Apparently, Microsoft is just going to go ahead and pretend that this whole copying Apple thing is new.

According to a company e-mail swiped by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Ballmer pointed to Apple as a model for how the company should design its products. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell him that this is what Microsoft has been doing for the last 25 years or so...

Jokes aside, Ballmer's assessment is pretty right on:
In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we're changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We'll do the same with phones--providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.

Ballmer hits this one on the nose. Apple's greatest strength over the last ten years has been its ability to tailor the hardware and software to each other. Unfortunately, he also drops the ball by suggesting Microsoft can do the same.

Microsoft's problem is that it doesn't develop for one machine. Apple designs each version of the MacOS for maybe a dozen different supported Macintsoh models, all of which the company makes. When Apple wants to put a new feature in OS X, the company codes it in, ads drivers for the most recent MacBook/iMac/MacPro models, and presto.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has to craft each version of Windows for countless hardware vendors, devices, and industries. What made Windows the best-selling piece of software on the planet is now what hamstrings the company when it comes to improving it. Any radical new features require the cooperation of hundreds of other companies.

As is being shown by Vista, Windows is stuck under the massive weight of its own success. Making changes to OS X is like turning a speed boat. For Windows, it's more like turning an aircraft carrier.

For some reason, a TON of attention has been tossed the way of a company called "Open Tech."

The firm, which refuses to disclose its location, and its "legal team," one of whom refuses to give his full name when speaking to the press, are claiming to sell computers that can run OS X.

Unlike lawsuit magnet Psystar, however, these guys won't actually sell you a computer with OS X preinstalled, or pre-bundled. You have to install it yourself.

The machines are made up of PC hardware, come pre-installed with a PC operating system, but you have the option of installing OS X if you yourself want to violate Apple's EULA. Anyone familiar with the Hackintosh project knows exactly where I'm going with this.

You can do this exact same thing with pretty much any new PC. Every PC vendor in the world is unknowingly peddling the same type of "Mac clones" as Open Tech, only they don't advertise it.

To recap, these guys want you to send hundreds or even thousands of dollars to a company in parts unknown that may or may not exist, for a computer that may or may not exist (their "product" pages simply show photos of empty cases) when you can spend less to get essentially the same thing from your local computer store or simply build it yourself.

If it's not a complete scam, it's a pretty shady operation, and a bad deal without a doubt.

Word around town is that the Newton may be heading for a comeback of sorts.

For those of you too young to remember, the Newton was Apple's ill-fated early 90's attempt at a PDA. It had no buttons,featured a touch-screen (stylus) interface and sported handwriting recognition. It was a device ahead of its time and would have revolutionized the industry, had it not been for one small flaw.

It totally sucked.

The notoriously bad handwriting recognition on the Newton made the device more or less inoperable to most people and put it at number one on most people's list of Apple flops (though I'd personally bestow that honor on the 20th anniversary Mac.)

Anyways, yet another bout of rumors has a distant descendant of the Newton on the way from Apple. According to the super-secret source for MacDailyNews, the device is sort of like a full-screen iPhone (or maybe half a MacBook Air?) with tactile feedback and a Superdrive (though I find that one hard to buy, as Apple is moving to get rid of optical media devices in its portables.) Apple Insider has been claiming something like this is in the pipeline for a while now as well.

Certainly this device would be better than the Newton, build would it also have better luck in the marketplace? Tablets are not a huge market as it is, and Apple would have to fend with an established PC market as well. Even if it's better than any PC tablet, will it be able to get enough traction to be viable?

Lots of chatter lately over Microsoft's release of its game developer program.

Essentially, the Borg is allowing anyone willing to pay $100 a year to code and submit new games for the XBox. Assuming that the game doesn't suck, the company will then distribute the code through XBox Live and give the developer a 70% cut of any revenues.

Sound familiar to you? Well, you're not alone. More than a couple of vnunet.com readers pointed out that the marketplace sounds a lot like Apple's recently launched iTunes App Store, minus the subscription fee.

At first glance, you can chalk this up as yet another case of Apple innovating and Microsoft playing catch-up. You'll say that once again, Microsoft has to steal ideas that Apple came up with.

Of course, you'd be wrong.

Not on Microsoft copying the idea from someone else, that's extremely likely. But the App Store was far from being an innovation that sprang from Cupertino.

Salesforce.com, a web-based software firm whose current goal is to put every single piece of business software you own in a browser window, has been doing this for nearly 3 years, allowing developers to create new applications for its platform and sell or give them away to other users through an online marketplace.

Elements of the system go back even further. Services like Sourceforge allow independent developers to collaborate and distribute their projects online, and shareware companies like Ambrosia have a long history of picking up and distributing games from indie developers.

Hell, since the days of Doom there has been a huge unofficial market for first-person shooter mods and add-ons. Countless FPS platforms have relied on the ability to support third-party developers in order to sell. Second to online play, mods have been the driving force behind most of the big titles in the last 10 years.

So yeah, Microsoft copied someone, it just wasn't Apple. This time.

In case you've missed it with all the iPhone hoopla, Apple's computer business isn't doing too bad. In fact, Mac sales have gotten so strong that Apple has taken over as the third-largest PC vendor in the country.

