SuicideGirls co-founder Missy will sit down with Kevin Pereira to discuss Apple's recent removal of the SuicideGirls: Flip Strip application from Apple's iTunes store on today's episode of Attack of the Show on G4.

The application was recently removed along with about 5,000 other overtly sexual apps, in accordance with apple's new content guidelines. No definition of those guidelines have been published as of yet.

SuicideGirls Flip Strip App was based on the classic nudie pen concept -- with a high tech twist. It was a cheeky little program, featuring models who stripped down to their underwear when the user's iPhone was inverted, but displayed no actual nudity. The Flip Strip became the fourth most popular free iPhone App at the iTunes store following its release in May 2009. It garnered over 1 million downloads in a matter of days, with total downloads exceeding 5 million before the app was pulled.





Currently you may still download Seduce A SuicideGirl, as well as Playboy's application, but several apps from Maxim have been removed.

Tune into G4 at 7PM EST to hear Missy's thoughts on the removal.



**Update**

The fabulous folks at Gizmodo have apparently got hold of Apple's new puzzlingly puritanical guidelines, and they make for pretty hilarious reading:

SG particularly likes the ban on men in bikinis. At least this policy is an equal opportunities FAIL. Check Gizmodo's original story for more mockery/details.

**Updade**

Watch Missy on Attack of the Show here.

A few years ago a friend was showing me his tattoos at a geeky event I organized. He turned around, pulled down his collared shirt -- and my eyes popped out of my skull. He had a DB-9 port tattooed to the back of his neck. He then proceeded to show me other parts of his body as that wasn’t his only “geeky” tattoo. A few months later I met a friend’s wife who had her name tattooed on her arm -- in binary code. It wrapped her arm like a bracelet of ones and zeros. These geeky tattoos were few and far between, so I went in search of tattoos of the geeky kind. Here's a tour of some of my favorites.

The Transistor

As I mentioned, the first geeky tattoo I saw was on the body of my friend, Eric Gradman. He’s the one with the DB-9 port on the back of his neck. “I got this tattoo at a time when lots of people were getting barcodes on the back of their necks. I have a bit of an aversion to permanent numeric ID markers.”

He tells the story of how he got another one. “I'd been drinking at Zeitgeist in San Francisco for about 7 hours when we decided to get tattoos. Transistors are in every piece of electronics we use and their discovery revolutionized the world. Nobody really uses BJT transistors anymore; they use FETs (which use a different schematic symbol) but the BJT symbol is so classy. Even hippies smile when they see it, mistakenly believing that it stands for world unity.”

011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001

I’ll bet you know what language the above is–- but I’ll also bet you can’t read it (hint). Lots of people get binary tattoos with their name or special words. The only problem with binary is the quantity of ones and zeros. After researching geeky tattoos on Flickr, I found some very simple binary art that I particularly liked. “I am a geeky person," explains Robert Maki, whose body it belonged to. "Since I love computers and people call me a geek, I decided to get it tattooed on me, in the most primal language of computers.”

Love in 3D

Meg Watcher's tech-head body art is also some that I stumbled across on Flickr. She has a traditional Mom and Dad in a heart on her arm –- with one very cool twist -- it’s tattooed in 3D red/blue lines. “I really liked the look of old-school offset red and blue 3D drawings and wanted to get it done in tattoo form,” Meg told me. I got out my 3D glasses (which I have on my desk) and spied it through the blue and red shades -- and it looked pretty good. If you have a pair of shades, get em out and see for yourself.

Showing the <3

A friend of a friend of mine (thanks for introducing us Joz), Ed Morita, writes a blog on baking and his pastry creations make my mouth water. Earlier this year, Morita asked his readers to help him decide where to get a tattoo featuring the Wordpress logo. “I have been a blogger in some form or another since 2004, and five years is a long time to be using any sort of brand. WordPress has been a big part of my life, and like other big things in my life I think that it is time for me to get inked.” (See photo.)

My Bar Camp LA buddy Jason Cosper wanted to show his love for Apple but only to fellow Apple lovers. “Why get an Apple logo when you can get something that the really hardcore people will get? Also, it's easier to explain it away as a simple Celtic knot when people I don't want to talk to ask about it.” (See photo.)

Fellow Bar Camper Jeremy Kitchen has two Linux tattoos. His first is the classic penguin, “Tux” holding a sign that reads “1337.”

“I was 19, wanted a tattoo, was very gung-ho about Linux, and thought it might be cool.” Last month, he convinced co-worker Terri Haber to join him in his second Linux themed tattoos. His image of choice: Tuz -- the new Linux logo, which was changed to bring awareness to a rare disease that kills Tasmanian Devils.

