Apple Confuses Dates, Releases Offerings Early
Shares of Apple fell in mid-morning trading after a computer glitch caused the apple.com website to release the specs of Apple’s next-generation hardware ahead of the MacWorld Expo keynote by CEO Steve Jobs on January 15.
“Obviously, we’re very upset about the mistake and are working hard ensure it never happens again,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of worldwide product marketing and political assassinations. “It’s really embarrassing for me, personally, because I usually take this last week to think of some genius marketing-speak to put in the press release, but on such short notice all I can think of is: ‘The new Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we’ve ever made’, which is utter crap since we obviously wouldn’t release something slower than the previous rev, would we? I need a scotch. Who’s up for some breakfast drinks while I try and think of something better?”
Sources inside Apple tell PTTBT that the announcements for the new Mac Pro and Xserve computers were supposed to be wrapped in Steve Jobs’ powerful Reality Distortion Field to make them more palatable to the masses, but the early announcement has left them exposed for scrutiny and ridicule. Apple engineers have been flooding message boards all morning trying to play up the new machines’ capabilities, but face an uphill battle promoting things like 4TB of internal storage and 32GB of RAM amid a torrent of jeers about single-button mice.
“Someone really dropped the ball on this one,” said tech analyst Germaine Lowenstein, “I expect they’ll be trying to polish off some half-baked products in the next six days so they have something to show at MacWorld, like they did with the Apple TV. I would hate to be in the Apple web department today, when Steve hears about this. Ballmer throws chairs, but Steve throws people. With his mind.”
Indeed, eyewitnesses report seeing four ambulances leaving Apple headquarters Tuesday, though it was not clear if the incident was related to the information leak or simply another culling of employees found to be reading Dan Lyons’ book Option$ at work.
An Apple spokesman said Jobs was unavailable for comment, as he was busy personally re-tiling the walls in the Moscone Center for “maximum karmic energy transference” ahead of “the ritual”.
