W e enjoy April Foolis Day at TMO. Weive done an April Foolis story of some sort during the last five years when April 1st has fallen on a week day.
- 2003: Intel Inside: Apple Partners With Dell, Reintroduces PC Compatibility Card For Mac
- 2002: Apple Announces Mac OS X For x86, Moves To Intelis Processors
- 1999: Microsoft Announces New Direction, Windows May Be Out
This year was supposed to be no exception to that, and weive been tossing around ideas for weeks, or at least since we ran the SCO Sues God story a week ago (that was just too timely to sit on it until today).
Alas, nothing grabbed me this year. None of the story ideas weive come up with have had enough punch. They were either too straight, too silly, or too obvious. So, instead of a real April Foolis story, we thought we would just share with you some of the ideas that we had. Accordingly, here are the 2004 April Foolis Stories that might have been:
Apple Comes To Its Senses, Announces That OS X 10.4 Will Feature Platinum Interface
"This Aqua thing just wasnit working out," said an excited Steve Jobs. "All this time, weive been sitting on a gold mine, or maybe we should call it a platinum mine...."
"Apple Shuts Its Doors After All, Cites Competition From Microsoft"
"Who are we kidding? Itis obvious that quality doesnit matter to the rest of the world," Steve Jobs said in a statement from the company. "Iive been beating my head on this whole iinsanely greati thing for what, three decades? Bah! Let them use Windows."
...and in one final snub to Microsoft, Apple released all of its software under the GPL.
Apple Adds Juice Bars To Apple Stores
Apple announced today a new addition to its fleet of retail stores today. The company is adding the Juice Bar to complement the Genius Bar in all but its small-format stores. The Juice Bars are expected to bring new customers into the stores, as well as adding a new revenue stream to the companyis retail efforts.
"It seems kind of obvious in hindsight," explained a company spokesperson in an exclusive interview with TMO. "People wander in to the Stores all the time thinking itis some kind of health food joint anyway. Why not capitalize on that?"
Apple Launches iDate Personals Service For .Mac
"iDate will let Mac people date each other," said Steve Jobs. "Everyone knows that Mac users are often more compatible."
"This makes sense. Itis nice to have a common interest with someone, and iDate makes it fun for Mac people. You instantly have something in common to talk about that takes a lot of the pressure off," one of the .Mac beta testers, Janie, stated.
One of the noted weakness is there is difficult in determining if the user really is a Mac users. An apple representative noted that "[the company] can track usage of .Mac through Web access. Obviously if youire using Safari, that makes things easier." One of the male users on the beta system joked "Yea, we donit want PC users getting at our Mac honeys."
(My personal favorite from this yearis crop)
Paul Thurrott Buys The Mac Observer
We are pleased to announce that after five years of operating under the name of The Mac Observer (and two years as Webintosh under Dan Hughes) that we have sold the company to Paul Thurrott of WinInformant and Internet-Nexus fame. Mr. Thurrott will immediately take over all day to day operations of TMO. Details of the deal were not disclosed.
"Dave and I have loved running The Mac Observer," said outgoing editor Bryan Chaffin, "but itis time to move on. What weive been waiting on is the right buyer to come along who would love the site as much as we did. Paul Thurrott is that man."
"Well, I finally decided it was time to confront my Apple addiction head on," says TMOis new owner, Paul Thurrott. "Heck, look at my home page. Thereis like 119 mentions of iApplei on it. I think everyone knew this was coming."
Alernate title/idea: TMO Hires Paul Thurrott For "Mac Man On The Street" Reports
For the record, we have no intention or desire to sell TMO, We love what we do, and we love the community that has grown up around this site.
Bryan
Editor
TMO