on 5 June 2009[This column was written in May 2009. Apple design chief Jonathan Ive had recently lost a domain name dispute on the basis that he couldn't prevent unofficial websites using his name since it was not used by himself or Apple for publicity purposes. Steve Jobs was absent from Apple at this time during his recovery from liver cancer. Fake Steve Jobs was a satirical blog written by US journalist Dan Lyons. The column is a spoof of the first episode in the long-running ABC TV show Lost, from which most of the dialogue is directly quoted. I’ve added links which should explain some of the references, if you can be arsed.]
ACT 1: A man’s eye in close-up. As we pull back, we see he’s lying in a forest. A white labrador with the face of Apple CEO Gil Amelio runs up and tugs at the hem of the man’s black turtleneck.
Steve Jobs – for it is he – follows Gil to a beach, where there seems to have been a plane crash. On closer inspection the wreckage is of a building, 1 Infinite Loop. Steve heroically rescues several survivors, then moves on to the weaker ones, snapping their necks.
Finding a stash of US dollars, Steve pockets it. He’s watched by Charlie, an Apple employee recently hired from the industrial design firm Drive Shaft.
CHARLIE: Should you be doing that?
JOBS: It’s OK, this is a flashback. It’s all backdated.
Tim Cook, a handsome executive, is examining a cable that runs into the jungle.
COOK: Look, we should go this way.
CHARLIE: Oh yeah? Who are you, anyway? In fact, were you even on the plane? I don’t remember seeing you until just now.
COOK: I’m not a leader.
SCHILLER: And yet they all treat you like one.
Schiller is a middle-aged man with a permanently odd expression. From his point of view, we now see a woman making her way up the beach.
JOBS: Excuse me?
ANDREA JUNG: Yes?
JOBS: Sorry, I was just surprised to see a woman here.
JUNG: I’m on your board, remember? Princeton magna cum laude,
CEO of Avon, number five in Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in Business.
JOBS: Fantastic. Could you get me a latte?
CHARLIE: I don’t believe you said that. Wait a minute… You’re Fake Steve Jobs!
Suddenly there’s no sign of Steve, just a floppy-haired hack mumbling something about the end of journalism as he wanders away.
JUNG: Come on, we’ve got to find out where this goes.
CHARLIE: I’m not sure it actually goes anywhere. I think it might just go round in circles for six seasons.
* * *
ACT 2: In the jungle, Charlie, Cook, Jung and Schiller are struggling to open a metal hatch.
COOK: Wait, I can hear something. It sounds like a sequence of numbers, going up.
JUNG: It’s not Mac sales, then.
SCHILLER: Stand back!
The hatch is blown open by an explosion and the four make their way down a ladder into a bunker. Sparsely equipped with strange electronic equipment, it feels as if no-one has entered for some time.
CHARLIE: Did you notice how incredibly clean this place is?
COOK: Someone’s coming!
A steel door swings open to reveal Jonathan Ive, a wild-eyed recluse with muscles that imply obsessive working out.
IVE: Get out! You mustn’t touch anything!
JUNG: How come you’re not talking in a comedy Geordie accent?
IVE: I am. Like, man.
CHARLIE: Jony! You’re my hero! I’ve got this whole website about you. Look, I’ll show you on my iPhone.
JUNG: What, you’ve got 3G reception?
CHARLIE: It’s no more inconsistent than anything else. Here we are, see: www.jonathanive.com. Er, and jonathan-ive.com. And jonyive.com. And, um, jony-ive.com. I just thought, you know, I wanted to make sure nobody missed it. Plus there was the Google Ads traffic, ahem.
IVE: (menacingly) That is not your domain name. That is my domain name. And the only reason you’re blogging on it is because I was too busy being a genius to notice the Internet existed. So listen carefully. Give me the domain, go home, and leave me in private where I belong.
SCHILLER: Let me talk to him. Jony, what if I told you that somewhere on this island there’s a box, and whatever you imagined, when you opened that box, there it would be. What would you say?
IVE: I’d say we need to make that box 17% slimmer and machine it from a single block of aluminium. And the back should be rubber, with an Apple logo that lights up. Why-aye.
SCHILLER: You’re missing the point, Jony. What’s inside the box?
IVE: Inside? Ah divvent knaa. Ask the others.
CHARLIE: The others?
IVE: Rubinstein and Tevanian.
COOK: They didn’t make it, Jony.
CHARLIE: There’s always Woz…
COOK: Anyone want to tell me why we’re keeping that guy alive?
SCHILLER: We’re keeping him alive because he’s been here a lot longer than any of us, and apart from his mouth, he’s completely harmless.
JUNG: But he’s stuck in 1977.
IVE: Then… Steve! We just have to wait for Steve to come back!
CHARLIE: I’ve heard you tell that story so many times, I’m starting to think you believe it.
Fade to black.
adambanksdotcom Apple founder @ronaldgwayne has had several careers; on this showing, tech policy punditry could be a keeper 
