Weekly Forecast

In the week to come:

Rob Enderle, John C . Dvorak, Paul Thurott, and/or some yet-to-be-named dingbat will announce the coming death of Apple. This will be based on obvious-to-all missteps by Steve Jobs, Apple, the board of directors or Phil Schiller.

The following is an incomplete list of possible complaints or negative observations. Most of these are pre-owned. That's the best source of ideas, since the analysts lack originality as well as cognitive reasoning skills.

The iPhone:

Doesn't have enough memory. We need at least an 80 Gigabyte Hard Drive on our portable devices. You might not be able to put all the movies you own onto a smaller drive.

Doesn't have a mechanical keyboard and goodness knows we can't live without a keyboard on our wireless communication devices.

Doesn't run WindowsCE or any of those other market-proven inferior operating systems.

Isn't big enough.

What we really need Apple to introduce is a handheld 61" 1080p that can stream every movie ever made on demand anywhere in the world free without interrupting our telephone conversation. Of course the miscreants would then blame Apple for the difficulties of watching it in coach.

On the other hand any phone running Microsoft's clunky system will get a pass if, when it explodes, no children are killed.

The AppleTV

It isn't a DVR. If you want to watch on-demand M*A*S*H reruns with local used car ads you'll have to work out something else.

Nobody is going to pay money to buy videos online. I think this is the same nobody who was going to download TV shows and pay $0.99 a song for their music. Dammit.

It doesn't do the same things as Windows Media Center. This is a bad thing according to the dipshits. (Raw Data: "Windows Media Center" Google hits: 1,760,000; "Apple TV" Google hits: 6,110,000).

Windows Media Center is the industry standard. Failure to adhere to an industry standard is bad. Never mind that the industry standard isn't selling as well as Barry Manilow boxed sets at a Metallica concert.

The Macintosh

Apple's delay of four months releasing Leopard is exactly the same as Microsofts 5 year delay releasing Longhorn/Vista. So shut up all you smartass Apple fanboys. We don't want to hear any more carping.

The idiots will make that equation (and have). Because in the land of stupid analysts (Microsoft apologists) there is no difference between:

1. A four month delay updating the most stable and malware free OS currently on the market with a product that leapfrogs everything currently available; and that will run on five-year old machines.

2. A five year delay updating THE malware magnet with a piece of bloatware with largely cosmetic features that requires hardware upgrades, if not a whole new computer to even run. (Note: A friend has upgraded to Vista. He bought a new computer with it installed. He had to upgrade the computer to 1 Gig of RAM after he bought it because it didn't come preconfigured with enough RAM to run Vista effectively.)

An idiot can call that "the same thing."

The iPod

Apple hasn't significantly upgraded the iPod line in quite some time. Whereas, if you listen very closely, there are rumors of a new Zune -- maybe two. Watch your ass, Apple. The Zune is gonna getcha.

Working into June's research budget I checked the Zune news site. The top story is that Amazon is going to sell songs without DRM. But don't worry. If you have a Zune the DRM will be automatically added.

Apple in general has jumped the shark

Let's face it. In idiot analyst land, everybody is just about all worn out with the Apple oeuvre. They all know that Apple is just a bunch of hype and glitter anyway. The stupid public is getting sick of being taken in by Steve Jobs' reality distortion field and now they'll wander off with that I-ate-too-much-valium look on their faces to the next big shiny thing.

Things the analysts may miss in their deeply detailed diatribes:

The iPhone is a unique product that has the feature set the average person actually needs with a little bit of gee-whiz added.

Ditto the Apple TV.

Apple's products work, out of the box.

Most people can use Apple's products with no help and no manual.

The industrial design of Apple products is excellent.

The fit and finish of Apple products is without peer in the PC marketplace.

And

I'm going to get another cup of coffee.