TV-PGApril 8, 1998: As the formal announcement of Apple's Q2 finances draws ever closer, AtAT launches the quarterly "Beat the Analysts" contest. Meanwhile, Apple's new developer program has Mac developers seeing red, and the cryogenically frozen head of Walt Disney appears to have close ties with a certain billionaire 'round Redmond way...
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From the writer/creator of AtAT, a Pandemic Dad Joke taken WAYYYYYY too far

 
What Color's the Ink? (4/8/98)
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Reach for those thinking caps and magic 8-balls, because the time has arrived-- our quarterly "Beat the Analysts" contest is on once again. Next Wednesday, Apple is scheduled to announce its financial results for the second quarter, revealing once and for all whether they were able to sustain the surprise profit they reported at the end of the first quarter. Analysts have been uncharacteristically optimistic, predicting a profit ranging anywhere from $20-$100 million, despite Apple's insistence that people not expect any black ink in this, their most historically yucky, quarter.

So, the deal is the same as last time: you tell us what your own personal prediction is for Apple's Q2 results. If you're the cautious type who likes to think these things through, may we suggest a second look at Eric Yang's excellent detailed prediction of Apple's Q2 numbers over at Mac Evolution (complete with downloadable spreadsheet to try it yourself)? Or, if you belong more to the AtAT school of "eeney meeney miney mo," throw that caution to the wind and guess wildly. When the actual numbers are released, the closest guess wins a fabulous prize from our Baffling Vault of Antiquity.™ (Yes, you may be proud to own Mac OS 8.1, but just imagine how your Mac-using friends will drool with envy when you show them the crown jewel of our entire collection-- a shrinkwrapped copy of System 6.0.7!)

So what's your guess? The last time we held this contest for Q4 '97 (faithful viewers will recall that Steve ruined our fun last quarter by announcing the profit before we could start the contest), the most pessimistic guess took home the gold. So is your glass half-empty or half-full? Go on and enter your prediction. Are ya feeling lucky, punk?

 
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Natives Getting Restless (4/8/98)
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Oof, we wanted to hold off on discussing Apple's new Developer Program (announced this week) until some actual developers had voiced their opinions, because we weren't sure the new pricing structure was as painful as it sounded to us. Turns out, for once we would appear to be squarely in the majority. Developer reaction to the new three-level system, which is described in a MacWEEK article, has been quite negative. Okay, maybe "negative" isn't quite the right word for it... "Postal" comes to mind (no offense to our good friends at the USPS).

Certain aspects of the new system sound good-- for instance, access to the entry-level "Apple Developer Connection Online" is free, allowing new programmers the ability to obtain technical information at no charge, and access to tech support on a pay-per-incident plan. But whereas newcomers may like not having to pay the original $250 to get any developer tech support at all, most Mac programmers are unthrilled with the other changes. If you'd like to see for yourself, there are plenty of developer reactions posted over at MacNN and MacInTouch. Basically, most developers now must pay more money to get fewer benefits; whereas $250 a year used to entitle a developer to hardware discounts, now programmers must shell out $3500 for that privilege. And even if a programmer is willing to give up the hardware discounts, the only other option is a $500 package, which is still twice as expensive as they're used to paying.

We're not sure where Apple's going with this. If the idea is to lure new small developers to the platform at the risk of alienating everyone else, someone needs a thwack upside the head. But if this pricing structure actually makes sense and the negative sentiment is just the usual grousing whenever Apple actually tries to get paid for something, well, presumably it'll all come clear in the next few weeks. Let's see what happens at WWDC-- assuming anyone shows up.

 
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Mickey's In On It (4/8/98)
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For a company who's allegedly planning on buying Apple, Disney's not doing a very good job of making Mac users feel welcome. In particular, Disney's Daily Blast, an online service for kids that provides "over 100 different activities daily," doesn't support the Mac. Try to register, and you find out you need Windows 95 and a Pentium processor.

"So what?" you ask. "Disney's site probably uses technology and plugins not available on the Mac platform. It's a bummer, but it happens." Not this time, grasshopper-- just take a look at this message posted to Guy Kawasaki's EvangeList (which you really should join if you're not already a subscriber). Apparently if you use ResEdit to hack the resources in your Mac copy of Netscape, you can trick Disney Blast into thinking you're connecting from a Windows machine. And damn near everything works just fine. (We haven't confirmed this ourselves, being allergic to giant cheerful anthopomorphic mice, but we'll take it on faith.)

So why would Disney deliberately lock out Mac users when their site works quite well with a Mac browser? To quote the Digital Guy, "think corporate sponsorship." Rumor has it that a certain richest-man-alive may have his hands in this business. It sounds silly until you consider that parents buy computers for their kids to use-- and Disney content is a hit. To be fair, Disney promises that a Mac-compatible Disney Blast will be available soon. But what we'd like to know is why it's not available now, since it appears that it was deliberately crippled for Mac clients. We always knew Disney was sinister, but this is getting very interesting...

 
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