Time traveling

Our final geek tattooist comes inked with so much good stuff I don’t know where to start. How about with the inside lip tattoo of “geek” (showcasing his inner geek!). What about the yin/yang Tron circuitry on his forearms? The Atari console with green screen and punch cards? The Flux Capacitor? And I can’t forget the Logan’s Run Jewel on his palm? I’d like to introduce fellow SG member: FEJ

In homage to his Dad, FEJ has a complicated tattoo of an Atari console, punch cards, green screen and Dad tattooed in 8-bit binary on his arm.

“Dad had punchcards around the office when I was a kid. I remember seeing them and wondering about them, and as I got older, admiration for him being able to use them in the early days of programming. He worked for Rockwell which made the eProms for the Atari and Activision game cartridges. We had a modified 'Adventure' cartridge with s eProm quick release that allowed us to change games that way. We got games almost a year before they were released.”

And the Flux Capacitor? “One day it just popped into my head (I didn't fall and hit my head on the sink) and knew. Those that know what it is always point it out.”

My favorite of all the tattoos in this article is FEJ's Logan’s Run palm jewel. In this future world, to combat overpopulation and consumption, everyone reaching a certain age is killed. “When someone turned 29, the jewel in their palm glowed and they are supposed to go to 'Carousel' and ultimately be executed in the ceremony. Those that fought the system became 'Runners' and went looking for 'Sanctuary.' I like to think of myself as a 'Runner' on the constant spiritual journey looking for 'Sanctuary'”

Heathervescent is a writer, technology consultant and agent of cacophony. She was unable to find a tattoo of Cronenberg’s back port from eXistenZ and was constantly distracted by this collection of the worst Unicorn tattoos! You can read more of her adventures at heathervescent.com and follow her @heathervescent

Last week San Francisco played host to the Macworld Conference & Expo, the culmination of weeks of rumors and speculation that had the gadget-obsessed teetering on the brink of sanity.

Fake Steve Jobs said it best:

If you're pressed for time, the luscious Veronica Belmont (a title given to her by FSJ which I am further propagating) posted a video of the keynote, compressing the 90 minute presentation into 60 seconds.



The big announcement was of course the MacBook Air, which I found a little underwhelming as I really couldn't see its niche. The general consensus is that you can tell what Apple will release by trying to find holes in its product line. It's clear that there was a need for a device more portable than a MacBook and more functional than the iPhone. The industry was speculating everything from a sub-notebook, to a tablet, to a combination thereof.

It was assumed that after the recent release of the Eee PC by Asus, the Taiwanese manufacturer that supplies many of the components for Apple's laptops, that something similar would pop up with an Apple badge, nicer aesthetics, and a premium price tag.

Instead what we received was not so much a sub-notebook, but an anorexic MacBook. The laptop has a similar footprint to Apple's current laptops, yet could readily be considered a downgrade in almost every way except weight, thickness, and the multi-touch track pad. Merlin Mann of 43folders hit the nail on the head: "MacBook Air got small on the least interesting axis to me."

So who is this for? It's not meant to be a primary machine, and even as a secondary machine it doesn't deliver as much as a MacBook Pro for slightly more money or the MacBook for considerably less. It's great "if you're kinda rich and want a fourth computer," quipped Merlin.

That's pretty much the target audience. "I already ordered mine" said Dave Sifry, founder of Technorati, hours after the keynote. It seems if you want a Mac, aren't too worried about the price tag or its inherent drawbacks compared to other laptops in its class (a travel laptop that doesn't allow you to change batteries?) then this is the laptop for you.

Gizmodo seems to have the same view, exemplified by this excerpt from an interview with Mike Abary, senior vice president of VAIO product marketing:

So there's your new Mac. Except Macworld really isn't about Macs anymore, is it? In fact, Macworld hasn't been about Macs for several years now thanks to Apple's resurgence in other markets.

Previous Macworld events had turned into iPod trade shows, with cases and accessories making up a significant chunk of the exhibitor list. Last year was completely devoid of Macs, with all attention being paid to the iPhone with a little Apple TV thrown in.

To give credit where it's due, there was more of a Mac presence this year. "I expected an iPhone show" said famous Photoshopper Bert Monroy while guest hosting on This Week in Tech, "but there was a return to a lot of Mac software". Leo Laporte, host of This Week in Tech agreed, "Microsoft released Office 2008, Intuit was here" referring to two companies that have historically been dragging their feet updating their Mac software.

There was also a respectable showing of Mac games, actually warranting their own pavilion this year. Aspyr Media won a Macworld Best of Show for its port of Guitar Hero III, and also demoed The Sims. CCP Games showed off EVE Online, and EA showed off Spore, though sadly you could only create characters. Not an impressive showing, but it was nice to see.

Aside from that however it's clear that Apple is focusing away from the Mac. In the last five years there have only been three new Macs introduced to the market; the MacBook Air this week, the MacBook in 2006, and the Mac mini in 2005. Despite changes to their names and internal components, Apple's professional laptops and desktops have remained fundamentally unchanged since 2003. Five years is a long time in the computer industry, and even longer for Apple.

