Tells interviewer: “Since when have I ever billed myself as a journalist?” Bravo, David. Well said.

Oh, and if anyone mentions the fact that last December you gave a keynote speech at a Columbia Journalism Review conference, just tell them their information is incorrect, and refuse to comment further.

Yes, it’s true. The ingrates at a store in Lynnwood, Washington (not far from Redmond — coincidence? We report, you decide) are threatening to walk out to protest the “abusive” working conditions at their clean, well-lighted Apple retail shrine, which, let’s be honest, is about a hundred times nicer than the houses and apartments these loser live in.

Frankly my feeling is they should consider themselves lucky to be able to spend so much time in my gleaming emporium. In fact, they should be paying me. But Ron Johnson says that’s not legal. Well, there’s nothing we can do to stop them from walking out. Except I’d like to remind you all that if you walk out, you don’t walk back in. That’s right. You’re all fired. Just like Nixon and those air-traffic controllers. I’m serious, people. You do not tug on Superman’s cape, as Bob Dylan once sang. You don’t like working at the Apple store? Fine. Goodbye. Have fun over at Best Buy.

Remember when Pilate is like, So is it true you’re going around saying you’re God, and Jesus is like, I dunno, dude, if you say so, right? I mean you’re the one who said it. And then Pilate is like, So are you saying you’re the king of the Jews, and Jesus is like, Hey, again, you’re the one who said it. And that’s just like one scene. Remember the wedding at Cana? He turns the water into wine and his mother is like, Did you do that? And he’s like, Dude, come on, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and she’s like, Would you please stop calling me `dude,’ I’m your mother and you should have some respect, and he’s like Yeah, whatever. You go through the whole New Testament and you’ll find case after case where Jesus kind of holds back a little bit, or stops short, and maybe it’s not outright lying but it ain’t the truth, either. Same with the guys who wrote the gospels. How else can you explain the fact that they all contradict each other? Somebody was lying, right? Ditto for Buddha, by the way. The guy never told the truth. The fact is, some people are transcendent beings, and when they say something, maybe it sounds like a lie to you, but that’s only because you’re not living in their version of reality. All you can do, mere mortals, is accept what I tell you, and try your best to understand it, and realize that when something I say does not make sense to you, that this is your shortcoming. Just like you can’t understand God, so you cannot understand me. Oh, and by the way — Michael Arrington, if you don’t stop making a big deal out of this, I swear I will friggin smite thee. Okay? Peace be with you.

 

Here is the latest from the Joy of Tech guys. It’s amazing, but these guys really think we lied to the FCC about rejecting Google Voice. I just want to be very, very clear about this. Apple does not lie. Ever. We tell our version of the truth. The people who call that lying are deluded and living in a dishonest version of reality.

My interns inform me that the The Huffington Post has declared that “technology is anthropology.” Wow. That’s heavy. As they say on “30 Rock,” tell us some other things we already knew. Not sure if you’ve been paying attention to Apple for the past three decades, but, see, this concept is pretty much the foundation of our operation. Remember those people who spent a week camping out on folding chairs outside Apple stores back in 2007, so they could get the iPhone? They didn’t do it because there was shortage of phones. They did it because they wanted to make a statement about themselves. I don’t know how this camping out thing got started, but Apple people really love to sleep on sidewalks and in malls. They’ll do it for almost anything that involves Apple, especially my keynotes.

The reason is, Apple is not really a company — it’s a cult. Imagine what it might be like if the Church of Scientology went into the consumer electronics business, and you’d have a pretty good idea of how we operate.

We have a philosophy, a way of looking at the world. Minimalism is part of it. Simplicity is another. Our fundamental belief is that people can achieve transcendence through technology – that by owning certain products, meaning our products, a person can become smarter, and even better than other people. The products we make are simply totemic objects – signifiers, as Saussure would have said. (I’m assuming you’re up to speed on your semiotics, and if not, well, keep using Windows; it’s the right solution for you.) Our products are physical representations of our philosophy, capsules that let you carry our belief system around with you and share it with others. For me, the process of making these objects and splattering them all over the world is a kind of performance art – what Christo does with cloth, I do with aluminum, glass and plastic.

People sometimes complain that we charge too much for our products, but the truth is, our prices are irrelevant. How much is a Picasso worth? Our prices are not based on cost of goods or any kind of research into what the market will bear or how much profit we need to make. We set prices based on numbers that we think will make our fanpersons feel special. They don’t want something cheap. They want to feel good about themselves. Paying more is one way to achieve that. (I’m amazed that more companies haven’t figured this out.) If you’re asking about the price of an Apple product, you’ve already self-selected out of our target demographic. Not because you’re too poor, but because you just don’t understand what we’re about. And that’s fine. We’re not for everyone. True fanpersons are always ready to buy whatever we make, without question, because they know the object will give meaning to their lives. You can’t put a price on that.

