Apr 23, 2007 10:10 PM
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Previously, in the last episode of "Burn iPhone Burn!": anonymous Cupertino-area man going by the pseudonym of I'm Just Going to Make Up Some BS, So There!™ He Who Shall Not Be Named™ declared to Ars Technica that "Apple had 50 OS engineers working around the clock in Taipei to make sure that this shipped on time." He argued that the problems were with Q/A and the software. Meanwhile AT&T COO Randall Stephenson said that everything was A-OK for an oh-so-great iPhone launch and J.R. discovered that Sue Ellen is really Steve Jobs' daughter. Today, Gizmodo's own Deep Throat in the Infinite Loop campus spills the beans about the not-really-MIA Apple gang.
Discover the thrill and suspense of the missing 50 OS X engineers and much more in the all-new-but-sightly-stale-and-corny episode of our Gizmodo Series... RIGHT AFTER THE JUMP!
When I read the rumors of the 50 teamsters shipped to work in Taipei from Cupertino I was sceptical. Never trusted the rags. Never liked the rats who wrote them. Something in my head was still rumbling like the boys' bowling balls at Joe's. They didn't buy it either: how was Big J going to hide it? Fifty of his top OS X engineers couldn't disappear into thin air for such a long time. Impossible, they said. Just the missing cars in the parking lot was going to make it obvious.
They were right. Too many people, too many days, too many questions. It all seemed obvious and stupid, but I never trusted easy cases. I was running short on time. I needed a drink and an answer. I knew I could find one of them at Lola's Bar. There was Jimmy T. on the corner. If someone had what I needed, it was going to be him. Like every time I found him, he was drowning his money and liver with the two Jacks. I told the bookie from Mason to get lost and got myself a glass of the one from Tennessee.
I cut the crap and asked directly. It was too dangerous, he said. Big J's people were everywhere, nobody was going to talk and risk get killed. Another clue about why the rags' rumors made no sense. He told me to meet at Catalina's. Good fish and crabs restaurant across the Bay. I wasn't interested in the fish but the seafood was probably going to enjoy Jimmy: He never arrived and I never heard from him again after that day.
I started to wonder if there was more than meet the eye in this case. There was. Or were. Two more eyes, big and blue behind a dirty martini at Catalina's cocktail bar. The curves in her satin dress didn't leave much to the imagination. Her first words didn't leave much either. I got what you want, she said. I knew she did and I took it straight away. And also all the information I needed.
She gave me everything: alcohol, lipstick, French perfume, Italian lingerie and at the end, she couldn't hold it any longer: yes, the 50 engineers weren't in Taipei and they never were there. A few went and came back, mostly hardware engineers. She knew it because her brother worked closely with the OS people. Fifty engineers were just too many not to notice. For him or anyone else. And besides, they already had plenty of prototypes of Big J's new secret weapon at his underground quarters. More kept coming regularly on secure shipments. No need to send the boys there, no need to risk the whole operation on stupid trips. It was simple. And it all made sense.
I left her in the motel room and went back home. On the corner with Logan there was again that John D. tramp calling for attention, his lips wrapped against a dirty brown bag. The old man started shouting at me. Big J's new stuff was flawed because nobody wanted a "convergence device," he said. I didn't know what he was talking about, but obviously he was drunk and alone, desperate to get hits, love or both. Nobody cared.
I didn't give a damn at first but then I just gave him a few bucks so he could get a couple of Mickey's Big Mouths and sleep it off somewhere else. I didn't need his usual crazy babbling next to my window that night. After that lady, God knows I needed a good rest.
iPhone Coverage [Gizmodo]
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