The other announcements made by Apple this year further reflect this, with software updates to both the iPhone and Apple TV, the stars of last year's Expo - more underwhelming news from Apple, the updates having been long rumored and lacking in anything groundbreaking.

Movie rentals at $2.99 for old titles, $3.99 for new releases, and $4.99 for HD titles are coming to the iTunes Store and the Apple TV. The prices and selection are competitive compared to Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, but fall short Netflix's offering.

Netflix stole some of Apple's thunder when it announced unlimited streaming access to all of its unlimited plan customers. Netflix's unlimited plans start at $8.99, which means for less than the price of two HD movies on iTunes you can have unlimited streaming access on Netflix. Netflix also offers 6000 titles for streaming, six times more than Apple's for-rent selection.

It seems then that Netflix is right on Apple's tail, offering more bang for your buck with similar services. However, other companies that have tried to compete with Apple have failed in one crucial area: getting content away from the computer and onto televisions and portable devices. Apple has the Apple TV and an install base of 100+ million iPods and 4 million iPhones. Netflix's service doesn't event work on Macs, much less other devices.

Netflix did make an announcement earlier in the month about a set top box built by LG Electronics that will deliver movies to HDTVs at no additional cost, save the price of the box itself. However it won't be available until at least the second quarter, and is still a far cry from Apple's offering.

Engadget sees this as a sign that the two companies, despite having similar strategies for bringing digital media to the consumer, are aiming at different audiences.

One thing remains clear, with products from Apple, Netflix, TiVo (via a collaboration with Amazon's Unbox), Microsoft, and the critically well received upstart VUDU, digital distribution has become a viable alternative to traditional outlets like TV and hard copy rentals and this makes the Writers Guild strike all the more poignant.

Our own FearTheReaper had this to say about the recent announcements.

But Apple TV's newfound features aren't just a game changer for current studio produced content. They lower the hurdle for new user-generated content as well. Apple TV now allows you to subscribe to podcasts without the need for a computer at all, leap frogging TiVo's own announcement about supporting HD podcasts later this quarter.

There was a strong focus on podcast training at Macworld this year. An entire studio was set up for the purpose of podcast production. Dozens of sessions were made available to attendees on how to raise the quality of production, how to connect with musicians and other artists to collaborate on projects, and how to monetize and market what you produce.

We're likely to see this trend continue as the line between podcasts and traditional programming becomes blurred. Again FTR offered some poignant thoughts.

There are already several well-produced shorts that exist only on the internet, and with the current mood of content producers towards studios, this strike could be the best thing that ever happened to digital distribution.

Another part of Macworld this year that had absolutely nothing to do with Macs was Web 2.0's presence. Pownce, the microblogging social network, held its launch party on Wednesday, celebrating its launch on January 22. Meanwhile, TechCrunch held its inaugural Crunchies, an award ceremony celebrating internet startups and innovators on Friday.

"I'm surprised there aren't more Web 2.0 companies exhibiting this year," said blogger Robert Scoble, "Google was one of the most popular booths." Indeed it was, and that was only partly due to them giving out Google socks, the only swag I relented on. As the line between desktop applications and web applications blurs we will see more exhibitors showing web only products.

It's clear that this show has become more than a gathering of Apple fanboys drooling over the latest toys from their favorite company. Just as Steve Jobs has transformed Apple from a computer manufacturer to a vehicle for digital production and distribution, so has the conference and the people who attend it.

AceT apologizes for the tardiness of this article, he was excitedly doing things and meeting people you probably couldn't care less about.

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

Mac Creates Best Platform For Porn

Despite the disparities over the new OSX version, many seem to agree that it's the best UI for viewing porn. A new comic from the Joy of Tech outlines the ins and outs of getting the most out of your Mac. From using Quick Look to glance at desktop cuties or Time Machine to find those deleted photos of an ex-girlfriend, the new interface enhances your intimate photos. OSXXX may soon be a reality at the current pace of porn and technology, but would a Porn Genius Bar really look like something straight out of the '70s?

Progressive Dating Sites Encourage STD Education And Support

STDs are an unfortunate reality to dating and social networking today. A couple of sites are dedicated to shed light on the subject while protecting and respecting online privacy (unlike Facebook's recent fumbles). Two recent examples:

PositiveFriends is a network more geared to those living with STDs and the education thereof. By setting up various privacy settings depending on comfort level as well as the ability to blur profile photos so as to remain anonymous, the site lets users cozy up to the service on their own time.

Woman Strips For Weather Station

Okay, okay, she's just digital, but it's always fun to play with pocket-sized gadgets. The Stripping Weather Girl Station isn't exactly turning on any of the gadget blogs (which says a mouthful), but it might be a cute PG-rated gift to put in the stockings this year. It's fairly simple: it gets warm, she strips, it gets hot, she strip, it gets cold, she still wears a mini dress and heels. There were so many clever routes this could have taken. A gadget that could get heterosexual guys hard while advising women what to wear based on the weather would definitely have some kind of a demand.

