How does the guy do it? Seriously, we need to know, because we're pretty overextended over here as far as available time goes (like we need to tell you that), and we've been reduced to scrounging for spare minutes and seconds that may have fallen behind the couch cushions. And yet, here's Steve Jobs running two high-tech companies, fulfilling his familial obligations, and spending eight to twelve hours per day quashing unauthorized biographies while still somehow finding time to knit, play guitar, and hatch diabolical plans for world domination. Sure, we'd probably be a lot more efficient if we had our own jet, too, but somehow we still don't think we'd be able to, say, take time out to go to D: All Things Digital and regale the assembled gaggle of rich tech-celebrity-hounds with pithy tales of whimsy about life at One Infinite Loop.

But that's just what the Stevester's been doing, for the third year in a row, now-- and you can't scratch your virtual hinder in cyberspace today without falling over half a dozen breathlessly blogged accounts of his most recent charming fireside chats plastered all over the 'net. Take AppleInsider's reports, for example, which say that Steve alluded to "great things" coming soon to the iPod product line, "spoke at length about iTunes and cell phones" (implying the advent of "something totally different and unique"), and more or less confirmed the iTunes Movie Store beyond the shadow of a doubt by answering a question about the possibility of such a service by saying "I'll leave the answer to that question to our actions of the future." (Remember, we're Apple fans; we can interpret a vague and noncommittal answer as rock-solid proof of an upcoming and unannounced product and/or service while standing on our heads and chewing a mouthful of vulcanized tire rubber.)

If you're that freakish sort who only likes to base assumptions of future product releases on plain-stated facts and concrete assertions, well, we accept all kinds, here, but you really should get that looked at by a professional. In the meantime, we'll point out that Steve wowed the D: attendees with a live demonstration of iTunes 4.9, "slated for release within the next 60 days" and with built-in support for podcasting, that fanciful merging of RSS and media files that will turn iTunes into "TiVo for Radio for iPod" by letting you automatically download fresh (and free) audio programming to your iPod whenever new content becomes available. Take that, rival music download services! Speaking of which, Jobs claims that Apple employees are illegally betting on how long it'll be before Yahoo! raises the price of its new $4.99-per-month-billed-annually Music Unlimited subscription service (even Yahoo! acknowledges in purple all-caps that "this price WON'T LAST"), with Jobs himself letting his chips ride on "five months" from now.

There's more, of course, but if you're jonesing for a bigger Steve fix, we're sure you'll unearth the details on your own. Granted, hearing about all this stuff second- or third-hand isn't nearly as satisfying to the drooling fanboy as watching Steve eat soup up close and personal, but then again, this option also doesn't set you back $3,495 for a ticket to the D: conference. Maybe next year, hmmmmm? Heck, if you hook us up with Steve's magic time-dilation secret, we'll foot the bill for your registration ourselves. Maybe. If we feel like it.

So seeing as we don't have time to sleep, eat, or bathe these days, we still haven't actually read Young & Simon's iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, that spankin' new unauthorized biography that's already given us a couple of primo plot twists lately (namely, Steve pulling all the publisher's other books off the shelves of Apple retail stores in retaliation, and charges of near-plagiarism by Alan Deutschman, author of a previous unauthorized bio that dished up its own share of funky melodrama back in the day). But we were able to spare a few seconds to skim another review of the new book, this time the one in USA Today-- and right at the end there's an interesting revelation about our ol' buddy Steve: according to the authors, his latest "outlandish Stevian dream" is "to take back the computer business from Microsoft."

Yes, folks, if Young & Simon are right, then Steve wants to "best Bill Gates"-- and since he's already long surpassed Billy-Boy in the areas of fashion sense, public speaking, dating musicians, and personal hygiene (we heard it from some guy), we have to assume that he's talking about market share. Which may sound like a bit of a stretch, since Windows accounts for ninety-something percent of computers sold and Macs are, in a good quarter, more like one in twenty-five or so. Does Steve seriously believe he can turn those numbers around? Comments at the D: event (as reported by AppleInsider) imply that he just may be crazy enough to think so: "Jobs expressed his belief in the iPod 'halo effect,' noting stronger Mac growth over the company's last few quarters." When someone asked him if Apple could claw its way up to a 10 percent market share, he replied, "It's possible... if people learn about our products, many of them choose them."

