It ain't the heat; it's the stupidity.

Clif Edwards, over on a businessweak blog, did a little humor piece back on Monday about the World Mobile Conference. I'm only linking it because it was so funny.

He talked about how nobody mentioned Apple, but that all these handset companies are ganging up on Apple. It seems that all the cell phone makers are introducing just scads of different phones. My count is something like twenty-two different phone models introduced.

All of these phones probably have barely functional touch screens, and of course fly-tempting, hot, steaming mounds of useless features. How many of them will have SafariMobile? Google gets fifty times as many searches from SafariMobile as any other mobile browser. Do you think one of those 22 models will have SafariMobile?

And names like crazy. Long alphanumeric strings that don't even spell dirty words. Damn those things have a lot of weird names. Nokia alone has the N95, 1112, 1600, 6101, 8800 Scirocco, N75 Camera Phone, N93, 7360, E65 Quad Band, and the N76.

Hey there, boys and girls, can you say, "brand dilution?" If you have an Apple phone, it's an iPhone. If you have another brand, you might have the Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator. How many friends are going to tell you how much they love their Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulators? Even if it's true, it's too much work.

And that's just one brand. All the other companies are also announcing how they are "not scared" of Apple. The rest of their time is spent furiously and desperately trying to design something they can paint up like an iPhone. They're all convinced people are buying the touch screen interface – the looks. Maybe those cool icons. Wait. Maybe it's because it's black. Didn't our focus group determine that they want a full keyboard? Windows has ninety-something percent of the desktop systems, so Windows mobile must be better. Right? And 3G. All these phones are 3G.

3G must be the answer. All the analysts agree that Apple's iPhone is a piece of crap that will fail in the market because of not having 3G. 3G. 3G.

Well, reading some more stuff (Maybe some of if was research, but not much of it. Really.) some folks are saying that the whole thing may boil down to Apple vs. Nokia.

That would be kind of funny, except, well, Nokia's gonna get their ass kicked. I personally know several devoted Apple haters who are talking about getting iPhones or already have them.

At the end of the Cliff Edwards piece is the punch line. After detailing how the entire world of mobile phones is so scared of the iPhone they won't talk about it, he delivers the piece de resistance. After an exposition describing all of the cheap-ass knock offs these companies are going to try to trick people into thinking are "just like iPhones," he says, "Take that, Apple."

It's pretty funny.

Unless he was serious. Then you have to be really cruel – the kind of person who laughs at Helen Keller jokes – to laugh at him.

Three day weekend. Woohoo.