SlashNOT

Matthew writes: Apple computer’s new iTunes service, which allows consumers to easily purchase individual songs online, is igniting controversy as some psychologists claim that it is yet another destructive temptation for those with addiction problems or obsessive-compulsive disorders.

“They’ve made spending a buck online so easy that it can easily become compulsive.” Says Dr. Egon Trada, an addiction specialist.

“I’m treating several patients who’ve spent thousands of dollars on heavy-rhythm fueled music buying binges; they’re purchasing everything they’ve ever even remotely heard on the radio. I’ve got a seventeen-year-old male patient who just bought the entire Elton John catalog because he liked ‘Tiny Dancers’—He thought it was a song about Tony Danza. This illustrates the dangers we’re facing here.”

“iTunes is similar to a gateway drug. We’re seeing patients rapidly progress from iTunes to buying an iPod, to becoming full blown Mac users. They don’t seem to care about the social stigma of heavy Mac use, or the lack of support forums that they will face.”

“We believe that Apple needs to place controls on the service to prevent the social problems that afflict abusers. For example, suspending the accounts of people who purchase ‘indicator music’ that nobody actually likes, such as anything by Clay Aiken or Culture Club.”

Matthew writes: Apple Computer today announced that it has filed a trademark violation lawsuit against Richard Stallman, the original author of Emacs and founder of the Free Software Foundation, for infringing the plural form of their trademark “eMac“.

“Richard Stallman is intentionally infringing the plural form of our popular eMac trademark with his text editing software. Apple vigorously pursues all parties who infringe our brands and marks, including parties that don’t.”

“Some might argue that Emacs was written in 1976, predating the eMac, the Macintosh, and Apple, and that our trademark should not apply. But, like Emacs, an eMac can be used to edit text, so there’s clearly a deliberate attempt to mislead the text editing public, who might think that by installing Emacs, they’re getting the design aesthetic and user interface that Apple popularized. Our critics fail to realize that Mr. Stallman made a conscious and deliberate decision to continue distributing his product without changing the name even after he found out that we had registered a similar mark. It is this deliberate act that is the basis of our suit.”

Apple has also indicated that it will be suing the Beatles label Apple Records for trademark infringement now that the company is in the business of distributing recordings of music.

Matthew writes: Lawyers for Apple Computer have served notice to the Church of Satan that their use of the “Made with Macintosh” badge on their website constitutes a trademark violation.

Dread daemon-lord Baalzebub, speaking on behalf of Satan, had this to say: “We did receive notice from Apple Computer concerning a perceived trademark dispute. However, we in Hell are confident that our use of the Apple logo is in keeping with the fair-use provisions of Apple’s own web site badge program.”

“We look forward to a quick and mutually beneficial resolution of this problem, and we look forward to searing the flesh off of Apple’s lawyer’s bones from the moment they die for ever and ever.”

Matthew writes: Steve Jobs has announced that Apple will be re-releasing Mac OS 6.0.7 on March 1st.

“Mac OS 6.0.7 is coming out of the Disney vault this March. There’s been a generation of Mac fans who’ve never seen a single-tasking operating system. They’ve never had to wait for a floppy to format before they could use their computer. They’ve never had to close one program in order to open another. And, they’ve never seen a black-and-white monitor.”

“We’re bringing Mac OS 6.0.7 out of the Disney vault so that Parents can share the memories of this wonderful operating system that they loved as a teenager with their kids. Of course, it won’t be long before Mac OS 6.0.7 goes back into the vault for another 10 years, so be sure to pick up your copy today.”

Apple has not announced whether or not they will be including the floppy drive required to boot the operating system in the package.

Matthew writes: Apple sends OS 9 to the Disney Vault for 10 years

Steve Jobs announced today that Apple would be sending OS 9 into the Disney Vault for 10 years.

“Mac Addicts who want to purchase OS 9 have only a limited time until OS 9 goes into the Disney Vault for 10 years. This will be the last chance for a generation to purchase OS 9.”

Apple’s unusual announcement apparently comes from Jobs’ experience with Disney’s marketing strategies as the CEO of Pixar, the producer of four of Disney’s biggest hits in the last five years. Jobs also announced the new lil’ Mac boot’n'toot computer targeting the 18 to 36 month consumer, a market with over twelve billion dollars in discretionary spending power.