According to Gartner, the company saw a 38 per cent boost in sales over the last quarter, moving Apple into the third overall spot behind uber-vendors HP and Dell.

What's more, things may only get better for the Mac and its backers. A recent order of circuit boards has fueled speculation that the company could be working on a new set of laptops, possibly new MacBooks for the back to school rush (though I wouldn't count out SSD-equipped MBPros either.)

Oh, and that whole cell phone thing Apple has on the side is doing pretty well too.

Apple is finally getting around to suing pseudo-Mac vendor Psystar, who has been producing OS X machines on PC hardware for a few months now.

This shouldn't be much of a case. Apple's pack of lawyers most certainly has a huge arsenal of broken agreements and patent infringements as well as more than enough time and muscle to bury an obscure system vendor/IT consulting service from Florida.

You have to wonder if Saint Steve might be getting soft in his old age, though. It wasn't but a few years ago that Apple was the most-feared intellectual property owner on the block. They went after people who copied their products, they went after people who copied their names. Hell, they'd go after you for suggesting to a friend that you want to name your new business after a piece of fruit.

Any poor soul who was selling anything that had "i" "pod" or a bright color in its name would get fired a cease-and-decist letter from Apple legal before they could even ship a box out of the garage.

These days, you have the suits in Cupertino just sitting on their duffs while Psystar makes Mac clones and Dell ships "Dock" software and Samsung even has the audacity to strut around with a phone that has a touch-screen.

Yep, someone over at Apple legal is getting real soft...

When we last left off, MacInspector was raking Apple across the coals for its handling of the iPhone 3G release. Now that we've vented on what went wrong, I guess it's time to make amends with the mothership and talk about what went right this weekend.

Even despite all the shortages, outages, and general headaches, Apple and its partners managed to move some one million handsets in less than three days. That's pretty impressive by anyone's standards, but its nearly mind-blowing when you consider that the first iPhone took all of 74 days to hit that milestone.

Yes, iPhone 2007 was only released in the States at first and yes, it was a first generation product, but you still have to be impressed with the voracity with which people still go after the JesusPhone.

And it's not just the iPhone that had a good weekend. The iTunes/iPhone/iPod Touch app store is also quite popular. Seems that the online market has already served its ten-millionth application.

It does appear, however, that Apple will probably be the only ones getting stinking rich off of the new store. Around a quarter of the apps are being distributed for free, and only around 80 or so of the 800+ applications have an asking price higher than ten dollars.

If you can get your iPhone up and running, this is going to be a pretty good time for you.

Surprise surprise, it turns out that if millions of people around the planet try and do the same thing at the same time, it causes a bit of a traffic jam.

Reportedly, Apple reps are telling customers here in the States that the issues are the fault of AT&T.; In the UK, Apple store staffers are blaming the issues on 02's inability to handle registration over there. Rogers customers in Canada also had issues. iPhone 1.0 users are struggling to get their new software updates installed as well, and we're not sure who that's getting blamed on as Apple PR has put up the stone wall; not one of the four iPhone contacts would return our emails seeking comment.

Perhaps there was a simultaneous failure by each of the three carriers, stranger things have happened. Still, how does Apple allow each of its carriers in some of the largest markets in the world to be so woefully under prepared? After AT&T; buckled last year, you'd have to think both Apple and the carriers would make sure each phone company had the muscle, or at least a good plan in place, to handle the rush.

One carrier folds, bad on the phone company. All carriers fold, bad on Apple.

Right now, however, I have my doubts that each of the phone companies bombed. What seems far more likely at this point is that the common point in each of these four disasters is at fault: iTunes.

How in the world does a company decide to launch a product in nearly two dozen countries on the same day and not expect said service to take a major hit? Going worldwide on the same day might have been a nice claim to make at the last keynote, but it created an absolute logistical nightmare.

Apple could have done this gradually, holding a grand "iPhone Week" in which a new part of the globe got a release every day. Heck, they could have released to a new part of the world each week over a month and still sold these things like hotcakes.

Apple loves simplicity, and right now it looks like that simplicity tossed a big bowl of egg right back into Apple's face. One button, one carrier, one service, one point of failure, one big orgy of frustration.

Carriers or iTunes? Does it matter? Either way, the blame falls in Cupertino. Regardless of where the breakdown occurred, a screw-up on this scale has to be traced back to Apple. No matter how you spin it, they messed up, and they messed up bad.

As if the rollout of the new iPhone and AppStore weren't reason enough for Steve Jobs to celebrate, the Apple head honcho got even more reason to celebrate today when reports began to surface that the Department of Justice was formally ending its backdating probe.

For those of you with short memories, the probe centered around stock options awarded to Jobs and other Apple execs around the begining of the decade. When suspicion arose that the options may have been purposely back-dated to give a better price, the feds got involved.

Ultimately, the SEC charged and cut a deal with former CFO Fred Anderson and general council Nancy Heinen.

Save for a single class action lawsuit filed by stockholders, the matter is just about over with for St. Steve and company.