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

Kelly Bares All For Leopard Unboxing

No doubt, by now you've seen all the unboxing and read all the bitching about the recently released Leopard Mac OSX. While we've yet to screw with our system, KellysArcade has seemingly done just that. Stripping down for her system upgrade, Kelly took photos of her Mac fangirl fetish and provided us with quite the fleshy photo album. We can't help but concur with Fleshbot, these might be the sexiest set of unboxing photos we've seen.

Mobile Phones Attempt to Fend Off Feel Ups

With a rise in train riders with wandering fingers, feel ups have become a problem for many female commuters in Japan. The "Anti-Groping Appli" is a mobile phone application that flashes threatening text-based messages and sounds at potential perverts. With messages like "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" "Groping is a crime," and "Shall we head to the police?", the phone attempts to be an anti-social object for women who don't want the "hassle" to be heard. We'd recommend a quick elbow to the gut instead before grabbing for your phone.

Risque Facebook Application Goes IRL

Naughty Gifts is one of the most used applications among Facebook fetishists. Gifts like blue balls, whipped cream and pearl necklaces are given as virtual play things for other profiles.

Going.com, the creator of the craze, is now taking the toy teasing to a series of IRL parties, from San Francisco to New York. The events are sure to be interesting, as giving ball gags as gifts might be best left for behind glowing screens. [via]

TRUE FACT: No matter how mundane, or even disagreeable, the product or idea in question is, even the most stalwart can be persuaded with logic swathed in a slammin' rhythm. Everything is better when it comes with a rap song.

Bill Gates knew this years ago. As he sat atop his desk in 1985, looking all young and saucy with his tousled hair and his glasses off, perhaps he dreamed of a different career path, penning seductive slow jams to woo the ladies. Perhaps, though he dreamed, he knew that his lot in life had no room for side projects. Instead, he sought to release his clandestine desires through other outlets; time, however, had other ideas --curdling his grooves with the bitter sarcasm and irony of love lost, until they became something like the 1990 MS-DOS-hawking gem I came across yesterday:



Perhaps the heart of this story falls along the divide that exists in subsequent geeks everywhere -- MCs Lars and Frontalot (and dare I say Kanye West?) and the like to the left; Insouciant Hoarders of Elite Indie Minutiae to the desk of an oddly Michael Cera-esque Steve Jobs on the right. If anything, it would help to explain the Microsoft-sponsored rhymes that followed for years to come. (Don't copy that floppy, anyone?)

Normally, I wouldn't have even brought this up as news -- it's just science. But it seems to be making news all on its own nonetheless. That the heart of a geek burns funky fresh is as true now as it's ever been, marked most pointedly at the moment by a certain current cheeseburger ad featuring a Jamie Kennedy-meets-Beastie Boys power duo spitting double entendre rhymes in order to build a mental link between toasted rye bread and a bite of especially spicy (if not quite Rubenesque) ass. One might argue that there's nothing particularly geeky about cheeseburgers per se, but the commercial itself is nothing less: true to the form of its MS-DOS predecessor, it is set in a classroom, only this time wacky professors and doo-wop dancers are traded in for higher learning of Van Halen proportions. And by proportions, I mean 36-24-36. And therein lies the problem.

See, it seems that some people don't know how or when to pick their battles. Eager to squelch the carnal, carnivorous desires of lonely teenage boys everywhere, hordes of angry good samaritans are inciting a national outcry to pull the ad.

Welp. We must really be doing great if this is the most offensive thing we have to worry about, am I right?

My little sister, who has more common sense and a better sense of humor than a good deal of adults, knows all the words to that damn commercial. She will shout the whole thing at random, and a couple days ago she called me up just to ask if, in anatomy class, I got a "butt-minus." Even though the correct answer is dial tone, it doesn't make it any less hilarious. Of course, we seem to be in the minority here, and it wouldn't be a true trivial outrage if our own little city didn't weigh in heavily, making the whole thing that much more especially fascinating to me. I can't help but wonder if so much of the hostility is rooted in the bitter rivalry that comes with being the birthplace of regional favorite Jack in the Box, who started selling flat-bunned sourdough burgers years ago, but deep down I know it's just the kind of knee-jerk "outrage!" reaction that makes San Diego the greatest voice of the nation.

I thought I heard more sirens than usual last night -- the waaahmbulances must be running full-tilt. Personally, I think someone's just bitter that it's not Diamond Dave doing the ogling. Not that I blame them, because who can argue with that guy? But naturally, the only positive or even neutral -- "Why do people take trivial things like commercials so seriously?" -- feedback comes from denizens of the nefarious "downtown" area, a bacterial hotbed full of dastardly young liberals getting their Lulz by blighting the cozy little city's good name with their irreverent defiance. (Which I guess is why I moved there.)