How did I figure this all out? Back in the Seventies, before I started Apple, I made a trek to India and studied with a holy man, Baba Shreepakdeva. He taught me one thing: People are desperately hungry to find meaning in their lives. They will go to great lengths and spend huge amounts of money in this quest. Ever seen the Vatican? Okay then. Religions are the greatest marketing organizations in the world. All you have to do to become rich and powerful, he told me, is create objects that are imbued with spiritual significance. I left India knowing what I would do with my life.

Why tech products, instead of, say, furniture? For one thing, Woz and I both sucked at woodworking in high school. But also, technology has the benefit of seeming like magic. Think of the old Arthur C. Clarke line: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And religion is all about magic. Transubstantiation of the host? Please. It’s Penn & Teller in colorful robes. Or think of Pizarro and the conquest of the Incas. You know how the Spaniards converted the Incas to Christianity? They built churches and crammed them full of mirrors and shiny objects, with loads of flickering lights. Everywhere I go I see people staring down into their iPhones, zombies hypnotized by the flashing screen, and I think, Oh, Pizarro, you’ve got nothing on me, hermano.

Right now we’re working on this tablet computer, and it’s all about anthropology. At least it has been since I came back to work. While I was away they were just doing things the way ordinary MBA idiots do things: focus groups, market research, engineering, feature sets, specifications. But I came back with my new liver and I was like, Damn, people! Hold up here! We need to ask some fundamental questions – not about the product, but about the fanpersons who will use the product. Will they write on this tablet, or just read from it? Maybe they will just buy it and put it on their coffee table and look at it. Or maybe they will carry it around in a stylish, modern-looking bag and place it on the table in restaurants to impress other humans.

Will it be shiny? It must be. It must be so shiny that fanpersons can see themselves reflected in its surface and adore themselves when they are using it. How will it feel in your hand? It must be smooth. It must be light, yet substantial. It must feel perfect. It must feel like something that sprang into being, fully formed – one day it was not there, and the next day it was. It must inspire awe, and even a touch of fear. It must cause people to admire you. It must intimidate them and make them believe that you possess some powerful magic that they do not understand. Plus, it must have great battery life.

Can we really do all that? Can we really make something that will change people’s lives? Of course we can – all you have to do is believe.

I’ve known Arianna for a long time. I first met her when she was a left-wing pseudo-progressive striver who latched onto Jerry Brown as a way to advance her own career, which came right before her phase as a right-wing crypto-fascist striver married to a closeted gay millionaire senator as a way to advance her career, which was just before she transformed herself back into a left-wing pseudo-progressive striver latching on to anyone in the Democratic party who would talk to her in order to advance her career. And I’ve always respected her, if only because she’s so obviously and nakedly interested only in herself and only in power and she will say and do anything to claw her way into it. Republican? Democrat? Who gives a shit? They’re just labels, and it’s all marketing, and at the end of the day what matters is whether you can make other people do what you tell them to do. I respect that. Anyhoo. Arianna calls me up and she’s like, Darling, we’ve come up with this fantaaastic idea that we’re calling, “technology is anthropology,” and we’re getting all these fantaaastic people to blog for us, and we thought, my goodness, if we’re going to have someone talking about technology and anthropology why not my good friend Steve Jobs, you know? Why not get it straight from le bouche de cheval, am I right? Because if we can’t get you we’ll have to go get someone from Microsoft and I just find those people so dreary, you know?

I was like, Arianna, don’t start speaking Greek at me or I’m hanging up right now, and don’t start making threats about the Borg, either, or I swear to God I’ll buy your stupid Web site and shut it down. I’ll write you something. If any of you are interested, you can go to HuffPo and read what I wrote. Or you can just scroll up and read it here on my own incredibly attractive Blogger blog.

The Daily Mash nails the Windows 7 low-price student offer. Just a sample:

The company said the operating system will be ready to download from 22 October and after clicking through all the user agreements and restarting your system 85 times it should be ready to install unsuccessfully by Christmas.

A Microsoft spokesman said: “This is a great opportunity for young people to claw at their skulls and scream ‘no, no, no, I do not want to load any more fucking updates, you utterly horrifying box full of evil’ while trying to arrange cups of coffees and study sessions with their new college pals.”

It’s worth reading the whole thing.

But that is what Amazon seems to be telling people. Katie is all over this. Much love to Nick for the tip.

(The original version of this photo was taken by Ben Stanfield. You can see it on his Flickr page.)