Matthew writes: NeXT CEO Steve Jobs announced today that NeXT had completed the acquisition of Apple Computer with the release of Apple Mac OS X 10.2 “Jaguar”. “We’ve completed the hard work of replacing the traditional Macintosh OS with a re-labled Mac compatible version of the NeXTStep operating system,” said Jobs in today’s announcement.

The Apple acquisition, initiated almost six years ago for -400 million USD, bore immediate fruit for NeXT. “By acquiring a multi-bullion dollar computer manufacturer with millions of fanatically loyal users, we’ve been able to leverage Apple’s name, manufacturing ability, and technical prowess to bring NeXT technology to the forefront.”

“We’ve instructed developers to begin writing to the NeXT (aka “Cocoa”) API and to depricate the Mac (aka “Carbon”) API in their upcoming applications. Within a few years, Mac compatibility will no longer be necessary.”

Nomad7674 writes: Hertz rental car filed suit against Apple today alleging that their Megahertz Myth marketing campaign is misleading and damaging to their brand name.
“Hertz is in fact a very large corporation—A Mega corporation, if you will.” stated Hertz Lawyer Eldon Johnson. “Apple’s campaign implies that Mega Hertz is a myth, which could not be farther from the truth. Hertz has approximately 1,900 locations in the United States and approximately 5,100 international locations. We deliver more than 30 million reservations annually. Clearly, Apple’s smear campaign against us is unfounded, egregious, infamous, nefarious, notorious, atrocious, deplorable, heinous, monstrous, outrageous, and preposterous. Frankly, we still don’t know what we’ve done to offend them.”
Apple lawyers counter sued, citing their policy to counter sue immediately irrespective of the facts or merits of the case. They also exploring a counter-suit claiming that the new Volkswagen Beetle, a car rented out by the company, infringes upon the “look-and-feel” of the original iMac, and that the Chevrolet Lumina violates Apple Human Interface Guidelines for automobiles.

Matthew writes: This month’s meeting of the San Diego Macintosh User’s Group (SDMUG) errupted into a brawl that flowed out into the San Diego University campus and eventually involved hundreds of students and Mac users.

Eye witness Alex Ferguson (SMUG member) states: “It all started when (guest presenter) Dave Boskey said “oh ess ecks” during his presentation on the big screen. (long-time member) Phil Lamont corrected him, saying “oh ess ten”. Well, dave retorted that he knew how to pronounce it, thank you very much. Dave then accussed him of being a switcher (a former PC user), and that’s when things got nasty. Phil jumped off the stage and tripped over the projector, which inraged (SDMUG board member) Mac McAvenia , and then all hell broke loose.”

San Diego Police intervened with the City’s elite Riot Suppression Violence Protection (RSVP) unit, which used firehoses and tear gas to defuse the situation. San Diego city Mayor Dick Murphy then addressed the crowd via megaphone and used a cell phone call to Steve Jobs to confirm the proper pronunciation.

Matthew writes: Adobe filed suit against Apple today citing Apple’s recent performance problems as a significant factor in the less than stellar sales of InDesign 2.0.

“When we started working on InDesign, we applied our Moore’s Law calculator to our project timeline to determine exactly how much bloat to include in the code. To make a long story short, Apple has violated Moore’s Law, and they need to know that their software vendors aren’t going to put up with it.”

Lawyer for Apple released this statement: “Firstly, Moore works for Intel, so his law is not enforceable in our architecture. Secondly, while admittedly Intel has pulled ahead, that’s Motorola’s fault, and we can’t comment on that due to our pending lawsuit against them. Thirdly, InDesign is a bloated sack of shit, and no amount of processing power is going to change that.”

While Adobe does not contest Apple’s assessment of InDesign, they counter that Microsoft Windows XP is also a bloated sack of shit, but that a Pentium 4 3GHz machine runs it pretty well. “And that’s the heart of our lawsuit.”

Matthew writes: Apple filed suit against Motorola today in an attempt to force the chip maker to improve its high-end processor performance.

“The Motorola processors have been flaccid for the last few years. Certainly nothing like Intel’s upcoming Sexium line of processors. We’ve tried counseling, we’ve tried extra hardware to enhance performance, we’ve even done two processors at once to try get some satisfying performance out of these chips. When Motorola’s G4 first started taking Altivec, it clearly helped–that’s why we’re still with the platform, frankly. But it’s time for Motorola to swallow it’s pride and get some professional help. Obviously, we’ve been willing to wear anything to jazz things up, but nothing seems to work.”

Motorola did not release a comment, stating instead that it had to work late.