So here's the thing: who gives a shit about Carl's Jr patty melts? (Or Hardee's patty melts, to all you Easterner heathens.) No one, it's just a damn sandwich. At least, it was until you thousands of losers started complaining about it. Now, like a gangster rapper talking shit with a gun cocked, it's a sandwich with publicity. It's a brilliant advertising technique, plain and simple, and all dates back to the original true fact: even the most boring item can generate interest the minute it busts a move. Case closed.


_DictionaryGirl_, as a matter of consequence, frequently busts a move. Despite this, she subscribes to the Elite Hoarders of the Mac Order. She is an enigma.

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

Spin The Bottle With A Circuit Board

It's only fitting that all the good ol' games get updated for the new generation of hormonally-frustrated tweens. Flirtation through mobile phones can only get you so far, thus an electronic version of "spin the bottle" was created. Designed to help kick off that first kiss that you've been waiting your whole decade of life for, this toy uses sounds and lights to alert you. At 17 quid (we're guesstimating double that in dollars), it may be hard to justify your hard-earned milk money on making out, but desperate times may call for desperate measures.

Roomba Increases Suction, No Word Yet on Woomba

Robotic Roombas continue to be all the rage among open interface fans. Announced recently on Amazon, the new 560 Roombas are in. Features include an anti-tangle technology as well as infrared beams for setting up invisible barriers. While the shiny new robot is all exciting, we were a little disappointed to not see any Woomba integration in this model. Woomba, you know, "the robot that cleans your business". Perhaps if we poke our fellow hacker friends enough, they'll help make the little pink robot a reality.


Nerds On Desks

Totally dreamy, Nerds On Desks seems to be the latest (give or take a couple decades) tech fetish craze that we can only hope turns into a Flickr meme. Boing Boing points to the paired Bill Gates and Steve Jobs photos. The starry-eyed CEOs pose to our dorky delight. A quick tag search reveals that no one has yet to satiate this tech fetish meme, but as true geeks, we're used to disappointment.

Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.

gPod Vibrates To Your Voice

Voice activated and vibrating, the gPod makes you giddy to gyrate. The mobile-friendly moan-maker is apparently "designed to respond automatically to sounds picked up by an accompanying handset, which can plug into anything from a telephone to a music player to a television." You know, like the miFlower gadget that came out last year, minus the rave dance of reactions. The dildo will dance, however, operating on the same sound waves as voice. At $243 a "pop", the device debuted in suburban Tokyo's first-ever sex toy expo, Adult Treasure 2007. While the gPod was a Japanese hit, Apple was a bit more jaded. After the adult toy company applied for trademarks, Apple asked them to cease use of the gPod name. The name is a conjunction of G-Spot and "jii", the Japanese word for masturbation. The Japanese company has refused Apple's advances and is ready to cat-fight it out in court.

Toothbrush Actively Gives Oral Feedback

Don't you wish everything you put in your mouth wasn't shy to shout out a little feedback? Oral-B's latest mission in your mouth is the Triumph toothbrush with SmartGuide. The tongue tickler comes equipped with an embedded microchip that communicates your "techniques" to a LCD, which tells you if you're playing your pearly whites too hard or to desperately "don't stop" if you haven't been brushing long enough. Oral-B claims it's "like having a dentist with you in the bathroom", but we'd much prefer a MD in our mouth.

Bots Outperform Boyfriends

Lusting in the labs, a team of individuals developed a series of bots that actively interact with "complex relationships". Dubbed GlowBots, the tech toys generate attractive patterns affected by both user and inter-robot interaction. Engadget elaborates, "the technology within is based on an open experimental robot platform, dubbed e-Puck, and the actual robots utilize "eight IR proximity sensors, a camera, a trio of microphones, three-axis accelerometer, a speaker, two stepper motors, Bluetooth interface, a number of LEDs, a PIC micro controller, and a 12-step-mode selector" to confess their love". Though these LED love-bots may be guilty of polluting the air with emo emissions, their three-axis accelerometers most likely have more heart than your recent hookup.

So I was up super early Saturday morning in order to score EDC tickets from a contest on 90.7fm KPFK-Los Angeles* which meant I was able to scoop up the Los Angeles Times right as it hit my doorstep. As I skimmed through the paper on my way to the oh-so-important Comics section, an article on the front page of the Business section concerning the launch of the highly anticipated iPhone caught my eye. Upon finishing the article I had to stop and fucking hate every rich fucker that got an iPhone this weekend with every inch of my soul.

Apparently the queues posted out side of Apple stores across the nation were filled with even more lameness than the PS3 launch. Not only were there your typical way-too-well-off 16-year-olds planning to flip them on eBay for an insane markup, but the lines were also heavily seasoned with corporate brown-nosers and executive slaves.

