Fake Steve Jobs Says 'Leave the Real One Alone' 166
Stoobalou writes "Dan Lyons, who has been lampooning Apple's Steve Jobs for many years, has posted his last item as Fake Steve Jobs and signed off. Lyons, who has been impersonating the messianic Apple supremo in the notorious tech blog since 2006 and even managed to maintain his anonymity for quite some time, despite being a well-known tech hack, has parked his vitriolic pen for the last time." Most people expect FSJ to return if RSJ does.
How important we make ourselves seem (Score:2, Insightful)
While his blogging may have been mostly harmless it doesn't give him a free pass to crap on others for doing the same thing.
Re:About time really.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't imagine how it lasted more than a week without RSJ's quiet approval. Either it somehow suited Apple's master plan, or just amused RSJ.
If it didn't pass muster, about 4 hours into it the mag would have gotten a call. "Hi. This is Su Emharder from Apple Legal. We're Apple. We don't do fakes. Neither do you. You have twelve minutes to post a retraction on your site."
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jobs Not Long for this World (Score:2, Insightful)
The company itself, however, may well prosper under new leadership as Apple continues to morph into an IBM-style megacorporation focused on efficiency and customer service.
You are aware that the company's secondary image — second only to Steve Jobs himself — revolves entirely around them not being an IBM-style megacorporation, right*? Given that, if you completely remove the image, the flashiness, and the "we're not a heartlessly efficient megacorporation, honest!" corporate persona that was the entire cornerstone of the Mac vs. PC ads (not to mention their current advertising), what you're left with is an overpriced hardware manufacturer with paranoid fears of compatibility?
*: Regardless of what they actually ARE; I'm talking about the image they have, one which will become harder and harder to maintain the more they fall in that direction.
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:4, Insightful)
... I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
Um, yeah. Some folks [cnn.com] might beg to differ [cnn.com].
I view this as a one-day-only 5% discount sale.
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are the insider trades for the last year or so. [yahoo.com]
I don't see Jobs there.
Re:About time really.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Parody is protected. There is nothing RSJ could do about it.
Re:We might stop making fun of him (Score:4, Insightful)
Ballmer is a pretty poor example. To his credit, he probably comes across as one of the few people in the tech arena who would be tolerable over a beer, but a less-than-stellar showman who at his best is a parody of himself. He inspires pity more than loathing.
Now when will we get Fake Larry Ellison? That guy is just a comedy goldmine. The often attributed, arrogance of Jobs, greedy, self-serving, with a sense of self-denial and a twinge of bat-shit insane.
Re:We might stop making fun of him (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think Cook and Schiller will keep the trains running, and Ives will be spokesman (he's got that watchable quality). Forstall will probably also have an increasing public profile, but in terms of products he'll probably remain with iOS stuff. Steve put so many good people in place around him, that Apple in the long run will be just fine no matter what. Obviously a succession plan in a company like Apple will have been in place for a long time, and with Steve Job's health problems in the past, he's definitely had more people in the spotlight with him recently, to get the public used to some of these guys.
Re:About time really.... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, Steve Jobs is an evil mastermind and any time he does something non-evil, it's just an evil ploy to appear non-evil...