Apple to fire Mac Mini, says Twitter

Paging John Gruber! Apple's Mac Mini, which CNET once dubbed the harbinger of a "petite-PC revolution," may soon be replaced by something newer, better and inevitably smaller. [UPDATE: Yes, Owen edited in a stupid CNET quote, "petite-PC revolution," which I obviously wouldn't type even while drunk. Bear with him a few days, because Denton just made him lay everyone else off. But Owen, I warn you: Gruber doesn't miss a thing.] Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo reports, "Two major retailers in Europe have confirmed to me that they can't afford any more of the little computers. While this could signal an updated model coming in, they have been told by Apple to expect no more of it. Their impression is that—once again—the Mac Mini may be dead dead DEAD for real." Why do I have the gut feeling these two leakers have been hacked by Apple PR? They'll keep their jobs, but will need to submit to Gizmodo under new names.

Hong Kong's unlocked iPhones explained

"Hong Kong is now the one and only country in the world where you can buy an unlocked contract-free iPhone directly from the online Apple Store," writes John Gruber, aka Daring Fireball. He goes on to answer my plea for an explanation of Apple's motives. You can read his full-length post, or my 100-word edit: More »

Daring Fireball blogger's Wired takedown fizzles

The latest flaming bomb from Mac blogger John Gruber: "How Leander Kahney Got Everything Wrong by Being a Fucking Jackass." Kahney's sin? Writing Wired's latest cover story, ""How Apple Got Everything Right by Doing Everything Wrong." Kahney's thesis: Apple succeeds despite violating Google's "don't be evil" rules of business. Gruber's response? Name-calling, starting in the headline. Gruber attacks with stabbing frenzy:

The whole contrast-with-Google angle makes no sense, holds up to no scrutiny, and serves no purpose other than to reach the punchy conclusion that Apple is "irredeemably evil." By Kahney's logic, any company that is different from Google —- and clearly most companies are far more different from Google than Apple is —- is evil.

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Daring Fireball's John Gruber takes on Jerry Yang in his very funny "Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's Company-Wide Memo Regarding the Microsoft Takeover Bid."

Mac-fanboy blogger John Gruber posted an Amazon.com affiliate link for his readers to order Apple's new operating system, Leopard, on his website. So far, 579 orders have been placed — a $5,800 haul for Gruber, and $77,000 for Amazon. Not bad for a 5-minute post. [Silicon Alley Insider]

"That's Jeff Gaspin, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group. So his number-one priority is piracy. Not making high-quality shows. Not forging a sponsorship or advertising model that is less annoying and distracting to viewers, such that they (the viewers) would be less likely to want to fast-forward the advertising messages. No, piracy, that's his top priority." — Blogger John Gruber, reacting to Gaspin's statement that "priacy was and is our no. 1 priority." [Daring Fireball]