Apple Fan Frenzy: Stickergate

We all know about Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field, which causes hacks and punters alike to drool over any new Apple product. We also know about the Cult of Mac. But the ridicule raining down upon Statesman Journalist Bob Keefe is extraordinary. He’s been named Jackass of the Week by the excellent Daring Fireball, and MacUser’s Dan Moren called him "infamous and dastardly"

What terrible thing did Keefe do? He asked Steve Jobs why Apple doesn’t put Intel Inside stickers on Macs. That’s it. It might have been foolish to ask such an inane question when Jobs offered an unprecedented Q&A session after the Mac event last week, but the the reaction is surely even weirder. Here are few quotes from The Tubes:

… it was a stupid question. Sure, maybe not the stupidest question he could have asked, but still a whopper – The Macalope.

“What is your favorite color?”; “How was breakfast?”; and “Why doesn’t the new iMac doesn’t come in Blue Dalmatian?” – MacUser

Jobs offers a rare chance for a public Q&A and someone asks why they don’t booger up their computers with horrid stickers? Will someone please tell me who asked this question so I can name him jackass of the week? – John Gruber

And Steve Jobs’ answer (which came after a disbelieving chuckle):

We like our own stickers better,” Jobs said. “Don’t get me wrong. We love working with Intel. We’re proud to ship Intel products in Macs. They’re screamers, and combined with our OS, we’ve tuned them well. It’s just that everyone knows we use Intel processors. We’d rather not tell them about the product that’s inside the box.

Here is the offending question for your listening pleasure.

Thanks to Macworld for the audio clip and the Jobs quote.

And They Call it the Cult of Mac… [Bob Keefe – Statesman]