Dan Lyons: I'm sorry I'm not as funny as Fake Steve Jobs

Dan Lyons the former Forbes editor whose brilliant Web parodies of Apple's CEO entertained tech enthusiasts for two years, publicly apologized Friday to those who complain that he's not funny since he stopped writing as his alter ego, the Fake Steve Jobs.

"I really miss him," said Lyons, speaking in New York City at the Web 2.0 Expo, a tech conference sponsored by O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Lyons stopped contributing to his popular blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, in July. He now writes a column for Newsweek and a blog called Real Dan.

According to Lyons, neither has been particularly well-received.

"I get these e-mails all the time: 'I don't understand how Fake Steve can be so good and you can be so bad. Your blog sucks, dude.'"

"I apologize," Lyons told the audience. "I really am much less interesting than Fake Steve as a writer."

Lyons says he had intended to bring The Secret Diary to Newsweek, but lost heart after Apple's (AAPL) World Wide Developers Conference in June, when it was apparent to all who saw him that the real Steve Jobs had lost a lot of weight. (Jobs had a malignant tumor removed from his pancreas in 2004 and has been having lingering digestive difficulties as a result of the surgery, according to friends. See here.)

"I woke up one morning and I kind of lost heart," said Lyons. "I said man, I just can't keep doing this joke."

But Lyons was heartened by Jobs' appearance at Apple's "Let's Rock" event earlier this month. "He's looking better now. Maybe we'll revive it."