick up a Poison Apple Care that would let the recipient easily exchange the unwanted gift for Apple Store credit, along with five free iTunes downloads and a 10 percent discount coupon. As Steve so modestly put it: "Everyone should get exactly what they want for their birthday, and that’s not always at the Disney store."

Wall-eMac

Jonathan Ive already helped with the EVE design for Pixar’s hit movie, so it’s only natural he would have a hand in transforming her boyfriend into a new Mac for preschoolers. Built around a 17-inch screen and a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor, the Wall-eMac comes with posable eyes (the left is an iSight camera, the right is a microphone) and arms (the right holds a remote; the left is an iPod dock), and movable legs (the right one is a USB hub). Unfortunately it can’t crush garbage--that is, unless it happens to come across a Dell Vostro Mini Tower. (Good zinger there, Steve. Hope you remembered to pause for laughter.)

Mary Pippin

Who knew Steve has a soft spot for Apple’s failed gaming system and Disney’s 1964 musical? Essentially an iPod touch accessory geared toward undiscriminating little girls, Steve’s Pippin reboot freakishly resembles Mary Poppins’ floral carpet bag, with her parrot head umbrella sticking out the top. A dock is nestled between the handles, and a proprietary cable around back encodes games for big-screen TVs. But the piece de resistance has to be the controller shaped like a spoonful of sugar--which’ll come in handy, because this one’s awfully hard to swallow.

Finding nano

The inevitable special-edition iPod comes in the form of a reddish-orange nano with a black Click Wheel and snazzy, wavy white stripes across the front, and an engraving of one of five characters on the flipside (Nemo, Dory, Pearl, Squirt or Bruce). As if that wasn’t enough to justify Apple’s $70 premium, each special-edition iPod would come bundled with a digital copy of its namesake.

Hakuna Mac-tata

Why shouldn’t the Mac have its own theme song? Sung to the melody of Elton John’s classic, Steve sketched out a veritable marketing blitz around “Hakuna Mac-tata,” with heavy in-store rotation, free iTunes downloads, commercials and mailers built around Apple’s brand new slogan: "It means no Windows for the rest of your days."

Ask an iPhone, with Salty the iPhone

Salty the iPhone — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:13:17 -0500

Yeah, hi, look, I know it's been a while since I've rapped at ya. First, the iPhone 3.0 software came out, and all that paste made my buttons stick. Then the iPhone 3GS was released, and I spent a while hiding in the bathroom feeling inadequate about my lack of built-in compass. And AT&T doesn't exactly make it easy for me to get a signal, and you know how useless phones can be without a DECENT SIGNAL FROM A NETWORK THAT WORKS. Ahem. Sorry about that. Anyway, I'm back now, so let's talk.

AT&T said we'd be able to send MMS messages on its network by late summer. Labor Day is Monday, my kid has been back in school for a week, and we're down to our last box of Mr. Freeze treats. What's the big holdup?

AT&T finally released a statement today saying we'll have MMS capabilities on September 25. Which is not late summer, it's early fall. Or early spring for our South American friends -- ¡Hola a Jerónimo en Colombia! -- but they aren't stuck with AT&T, plus they have sugar cars.

So obviously AT&T are a bunch of liars, but hopefully they'll come through and "deliver." It's pretty well known that iPhone owners are mad at AT&T for being so very craptacular, and all I can really say is, I am glad I don't work for them.

Gee whiz it's hard for me to get a signal. And sometimes I don't get my voicemails for a whole day. How sucky is that?

Yes. I know. It sucks.

I'm just guessing here, but perhaps you live in the San Francisco or New York metro areas, home to perhaps 20 percent of iPhone-owning Americans. I wonder this because those are the places AT&T's 3G "notwork" is most heavily burdened by all your tapping and swiping and using the data plan you're required to pay dearly for each and every month.

Look, I was hanging out with the Mac|Life staff recently, and as usual, they were complaining. Whine, whine, whine these people, it's impossible to get them to shaddup about their lack-of-service woes. Ooh, I wasn't invited to the protest of capitalism and brassieres over at Sean Penn's house because the text message didn't arrive in time! Boo hoo.

Still, floating in the reflecting pool of fine whine, I found bobbing a few nuggets of wisdom: If you're truly fed up, call AT&T and complain. Tell them you want a credit on your account because you feel that you aren't getting the service you pay for. Various unnamed staff members and hangers-on have done so and received credits from $4 (FOUR!?!? Yes, four) to $50 just for being persistently cantankerous yet mostly polite-ish. Give it a try. If you can get your phone to work.

Did AT&T ever mention tethering? People in other countries can do tethering, you know.

People in other countries have sugar cars! No, AT&T did not mention official tethering. They don't even want you to play tetherball; you might get too many ideas.

The new Spotlight feature in iPhone 3.0 is pretty great. But I want to use it mostly as an app launcher, and the top result is usually an email. Can I reorder those results?

Yup. It's just a little hidden. Go to Settings > General > Home > Search Results. Uncheck any items you want to exclude from the search results, and/or slide them into a new order. See how awesome the iPhone is when you aren't trying to send or receive communications over the cellular network?

