Of course, we aren't saying Apple got it right out the gate. Our review specifically said to wait, because although there were no other alternatives at the time with such forward-thinking interfaces, the iPhone had some very basic features missing that were par for high end phones in 1997, let alone 2007. It was lacking 3G, a video camera and GPS, and it had no apps at the time (something we may have forgotten in the ensuing App Store madness). Sure, sure, battery life would have been bad with those things, but whatever. It was flawed. We know that. What we also knew at the time was that if it took care of the easy things listed above—which it has in recent versions of software and hardware—it would be the category killer it has become today. Hence, the recommendation of "wait," not "get something else."

For regular people—not business folks who need enterprise features like those offered by Blackberry and WinMo phones, or those who care about specs and not interfaces—we think it's crazy the execs at these other phone business companies didn't see its potential and allure. And it's definitely a part of any exec's job to watch out for threats, not dismiss them offhandedly, flippantly and arrogantly. They should have examined the iPhone closely, not dismissed it—for the sake of the shareholders', workers' security and, also, pride. For these mistakes—mistakes you and I recognized years ago—I think calling these highly paid folks assclowns is the least we can do. Of course, for everyone sending spittle-flecked hate mail (yeah, some are so angry their email is flecked with spittle)—it's also a joke. The clown noses are a joke, the word assclowns is a joke, and the post is meant to get people talking—but that doesn't mean it's without merit.

That's why when I woke up in Calfornia and saw Jesús's post, it surprised me, but I quickly wrote him an email saying I loved the post.

Of course, to be fair, I'm already working on assigning a story with the theme of "5 Things Apple Stole From Other Companies That Make Them Look Like Assclowns." Maybe I'll make Jesús write it.

...most of the previous applicants did not apply properly and were summarily added to my "NEVER HIRE" email box. I need more applications.

Full-time Responsibilities include:
-Writing morning posts. Fast, thoroughly and creatively.
-Taking meetings with companies. Quickly! More quickly than the PR people want you to!
-Reporting from the field. As fast and perfectly as humanly possible.
-Reviews

Skill as a tech writer needed, meaning fluency in technology discussion over copious amounts of experience. Applicants should have an aptitude for reporting and feature writing and excellent conversational writing tone. Those with natural writing tones tending towards judicious use of fearlessness, relentlessness and wit under duress get extra bonus points. Please — No clowns who insist on writing a joke every sentence. Also required: Physical/mental endurance, ability to take direction to the letter, spot stories early off the beaten path and generate ideas every day, are necessary, too. If you can't take critical feedback and use it to better yourself and the site, do not apply. You need to be as reliable as the sun and the moon. We will put you through the ringer and make you 10x the blogger you wish you were.

Applicants should submit a resume in plain text emails, with a cover letter above it and somewhere in the doc a url to a sample test blog which will be judged for timeliness, quality of writing, tech depth, breadth of topic/angles and general pizazz. (Magic fingers! Chin up!) Write 8 posts on a blog (try wordpress.com). Again, you will be judged on timeliness, so posting old news will cost you points here. Bonus points for mashing out a set of excellent posts quickly over a short amount of time and bonus points for mixing up hardcore tech with whimsical. Minus points for talking head bullshit about facebook or twitter. Apply at jobs at gizmodo.com with "NYC writer" in the subject line. Do not apply without following these instructions.

Applications that are incomplete or incorrectly filed will be printed out on baby deer skin and incinerated after being laughed at. Applications sent to the wrong email address will be destroyed without being read.

Before applying, I recommend you read this entire post one more time and double check your entry, because I've already deleted 25 emails that failed to follow the instructions.

If the tone of this very intense post doesn't terrify you, you may fit in well. WELCOME TO THE THUNDERDOME.

It's been total radio silence from them regarding a review unit, so we're late with a review. I'm sorry we can't provide our usual level of speed and depth on the device; normally, we're provided with a review unit at or ahead of release and have the time to put it through its paces. But apparently we've been blacklisted. This is not about that.

RIM's never really liked Gizmodo or Engadget, or blogs in general. They gave review units to the NYT and WSJ, who went ahead and panned the phone, just like we would have. I don't mind when we get put to the back of the list for that reason, the preference of old media over new. But this wasn't just an anti-online decision—they also gave a phone to Crackberry, which far fewer people read. I don't mind that website at all, but clearly RIM is pissed about something we specifically did.

Since they're not responding to phone calls or emails now, I can only guess its because Engadget (god bless them for breaking the news on this) did a hands on of a Storm 2 Handset 6 months before it launched. Before it was even acknowledged that it existed. (UPDATE: Crackberry did, too, make a common practice of handling unreleased phones on blog. Good on them!)Understandably, RIM got pissed, although you'd think they'd get pissed at themselves for allowing the leak. But that doesn't explain why we weren't allowed to check it out. My hunch is that they knew we'd savage it. That's OK, it's not their responsibility to hand out review units to us if they don't want to. We're a small publication in the grand scheme of media. This is not about that.