It had to end sometime. One of the great pieces of satire to ever hit the blogosphere is shutting down. Ladies and gentlemen, Fake Steve Jobs is no more.

The final few posts cap two plus years of The Secret Diaries of Steve Jobs, a sorta-fictional account of the life and times of the Apple CEO and silicon valley in general.

Creator Dan Lyons officially announced the demise of the blog today with a fittingly vague and only slighty coherent rant topped off by one of Fake Steve's trademark misattributed quotes. Gossip site Valleywag claims that Lyons killed the blog out of fear that Real Steve was not long for this world, but it probably his a little more to do with Lyons' move from Forbes (which owns the blog) to Newsweek.

I could fill up several pages and a few hours of work with a long gushing rant about how wonderfully FSJ skewered the tech world on a regular basis. But instead, I'll let the blog speak for itself with a collection of some of my favorite FSJ quotes...

On Google:
They're going to look like a bunch of spoiled coddled self-involved Lego-playing 20-somethings who have free massages and dry cleaning and groovy ethnic food and have been turned loose with no adult supervision to do whatever the **** they want, and who all are suffering from acute Attention Deficit Disorder so that they never finish anything because they get bored and move on to the next stupid idea that some bozo has dreamed up on a white board. You know why they're going to look like that? Because that's what they are.

On the ill-fated Microsoft/Yahoo deal
It's like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they'll run faster.

Fake Steve on the iPhone launch
To those of you who serve under me at Apple, I say this: Yes, I have berated you, and insulted you, and exasperated you. Yes, I've fired your friends for no reason, and made you work harder than you ever thought you could work. Yes, I've taken you away from your spouses, your children, your transgendered domestic partners. In some cases your devotion to me has cost you your marriages. You've sacrificed a great deal for this. But has it not been worth it? For the rest of your life, you'll be able to say that you were working at Apple when the iPhone was introduced. You were here on the day when the course of human history was changed forever. Plus, you'll get a free 4-gigabyte iPhone, a $500 value. Not bad, right?

And finally, Fake Steve on Real Steve's management style
Keep them guessing. Keep them afraid. Otherwise they get complacent. Creativity springs from fear. Think of a painter, or a writer, or a composer working furiously in his studio, afraid he's going to starve to death if he doesn't get this piece of work just right. That's where greatness comes from. Well, same goes for engineers and designers at Apple and Pixar. They come in every day knowing it could be their last day. They work like hell, trust me.

Namaste, Dan Lyons, and best of luck. I honor the place where your blog and my adulation become one.

.

It seems the iPhone queue has become America's answer to Speakers' Corner.

Most of the UK readers are already familiar with the centuries' old Hyde Park tradition, but for those of you that aren't, I'll explain. Every Sunday, a gaggle of Londoners gather in a corner of the park and open a free speaking forum. Anyone with any sort of crazy outlook is invited to climb up on their soapbox and pontificate on the state of affairs in front of a large crowd.

AM radio and the blogosphere aside, the US doesn't really have a public forum dedicated to letting the loud and passionate be heard, so Americans have adopted one of their own: the iPhone line.

A pack of enterprising environmental activists are trying to get their mugs on the news by setting up camp for iPhone 3G a full week before its release. The group's aims are, among other things, building an organic farm on the front lawn of the White House.

Sustainable agriculture aside, this shows just how big Apple's product releases have become. Last year it was golfing clowns, this year it's media-savvy hippies. The iPhone generates so much attention that its lines have transcended the usual tech gaggle of devoted fanboys and eBay entrepreneurs and become a place to get seen.

Perhaps it's because Apple's products are no longer considered strictly technology products, but rather some sort of mixture of gadget, personal appliance and fashion accessory. The appeal goes beyond the terminally hip and those obsessed with shiny new toys and reaches out to even the mildly-wired and casually fashionable as a cool thing to have.

Whether this will have any lasting impact for Apple remains to be seen; the fickle nature of fashion and the short lifespan of even the most iconic gadgets leads one to believe that the phenomena will die out long before the company can take over the world. Still, Steve Jobs has to pleased to see just how far his computer company has penetrated into pop culture.

Next week's launch of the iPhone 3G will also bring the debut of the iPhone in the land down under.

Apple has revealed that it will be teaming up with Aussie telco firm Telstra to launch the new iPhone on the only country that's also a continent. The guys over at Gizmodo Australia will be pumped, no doubt.

Telstra will be selling the iPhone models for $279 and $399 if you sign up for their $30 monthly Next G package. However, you can get it for free if you spring for the $80 or $100 monthly plans.

Used to be that the Apple fanboy pack was a grassroots affair lead by the usual suspects: hobbyists, students, and freelance creative types. Now, we have a new pack of Mac enthusiasts espousing the platform, and these cats are all business.

Dubbed "Enterprise Desktop Alliance," the group consists of five vendors whose main job is to get the Mac integrated in as many businesses as possible. Some of the members include virtualization firm Parallels and identity management specialist Centrify.

Though they will no doubt be pushing their own products, the group could be useful to some IT managers who are constantly being pestered by Mac-using employees who want to be integrated into the network. A set of best practices and papers on leveraging Macs into corporate networks could solve quite a few headaches.