Now I'm a big nerd so I've stood in line for a whole plethora of things, including tickets for opening night of Star Wars Ep III** and the launch of the Wii***. There is something noble about braving the queue for a movie/product launch. The trials one faces in line; be it having to withstand the unbearable cold or insane heat, put up with the passing hecklers, or, depending how ruthless the people standing in line are, having to hold a piss in for an ungodly amount of time, make it oh so sweet when that shining moment happens and you become one of the first people on the planet to own that shiny new gadget. Not only do you have the god damn thing, but you got a story to go along with it and in some cases, battle scars even.

That is why I was so nauseated with the content of that LA Times article. This launch wasn't about how cool this little fucking contraption is at all, it was about status amongst other rich douchsacks. It was about earning “brownie points” with your boss. It was a complete perversion of a time honored tradition with in the geek community. It's just as bad as those fuckers on Xbox Live that pay for unlockables and achievement points instead of actually earning them. It's going to be so hard to look at an iPhone owner now and not think that they are a complete poser. Then again, considering the price of Apple products, early adopters usually tend to be smug assholes.

My heart goes out to those poor bastards that put themselves though business school, spending late nights writing thesis papers and studying for exams in hope to land that dream job with a big time firm but wind up being some chode stuffed in a suit's line monkey.

To all of you that stood in line this last weekend to get an iPhone for your own personal use, I wish nothing but prosperity for you and your little wonder device. May your dropped calls be minimal.

To those of you that sent your assistants to wait in the boiling heat, I hope the over hyped piece of shit bricks out with the first firmware update.

-Girthy realized while standing in line for a Wii last November that beer was a bad choice. A catheter would have been a helpful, although abhorrent, accessory.

*which wound up being successful, and the event it's self was sick as fuck.
**meh, now that I look back on it, but at the time it was awesome, more than likely due to the psilocybin mushrooms I consumed prior to entering the theater.
***still to this day, the best investment I ever made.

For Pete's sake, can't you kids stay off of the MySpace for ten minutes? Is that really too much to ask? If you want to talk to your friends at the mall so badly, why don't you just go to the mall with your friends? And does the world really need another pensive webcam shot of your floppy hair? But no, apparently you can't handle that kind of self-control, and now Mac Stores have to go all Mom on your ass and put you on time-out.

Yes, MySpace – and only MySpace (thus far) – has been banned from access at Apple Stores, as a way to deal with a problem that has apparently been going on for some time now. It seems that kids would come into the stores and basically just screw around all day.

Personally, I find this mind-boggling. Hours! I'm assuming these are kids who either do not have computers at home, or whose parents are sick of MySpace and have blocked it there, but either way the end result is the same. Think of it like kids going into Hot Topic and taking pictures of themselves trying on new outfits for hours a day, not actually buying anything, but tying up space and merchandise for people who otherwise might have. If I worked there, I'd be pretty exasperated, too. Who needs it?

So yeah, I'm siding with Apple on this one. I mean really, there has to be something better to do out there than mull about Mac Stores and be obnoxious on the internet. That's what home is for. Now, get off my lawn!


_DictionaryGirl_ spent her last trip to the Genius Bar amusing herself with YouTube, but figures that, with a completely-fried hard drive, Apple owes her at least that much.

In a move that will disappoint many, Apple has announced the newest iteration of OS X, Leopard, will be delayed up to four months.

Citing the need for developers to focus on the iPhone as the reason for the delay, Apple might have worried about figures suggesting buyers were holding off purchasing new Macs ahead of the OS update. Now that people know a four month wait is ahead, those credit cards might be coming out this quarter after all.

Is this a sign Apple is stretching itself too thin? The AppleTV system saw a delay earlier this year, and "top secret" features in Leopard are promised but haven't even begun to be seeded to Apple's community of developers for testing. When that finally happens, more delays are a worrying possibility. Now not only is Leopard delayed, but people are asking serious questions about the lack of the annual update to the flagship iLife package, still stalled at '06 with no sigh on '07 on the horizon, as well as the lack of a new version of iWork -- long rumoured to be arriving with a new spreadsheet application. The forays into the living room and cell phone market are exciting, but Apple's hardcore fans already seem to be paying a price for them.

Not long ago Steve Jobs asked the world to...

In a bold statement he challenged the Big 4 music companies to allow the iTunes Music Store to sell music free from digital rights management, making it playable on any player, as many computers as you'd like, and burnt to CD an unlimited number of times. I'd guess that was only the public spearhead of the pressure Apple applied, because it's taken less than two months for first of the Big 4 to crack.

But (there's always a but, isn't there?) it comes at a price.