Pose your iPhone-related and/or philosophical quandries at askaniphone@gmail.com. You can also follow Salty on Twitter twitter.com/SaltyTheiPhone.

Puppet Walt on Snow Leopard -- Shut Up!!!

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:15:20 -0500

Oh puppet Walt, how we love your cranky old ways.

You could check out Walt Mossberg's actual review of Snow Leopard, or you can just watch the video below of Puppet Walt.

The choice is obviously clear in this matter. Enjoy the video and its possible NSFW language.

Shut Up!

Puppet Walt - Bill Gates Planning To Destroy Apple

Danny Estrada — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:21:12 -0500

Apparently Steve Jobs has decided to randomly throw a Macworld Conference in Boston, even though the Boston Expo ceased to exist years ago. Regardless, Steve and company felt it was important to share some information at the defunct conference. A message that will surely destroy the future of Apple. Here is the news directly for the most important source in technology.

Well, we were wrong, and not only us, but Walt Mossberg. In order to make sure that he wasn't an senial drunk, God knows we don't want a mouth full of Ben Gay, we found some proof that this did in fact happen some 12 years ago. Bill makes his appearance 31 minutes into the keynote.

Oh great and powerful Puppet Walt Mossberg, IN YOUR FACE!

iRoboChan Will Mess You Up!

Danny Estrada — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:36:55 -0500

Oh yeah, that is right, more robo-goodies from your friends to the Far East... unless you are on the West Coast... then they would be your friends to the Far West. Either way, we have a top secret video that was retrieved by one of our level 5 Mac|Life reconnaissance agents. In this top secret footage we see RoboChan, a quite harmless looking humanoid robot.

The body itself is fairly basic, constructed from the parts of the Kondo KHR-2HV series, which as been used by humanoid models for years (See examples:Naomi Armitage, Motoko Kusanagi, Data, Marcus Wright etc.), but what has our experts on edge is the use of new hardware powering the electro-cerebral-fusion-cortex, the iPhone 3GS.

As you can see in the video they have RoboChan preforming some basic tasks. Of course our top scientists have deduced the true nature of these so-called "tricks." Here is a breakdown of the "tricks" and what their real purpose is:

1. Alarm clock = S.M.U.R.F.D (Self-Mobile Unit Rejuvenate For Destruction).

2. Dance = Fully trained in every martial art.

3. Interaction = Fully automated human interactions (no awkward robot moments...Data we are looking in your direction).

4. Teach & Playback = Able to fully copy and imitate any target, good for covert missions.

5. Holding Spring Onion = Able to cook seven course meals, also fully trained as a fencer, all while using a spring onion.

We know that in the video the tech may look a bit primitive, but were are fully aware of the hidden capabilities of these units. We are keeping an eye out for the God Father, Tamakin; the Planner, Ogutti; and the Electrical Hacker, Gantaku. If these agents are spotted, you are instructed to make an official Mac|Life StrikeForce arrest, and bring the operatives into our base. Once here, they can begin constructing an army of Mac|Life humanoids to replace our interns.

Via PinkTentacle

Exclusive iPhoneInvisible For True Mac Fans Eyes Only

Danny Estrada — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:17:35 -0500

It's hard to believe that any other creditable online news source can provide you with Mac exclusives other than good ol' reliable MacLife, but the Onion News Network has done it again. Last year they were the first to report on the MacBook Wheel. This year they have slammed us Mac Junkies with their exclusive on the Invisible iPhone!

We could try to re-report this, but honestly... our journalistic skills are no where nearly as professional of those over at the Onion, so click on the photo below and enjoy!

Cannabis Hits App Store -- Costs Less Than $4.20

Danny Estrada — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:29:15 -0500

Ever have this problem... You are a new city visiting some friends, but you have a few hours to kill and you think, "Hey, lets get totally stoned... but who do I call?" Neither do we. But, we know for a fact that the Ghost Busters can't help you out on this occasion. But, just in case you have a friend who is going out of town and they need some herbal refreshment resources, then have no fear the iPhone App Cannabis is here.

Cannabis is gonna cost you $2.99. Seriously, who can put a price on happiness, other than the closest medical cannabis suppliers, doctors, clinics, lawyers and other relevant organizations that will come up on this app.

There is even a nifty step by step video oh how the app works, and just in case there was a little morning wake and bake, you can press the replay button... again and again.

Now all they need to do is develop an App that locates fast food joints near bail bonds.

Via Gawker

Don't do drugs kids.

Apple Store Running Parallels With Microsoft Retail Shop

Danny Estrada — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:00:41 -0500

Microsoft is planning to deliberately opening retail spaces near Apple Stores. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner told participants at the Windows Partner Conference the store wouldn't imitate Apple Stores, but will innovate.

A churro with every Zune?

This makes no sense to us. It could be the fact that our brains have grown lazy due to the ease and comfort provided by using an Apple machine... but they really didn't get into specifics either.

The whole idea seems a bit ridiculous. They want to be able to provide competitive options against Apple, but isn't that what every computer and electronics retail store does now? San Francisco residents may remember the Microsoft store in the Metreon. If you don't, you missed out. It closed years ago.

No official due date for the first Windows Store opening, but it's a good guess that it will be sometime around the launch of Windows 7, which is in October.

Via Electronista