Of course, there's a pretty wide gulf of belief between saying 10 percent is "possible" and seriously attempting to wrest majority share away from the Redmond Menace. Steve's secret twelve-point master plan for the destruction of the world's human governments, his rise to iron-fisted Planetary Emperor, and his subsequent sale of the earth's population as cattle to the highest-bidding carnivorous alien lizard race is one thing; thinking he can make Macs someday outsell Wintels, on the other hand, is just insane. It's a glorious and inspiring brand of insanity, to be sure (here's to the crazy ones!), but it's insanity nonetheless.

Then again, maybe our minds are only resistant to the whole "Mac overtakes Windows" scenario because Jobs himself RDF'd us into believing it; we were, after all, in the audience at the 1997 Macworld Expo Boston keynote address when he declared the PC wars to be over and made peace with Bill Gates's Big Giant Head on the satellite uplink. Suppose it was just a ruse to lull the Billster into a false sense of security? Is Steve even now picturing Bill's head on a pike? Are vast and silent wheels already turning behind the scenes, setting the stage for a coup of unimaginable proportions? Do platypuses think we're laughing with them, or at them? And where, pray tell, did we leave our keys?

Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, we were maintaining radio silence last week when Apple announced its most recent battery recall, but we figured our absence wasn't that big a deal, since you could always just watch the AtAT rerun from last August's recall, right? After all, the circumstances were nearly identical; for both programs, Apple is "voluntarily recalling certain lithium ion rechargeable batteries" that "were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea" because they "could overheat, posing a fire hazard." Sure, minor details vary, such as which portables were affected and how many reports Apple had received of affected batteries going Firestarter in the field, but generally speaking, the two recalls are practically one and the same. So we figured you could just watch the scene from the previous recall and you'd be all set.

Unfortunately, after a quick dig through the reruns, it seems clear to us that we were off the air back then, too. Whoops. Funny how that works.

Anyway, it's just as well, since we're actually pretty bitter about the whole recall thing. PowerBook battery recalls happen all the time; we can remember several since the Great Flaming 5300 Fiasco of the mid-'90s. And what about AC adapter recalls? Those suckers get pulled back in more often than a fishing net on overtime. So how is it that, despite having owned half a dozen Apple portables over the course of the past decade, we haven't been affected by a single one of these recalls? Hasn't it ever occurred to Apple that maybe we'd like to be included for once? Oh, how we long to experience the giddy thrill of sending in potentially incendiary equipment and receiving shiny, new replacements in the mail for free! But alas, no; apparently Apple continues to sell us products that probably won't burn down our compound while we sleep. Jerks.

And if we aren't going to be included (we swear, it's like being picked last in gym class all over again), the very least Apple could do is start issuing battery recalls for some sort of defect that isn't related to the risk of fire. What's wrong with a little variety for once? How about a run of iBook batteries that get recalled because they infect users with a virulent strain of cholera? Or PowerBook batteries that need to be exchanged because they're possessed by vengeful spirits that make blood drip from the screens and eventually devour the users' souls, leaving them empty husks condemned to wander the earth forever devoid of humanity? Seems to us like there's an endless string of possibilities. Fire hazard, shmire hazard; show a little originality, guys.

Anyway, back in the real world, DigiTimes surmises that this second recall of LG Chem-built PowerBook batteries in less than a year may hamper the company's "ability to secure more Apple orders" (ya think?), while sending Apple scurrying to other battery sources like DynaPack International or Simplo Technology. Maybe one of those manufacturers knows how to screw up a battery in new and creative ways for our own personal amusement. Fingers crossed!