Sounds a bit like a backdoor price increase to me. It's well known that those same Big 4 have been pressuring Steve to up the price of iTunes downloads for some time, and this announcement smells like compromise, especially considering what Jobs said in his challenge...

So why do the $0.99 DRM laced downloads persist? What are the odds EMI would only agree to dropping DRM in exchange for a price hike, and Apple didn't want to lose the ability to advertise their songs as $0.99 downloads?

At the moment the consumer hasn't lost anything, the old products will still be available and the choice will be ours, with Jobs expecting more than half of the iTunes store's downloads to be DRM free by year's end. Still, I can't help feeling we've taken the step forward, but are just waiting for the two steps back, when Apple drops the cheaper DRM versions and leaves us all with more expensive music.

Some people whistle while they work; I listen to music. Depending on where I’m working, I’ll listen to iTunes or Amarok, and occasionally even put on the radio to remember why I stopped listening to the radio in the first place.

Even though Amarok blows iTunes away in many departments, I like iTunes, and believe it's a great bit of software, especially for users like my parents: it’s easy to use, hard to break (unless you’re really trying to fuck something up) and it looks pretty, especially since they integrated Cover Flow. I think iTunes can be better, though, and since I’m not a programmer (though I once played a Nanite creator on TV) I puzzled out some idealistic ways that I think iTunes could be dialed up a little bit closer to Awesome.

I kept a couple of criteria in mind as I made this list: I think the average iTunes user doesn’t want to mess around with AppleScript or do anything which involves the command line. I think they enjoy many of the “set it and forget it” features iTunes incorporates (like scheduling podcast downloads, auto-updating iPods when you connect them, etc.,) and enjoy that (most of the time,) iTunes “just works.”

So with all that in mind, here we go . . .

1. Eliminate crippling DRM from the iTunes Music Store.
Steve Jobs says that he only has DRM in iTMS purchases because the big evil music publishers won’t let him sell their songs without it. If that’s the case, what about the indie labels who believe that obscurity is a greater threat than piracy, and don’t want their files to be sold with crippling DRM? If that’s the case, why not really play hardball with UMG and the rest of them and force them to give up the DRM? The iTunes Music Store is the unquestioned industry leader; where are they going to go? Microsoft? Ha. Ha. It is to laugh.

I think Jobs’ blog post made for some great PR a month or so ago, but I don’t think that he is truly serious about removing DRM from anything -- at least in the near future -- because we all know that the DRM isn’t there to protect files as much as it’s there to force iTunes users to buy and use iPods. Sure, I can burn and rip my iTMS purchases to get rid of the DRM, or run some third party application, but that’s an annoying pain in the ass, and this is all about being easy peasy, remember? (Please note that I love my iPod, especially my shuffle, but I also love the idea that once I pay for something it’s mine, including music. If I want to play it on a Zen or add it to a Linux library, then I should be able to do that without a lot of complicated bullshit.) So the first thing is, we kill all the DRM.

2. Amarok’s greatest hits
Amarok is filled with insanely cool features that excite music nerds almost as much as finding a box filled with Blue Note acetates at a yard sale. They’re designed to encourage listeners to “rediscover [their] music” but Apple could take that rediscovering one step further, and turn it into (DRM-free) purchases: With Cover Flow, I can flip through my music collection, which looks cool, but is not especially useful. Well, taking a page from Amarok, what if I could control-click on a Cover Flow image, and get access to the artist’s Wikipedia page, song lyrics, and MusicBrainz information? The closest iTunes currently comes to this sort of rockin’ feature is the Ministore, which doesn’t work with streaming radio, only provides links to similar artists, and really feels like irritating advertising more than anything else. For those of you scoring at home: irritating=BAD! cool and useful=GOOD!

3. Take my money, please!
You know what I love about the iTunes Music Store? How stupidly easy it is to fill up my collection with back catalog stuff, buy iMixes and essentials, and enjoy the nearly-instant gratification of the 1-click purchase. (In fact, it’s so easy to do this, I advise avoiding what my friend Margaret and I called “the iTunes bender,” where you find yourself two and one-half sheets to the wind, buying music from iTunes because, “OH MY GOD MAN I FUCKING LOVED THIS SONG SO MUCH IN HIGH SCHOOL!!1!” only to crawl out of your hangover the next day and wonder what the hell you’re going to do with all that new Rick Springfield music.)

In addition to the iTMS, there are several other great online music sellers that fly below the radar of most consumers (CD Baby, eMusic, and Magnatune all come to mind.) Wouldn’t it be great if iTunes had native support for these alternative music stores, so buying music from them would be as easy – and as integrated – as buying from the iTMS? In place of my pathetic photoshop and gimp skills, imagine little green icons for these other stores, sitting in iTunes next to the iTunes Store icon. Don't want to see them? No problem, they could be included or excluded in your preferences. If Apple really does make most of their money from iPod sales, this would be a winner for consumers, artists, and Apple. (File this one under Totally Idealistic Ideas Which Will Never Come To Pass But Would Still Be Pretty Neat-o.)