But it does send a very clear message to me: Blackberry couldn't give a shit about you guys, our readers. You're so unimportant to them that they don't care if you get a review from the people you read every day at Gizmodo. I think it's a mistake on their part, but if they don't want you to buy their phone, that's fine. Because the Storm 2 is garbage, and you shouldn't buy it. I mean, these guys clearly have no idea how to make a phone for anyone but their original market of old dudes in suits, nor how to market to anyone but them. And that's their problem, not yours or ours. [I shouldn't get into product jokes in a post that many people have, surprisingly, taken seriously.]

The bottom line is that I'm sorry we couldn't tell you this based off our own in house review. Now you know why.

There are so many questions I have just from the cover.

1) What the hell is a Time Banana?

2) What am I doing with a Time Banana?

3) What am I doing on a book?

4) Why am I gesturing for people to go INTO a burning village?

5) Did I take part, or just precipitate the events that lead to the burning of said village?

6) Why is it showing me with a haircut I haven't had since I was eight?

7) Why is the reflection of the town in the water a city?

8) Who is Duncan Richardson and why did he base a book on my life?

9) Why is this the best book description ever?

Mrs B has a secret. And when she says she can't succeed in her dangerous mission without him, Jason agrees to join her for a ride in her Time Banana. They travel back to the 1860s, with the Great Fire of Brisbane looming.

10) Would my book have sold better if I had called it "Jason Chen and the Time Banana"?

I need to get ahold of Duncan Richardson.

[Amazon (Kindle Version) and Amazon Regular]

Jason and the team at HQ were all super quick and coordinated and the photos were nice (thanks to the Nikon D700 we rented). And as always, Wordpress was lightning fast on refreshes and stable as a rock encased in cement. It may have our fastest, most slick liveblog ever. A far cry from two years ago when I started, and forgot my camera cable at WWDC, and had to use photos from another site. Or when we used to crash all the time. We finished up with a score of 13m pageviews. Not a record, but pretty damn good considering it was a mere software update we were talking about.

As always, feedback is welcome.

P.S. The pants are patagonia.

Number Who Went to the Spa after Their Flights to NYC were Canceled: Three

The Cameras: Nikon D700 and D300, Canon 5D Mark II and 40D and some XT Rebels, Olympus e510, various point and shoots
The Camcorders: Flips, Kodak Zi6, Flip, Panasonic HDC-SD1
iPhone Chargers and Batteries: All by FastMac
Alcohol Induced Sickness: One
Writers Who Pulled All Night Benders: Four
Writers Who Are Too Old for This Shit: Two
The Net Connection: EVDO by Sprint via Evdoinfo.com Rentals, and the surprisingly capable press room ethernet.
Device of the Show: Palm Pre (And more on our Best Picks Here)
Number of Unexpected Gizmodo Shoutouts: One (at the Palm Pre announce for our 3G data test)
Cookie Ladies in the Press Room Making the Time Go By With Less Hunger: Zero
Zicam Bottles Consumed: One
Number of Terrible Gadgets Not Worth Posting On: Thousands and Thousands
Thinnest TVs that Aren't as Thin as OLED TVs: Two, Plasma and LCD
TVs Bigger than Last Year's 150 Inch Plasma: Zero
The Boost In Morale and State of Mind Resulting From Sleeping in Discounted Luxury Hotel Rooms: 30% to 40%
Lifetime obsessions with Steve Wynn developed: One
Wedgies Endured: One
Tech Getting Jammed in the Cracks Of Every Device Possible: Blu-ray
Number of PR Collisions Claiming "First": Two, Projector Cellphone and Blu-ray TVs (1,2)
Booths Making Rows of TVs Attractive: Two (Samsung, Panasonic)
Set Top Boxes that Seduced Us: Three (Samsung's Thin Blu, HDi's Streaming and Bittorrenting Blu, and Dish's Sling enabled DVR.)
Nosebleeds: Zero
Number of Pico Projectors: Countless
Number of Pico Projectors I Think are Worth Buying: Zero
Headaches: Three
PR People Wilson Rothman Knows: 99.95%
Nipples Spotted at AVN: Just Jason's
Number of People Who Mixed Up Jason and Blam's Identities: Four

We're all home. This CES was a little different from years past.

Little things. Like lunch in the press room. Although the sandwiches were good, the lunches weren't hot this year. There were some empty booths on the show floor, too. So some cost cutting is happening. But it was still very much a crowded show floor. The usual choke point between Panasonic and Motorola was less gridlock-y, but was also redesigned, so its probably the new layout more than anything.

We also left a day earlier than usual, because the show has one less weekday in its schedule. But given the lack of big news, we didn't miss much. I mean, we could have done 150 posts a day, but that would include a lot of garbage and noise. What we saw that was great, we wrote about, and left the rest of the cutting room floor.

The best thing about this year's show — speaking meta — was that the lack of great gadgets made coverage manageable, and so we had time to see our favorite friends from across the internet. I had a great time meeting folks at casino royale and caught up with rob and joel from BoingBoing Gadgets after what seemed like ages. The night before, we got to see our friends from T3. (Thanks for the shirt and beer, Kat, and congrats on the engagement!) This is the kind of thing we wouldn't have been able to do at a busier show and in some ways, I am grateful for the slower pace.

So, after all these years of despising this show, I have to say that I've finally found something to appreciate it for: It gives me the perfect excuse to see almost all the Giz writers and fellow editors I know in one place, at one time. And how can that not turn into a good time, if work isn't getting in the way?