The stomach-ache over Google Voice continues. First, we told the FCC that we didn’t reject Google Voice from the iTunes App store — we were just taking our time studying it. Now Google has published its response to the FCC, saying that we did, in fact, reject Google Voice, and that Phil Schiller personally delivered this news to Google. Naturally the scumbags at Gawker are having a blast with this, saying it’s yet another example of El Jobso getting caught in a lie. They even predict the new lie explanation we’ll use — we’ll just say that it’s a “miscommunication” between us and Google. Which, come to think of it, isn’t half bad. Also, FWIW, Phil Schiller says he will gladly throw himself under a bus for me. Well, not gladly. Not even willingly. But he’ll do it.

Your Mac-related questions answered by Dr. Orly Taitz, spokeswoman for the “birther” movement.


Dear Dr. Orly Taitz,
Is it really true that Apple is going to enter the netbook market with a “tablet” computer? Haven’t we experienced that form factor already, and won’t it be too expensive anyway? Why did we not hear anything about this in the return-of-Steve keynote? How much do we know about all this? –MacHead94705ca


Dear MacHead,
Thank you for this opportunity confront the questions around the iTablets. May I say first to being curious about what the code ’94705ca’ means in your internet name, but okay, fine; maybe be just more interest with what you are really ask with this question? Sure, netbooks are dynamic market right now – but wait one minute, please, who is ‘we’ you speak about? Why do ‘you’ want know this? I would like start to asking what is it ‘you’ truly are wishing to know? So, please let me finish, always you are trying to shut me off, I know, but this time I will finish what I have been say. Let us ignore the agenda that you maybe hide, forget that one, I will present here for honest reader something I have find out from very substantial background research: there’s NO evidence that iTablets computer device have BEEN EVER DESIGNED not even BUILTS. Okay? Of course, yes, I know you say, this is Birther story on the iTablets, but I have all the documents (see my websites also for photo). Listen to me: many sources, verified and cross-checked, indicate there is NO evidence for any iTablets machine device coming out of Apple. (Who are sources? Of course these are many, and include scientists and laywers and dentists, also.)


So maybe now ask you, one thing or more than one. Okay? No, please let me finish. What I want you to share with me is ‘evidence’ you HAVE for iTablets story. Please. Thank you. If not reveal what is your story coming from, I must comment that this is the sort fishy tictacs, used to attack enemy, which spoil public debating and information in the America. Who is blame here? Someone who look very strange to real American and who spend many time on the television struggling to justify themself even with everyone against them and some news channel laughing upon them, even, this is who we talk about, who spoil the public debating and information qualities.


We are being controlled. Some one is pulling ball of strings, controlling. The real America is being taken away by foreigner who talk too much on TV. Maybe we just don’t KNOW it already. Van Jones, that one, is just one piece on chess board, black piece obviously. But where one falls many rise. (Is like speed chess or simultaneous chess tournament, which we have in Moldova for lawyer-dentist convention, every winter. Pieces fall, but more games to win before victory. Black piece never win. Okay?)


My partners in doing the movements tells me how many different people in the publics are part of the networks to hold the real American down. Post-man? ASK FOR THE ID FROM THIS ONE. Nursery nurse? Who are really? Please, your ID. Deli server? Stop, please, and show me the ID before making sandwich, thank you. Policeman? ASK FOR THE ID FROM THIS ONE (in Moldova policeman ID is written on edge of baton, hard to read). Hey, but wait one minute. We ask ID from all working in the publics, but for politician, also making things in publics? WHERE IS THE ID??? This is very hidden. Why are you worried to stop me from speaking so much? Please I will be finish just now. Thank you. So, okay, I ask you and the reader, who is string-puller in chief? Of course, this is Hussein Obama Huiluis Onyango so his tribal name goes.


Do you Mr 94705ca – please tell us your true name – REALLY believe it was Bill Clinton to North Korea for release ‘journalists’? Why did you or reader not observe limp and facial hair of silent journalist? Okay? So the story is hidden here. And here is the real truths with Steve Job also. Mr Alan Gore, is he not on the Apple’s Board? And he is main spider in the soup as we say in Moldova, pulling ball of strings to allow Bill Clinton go to North Korea. Where has Mr Job been hide? Not Tennessee! Why so thin? Not liver transplant! North Korea food! Very clear now. Many pieces in the chess game, but all fits together, like clockwork in glove, as you say.) Okay okay, so now is truth in air, and maybe you will try to hide this one, but I must leave because I have dentist patient sitting in chair. But, okay, for question about iTablets, is obvious, maybe not evidence, maybe some delay with Steve Job absent, but we know Apple make touchscreen device soon to kill netbook market. Okay? Maybe you are not scientist or lawyer-dentist, but is obvious. Thank you for good question, however. — Orly Taitz, DMD