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Apple stores are hard to find.

There are only nine in New York State. Only three north of New York City. MacDirectory You'll find them all in the $$$ Galleria $$$ malls. So much for the image of a Mac for the masses.

The only thing more pathetic than a PC enthusiast is a PC enthusiast trying to understand Mac culture. We have a name for you people: tragic fucktards.

There's a good reason for your vexation at the Mac community's adoration of Steve Jobs as not only our cultural figurehead, but our leader in matters of aesthetics and user interaction design: You don't speak our language. Remember that the Mac was designed by artists, for artists, be they poets, musicians, or avant-garde mathematicians. A shiny new copy of MacDirectory can introduce your frathouse hovel to a modicum of good taste, but it can't make intuitive Apple watchers out of dweebs and squares like you.

So don't force what doesn't come naturally. You'll be much happier if you stick to blind love of an OS that suits your personality. And you'll be doing the rest of us a favor, too; you leave Macs to Mac users, and we'll leave beige to you.

Sadly, you Johnnies-come-lately will never blend in with we true-blue old school Mac users.

Media Center PC? Try Macintosh TV

Tablet PC? I have a Fujitsu Sytlistic 1200 tablet PC from 1997.

PocketPC? The Newton did more in 1993 than most PDAs of today. If development had continued...

XBox? Ok it's a game console -- like an Atari. Oh. It's a computer-based console? Try the Pippen (from '95).

Media Player 9? What's so special about it? QuickTime was revolutionary in 1991.

If anything MS is painfully aware that they need to divest themselves of a PC-only mentality and are inovating in a wide number of areas at an alarming rate to ensure that they don't end up with all of their eggs in one basket.

Have you heard of the Digital Hub?

Were you intentionally listing things that were innovative only by Microsoft's definition of the term?

1. Since long before this. 3rd party offers iPod battery replacements and replacement services (typically $50 for battery, $80 for battery + service). There were many rumors of an Apple-provided solution.
2. November 14th: Apple offers a battery replacement policy for $99.
3. November 20th: the brothers registered the domain name ipodsdirtysecret.com.
4. November 21st: Apple offers a AppleCare protection for iPod. ($59 for 2 years).
5. November 23rd: Brothers finish editing video claiming that the iPod battery is not replaceable and post it to the internet.
6. November 24th: Mac sites and Slashdot pick up the story
7. November 25th: The brothers promise to put a link to the battery replacement and AppleCare policy in exchange for bandwidth.
8. November 27th: .7 terabytes later and after not fulfilling their side of the promise, U Wisc pulls the mirror and the brothers give an interview to MacDirectory trying to find another person to dupe.

Since their attempt to "stick it to the Man" occurred after a program was in place. I just have to add that I can only hope for the time machine the "Man" obviously must have be able to put a warrantee in place in response to a video that didn't even exist yet.

1. What date the support messages were recorded and were they actual recordings?
2. What date the filming occurred?
3. If the brother's purchased a used out-of-warrantee iPod from someone.
4. What time the brothers fubar'd their iPod battery swap (too cheap to pay $30 I guess).

The Neistat brothers' side of the story contains this gem:

"We then purchased a third-party battery online. I'm very proficient with electronics, but it's a very difficult thing to change the battery on the iPod, and that's why I think Apple doesn't offer the option... When I put in the new battery, I broke my iPod. So then I had to buy a brand new $400 iPod." According to Corey Neistat, it's then that the fury that fueled the video truly kicked in. [emphasis added]

Basically, the Neistat brothers tried to install a new battery into the iPod, broke the iPod, then railed at Apple for not offering a replacement.

Even more fishy is the assertion--in the Neistat brothers' side of the story--that Apple did not offer a replacement for the iPod battery until after their video was downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users. The Neistat brothers began editing their video on 23 November, but MacMinute reports that Apple began offering an iPod battery replacement service as early as 14 November. Google gives the same date for both MacRumors' and MacNN's reports of Apple's iPod battery replacment service.

Given the discrepancies between what the Neistat brothers have so far said and the journalistic record, the Neistat brothers appear to be at best disingenous. At worst, they are liars looking to punish Apple for their own poor hacking skills.

As to "incriminating", I'm not too sure. Do they really prove that Dave Schroeder offered to give away terabytes of bandwidth to promote Apple's website?

Really?

Sounds like they're pretty up front about the whole thing to me.

"We placed three calls to the Apple customer service line," says Neistat. "Then we went into the Apple store in Manhattan for help, and then we contacted the Apple executive offices directly. They all confirmed that there was no iPod battery replacement program and they all recommended that we buy a new iPod."

Care to provide any evidence for your accusation, or are you just going to believe it because you hate anyone who would DARE to criticize Apple?

Here's a website with a nice counter to the dirty little secret. Not only has his ipod (and mine) lasted longer, but he has links to Apple's $99 replacement and 3rd party $49 replacement batteries.

Apple's $99 replacement program didn't exists (or was a very well guarded secret) at the time the video was made.

Read the whole story about why the video was made..

"We placed three calls to the Apple customer service line," says Neistat. "Then we went into the Apple store in Manhattan for help, and then we contacted the Apple executive offices directly. They all confirmed that there was no iPod battery replacement program and they all recommended that we buy a new iPod."

Ummm did you click on the link? Have you been brought up to date on this issue? Do you know the whole story?

Doesn't sound like it since if you did then you would know the "message" as you put it was totally ignorant of the TRUTH.

I think you should calm down a bit and read the Neistat Brothers Side of the story

It explains pretty well, that, prior to the video becoming popular, nobody was willing to offer information about the existance of Apple's "99$ Battery replaceent program" , Not even Apple !!

Jobs and Clinton are quite friendly. One would expect Steve Jobs's policies to be similar. Except, of course, this time Microsoft gets broken up into three hundred pieces.

...Steve Jobs had worked during the summer of 1972 at an apple farm, and admired the Beatles' record label, Apple. He also believed apples to be the most perfect fruit. He and Steve Wozniak were trying to figure out a name for their new company, and they decided that if they couldn't think of one by the end of the day that was better than apple, they'd choose Apple...they couldn't.