4. There are many copies
My wife, my son, and I all have separate accounts on our iMac, and we each have our own iTunes library to sync up to our own iPods. My son and I have a lot of crossover in our libraries (What can I say? The kid has good taste) so there is a ton of hard disk space wasted by duplicate files. On my Linux machine, I solved this problem by putting my music collection into /etc/Music, and making it accessible to all users on the machine. It’s possible to do something similar on my Mac, but it’s a colossal pain in the ass, and it's totally not something my parents could do. I’d love it if Apple would make it a simple option to keep all the ripped and purchased music in a directory that all users on the machine can read and write. When I add music, it automatically goes into my library and onto my iPod; when my wife or son add music, it tells me that there’s new music in /users/itunes/ and gives me the option of adding it, or ignoring it. Think of it as a media server, but on the same machine. We'll save space, we'll encourage each other to listen to new music, and since we can already share music across the LAN, and even the assclowns at the RIAA say families can share CDs (how mag-fucking-nanimous of them) this one may actually happen. What? Stop laughing!

5. Odds ‘n Ends
Finally, there are a few little tweaks that would vastly improve my iTunes experience, which is important, because it’s all about me.

I’d like a simple keyboard shortcut to rate songs. There are all these songs in my library which are unrated, because it’s a pain in the ass to switch to iTunes, click on the song that’s playing, and then adjust the rating. I like it that I can pretty quickly spin the wheel on my iPod to rate songs, so why not something just as easy when I’m sitting at the machine? A meta-key and a mouse gesture, a meta-key and a number, or just a dashboard widget, or something would make my smart playlists much more useful and current (yeah, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” was totally five stars in December. Now? Not so much.)

Speaking of Christmas, you know how you get all that seasonal music in there, and you’re left with the option of manually unchecking each song, selecting them all as a group and excluding them from shuffle, or removing them entirely, just so you can add them back in next year? I’d like an advanced feature where I can tell iTunes, “This is Halloween Music. I want to you put it into my library on September 30, and take it out on November 2.” or “This is Christmas Music. I want you to start playing this on November 28, and take it out on January 5.” Set it and forget it is cool, guys. Make it automatically archive the removed files, and I'll buy you a donut. Hell, I'll buy you two donuts.

Finally, one idea I had has been reported on Ars Technica as actually happening: Credit for individual songs if you buy the album later. Have you ever bought some songs as part of an iMix, and liked one of them so much, you end up buying the whole album? Now you have a stupid duplicate song cluttering up your library, and you spent an extra dollar, (which you’ve recently learned the value of, if only to shut up your parents.) I love the idea of giving consumers a store credit, and I think that this will ultimately lead to Apple selling more music, as potential customers become more comfortable buying essential collections and singles, secure in the knowledge that they can buy the whole album later without getting screwed. Nice.

iCould go on, but iWon't
I’ve tried my best to beat this horse to death, but it keeps squirming around, so let me take one last whack at it: I know that there are countless reasons most of these suggestions won’t ever be adopted, and I also know that some of these functions can be currently handled by AppleScript, command-line hacking, or some combination of shenanigans and hijinks. I also realize that to some purists, iTunes and everything it stands for are big evil suck-o-trons. But Apple's developers have proved again and again that software can be both easy to use and full-featured. iTunes is the massive leader in online music purchases, so they're clearly doing something right. iLike iTunes, (iN iTheory, iAnyway) and would love to see it get (more) awesome.

Okay, the horse is dead, and that's my wishlist. What's yours?

Wil Wheaton feels the Illinoise.

The Apple vs Cisco lawsuit over the iPhone trademark has taken another turn...

It seems Cisco has granted Apple an extention to "respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability."

Unfortunately for Cisco, this move may give iSteve enough time to summon his iDemon hordes to engulf Cisco's HQ in hellfire and let Apple get back to doing what they do best...making shit everyone wants with the names of products nobody wants.

Apple has announced the real iPhone, not to be confused with the iPhone.

The iPhone will be available in June ($499 = 4GB and $599 = 8GB) and was pretty much the only major announcement from Apple at this year's Macworld San Francisco. The only other items worthy of mentioning are the AppleTV (formerly known as the iTV), and 802.11n Airport Extreme.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will soon be making his keynote speech at 9AM PST from San Francisco, California. The keynote speech is expected to be Jobs' launching platform for a variety of new wares with rumors ranging from an Apple cellphone, to new iPods.

For live coverage of the keynote you can tune into MacrumorsLive.com for text feed coverage, as well as potentially still images.

If you happen to be attending the event you can find me sitting in the West Hall in The Moscone Center reading text feeds because they wont let me into the keynote. Supposedly, SuicideGirls doesn't warrant press access.