I’m convinced that nobody actually works at Apple aside from Steve Jobs and a handful of highly trained rhesus monkeys imported to assemble computers in a Cupertino sub-basement. How to explain all those people seen at trade shows milling about in Apple apparel? Actors. Avie Tevanian? An animatronic robot brought to you by the same Disney and Pixar imagineers responsible for The Hall of Presidents, Buzz Lightyear, and Al Gore. So what does this have to do with anything? Apple, otherwise known as Steve Jobs, needs a good kick in the pants, at least metaphorically. Unfortunately, he’s not going to get one.
At Apple Expo Paris, a consortium of ticked-off U.K. Mac users were planning to disrupt Jobs’s keynote with a rousing rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” two crates of ancient, rotting, meat pies, and a gaggle of System 7 floppies. Personally, I was looking forward to what would happen when one of those rotten meat pies met up with our intrepid man in Paris, Philip Michaels. But alas, the revolution was nullified.
The protest — which in all honesty included no meat pies, floppies, or songs sung by naked guys on deserted islands — centered around U.K. Mac users’ dissatisfation with Apple for discontinuing the British English version of Mac OS, and Apple’s heavy handed legal tactics in dealing with fan sites such as Mac Cards. But instead of stepping up to the plate and slam-dunking an American English iMac down Jobs’s throat, the protestors opted instead to punt after meeting with high-ranking Apple U.K. executives.
Fools, say I. Don’t you understand that there are no high-ranking Apple executives other than Steve Jobs? Having just read Alan Deutschman’s unauthorized biography The Second Coming of Steve Jobs , I’m convinced that Apple is made up of only two types of people: lackeys and Steve Jobs. If you want to get Apple’s attention, you’ve got to get Steve to notice you, and what better way to do that than by disrupting one of his beloved keynote addresses?
Fools, I say again. Your petty revolt makes even the Big Brother protest seem full of valor and resolve. You could have accomplished something, such as having had one of your demands met. Or at the very least, you could have gotten Steve’s attention. Who knows, you might have made him curious enough to direct your concerns downward to one of his minions who would have gone scurrying about in a vain attempt to mollify Mr. Jobs and thusly U.K. Mac Users. Instead you got a $30 beta, new iBooks, and turned away at the door, just like the rest of us.