In the wake of an expected $250 million loss in Q1/2001, Steve Jobs once again participated in Apple's conference call with financial analysts, presumably to try and soften the blow with the judicious application of a little Reality Distortion Field energy. The thing is, he seemed relatively spin-free, laying out Apple's problems in plain language with a surprising amount of candor-- or, at least, what passed for candor. With Steve, it's tough to know when he's just speaking frankly, or when we're being taken for a ride.

As a matter of fact, while Uncle Steve blamed Apple's current financial "situation" in part on the overall slowdown in the personal computer business and the generalized global economic malaise, he really focused in on a handful of Apple-specific problems and rattled them off like a laundry list of personal sins. It's as if he's looking to take the blame for the whole mess. If you go back and listen to the QuickTime rebroadcast of his call, he sounds almost personally apologetic as he addresses each mistake:

1) The Megahertz Gap. Imagine our shock when Steve came right out and admitted in September that Apple actually realized that maxing out at 500 MHz when the competition was flirting with twice and three times that clock speed might be hurting Mac sales. Steve reiterated that position last night, saying that he and his minions "are very aware of this."

2) K-12 Education Sales. Steve already acknowledged that Apple screwed up big-time when it shook up its whole education sales structure smack in the middle of the school purchasing season. Duh! This time around, Steve beat himself up even more: "We have slipped to number two in education sales behind Dell. We don't like this. The tragedy is that Dell didn't win it-- we lost it."

3) The Cube. Ah, the Cube... so obviously Steve's baby (NeXT Cube II, anyone?), and the single biggest scapegoat for Apple's current woes. The good news is that Cube sales have finally "stabilized" at a "respectable" level. The bad news is that sales levels are still "far below" what Apple originally expected.

4) CD-RW. This may be the biggest surprise of all: Steve's bald admission that the lack of CD-RW drives in Macs is hurting sales. "Apple completely missed the boat on CD-Read/Write drives. Both HP and Compaq ship approximately half of their computers with CD-Read/Write drives. Apple ships none. We just blew this one."

5) Mac OS X. How weird is this? Yet another of Steve's pet projects (and the reason he's back at Apple in the first place), Mac OS X has the potential to shift the balance of operating system power in a significant way. It may turn out to be the Mac platform's savior-- but until it's actually released, it's doing more harm than good. Steve claims that people are delaying their higher-end purchases until Mac OS X ships. We can see that; heck, we admit that we ourselves aren't likely to replace our aging PowerTower Pro until we can buy Mac OS X preloaded on a new G4.

So there you have it: this is all Steve's fault. Now that we've gotten that settled, it's worth noting that steps are underway to right all of the wrongs that Steve has inflicted on us as a community. He assures us that at least partial relief for the megahertz problem is "on track" and we'll see progress within the next few months. He hired Cheryl Vedoe to tackle the education problems and expects Apple to kick butt in the upcoming spring buying season. We've already heard that reconfigured (read: cheaper) Cubes will surface next year. Steve says the CD-RW issue "will be fixed soon." And when Mac OS X finally ships, expect a sales spurt as pent-up demand gets satisfied: "I cannot stress how well I think Mac OS X is turning out."

Aw, it's okay, Steve; we forgive you. Just don't disappoint us during the keynote, okay?