Fake Steve Jobs' revenge

The anonymous author of Jobs' "Secret Diary" used to be funny. Now he's just angry.

Lyons in 2008. Photo: PED

FORTUNE -- Dan Lyons, when he was the anonymous author of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, could be pretty funny.

After the New York Times exposed his real identity -- an unhappy editor covering IBM for Forbes -- he took Steven Levy's old job at Newsweek. There he was mostly just angry, writing Apple (AAPL) hit pieces that tended to miss their mark. (See, for example, his hate-love-hate take on the iPad here.)

Now, as the newly installed editor of ReadWrite (a rebranding by new owners of Richard McManus' admirable ReadWriteWeb), he can hire other people to produce Apple hit pieces for him.

He published his first on Thursday, and it's a doozy. It's a critique of Tim Cook's leadership by David Sobotta, a former Apple salesman who spent nearly 20 years at the company, from 1984 to 2004.

The headline: What's It Like To Work For Tim Cook? A Former Sales Exec Dishes.

Spoiler alert: Sobotta never actually worked for Tim Cook.

Posted in: Apple, Dan Lyons

• Daring Fireball channels Fake Steve Jobs

  John ("Daring Fireball") Gruber is no Dan ("Fake Steve Jobs") Lyons. Thank goodness.

  At his prime -- when he was on the lam, a bored editor at Forbes by day covering boring IBM (IBM) press events and a swashbuckling parodist at night, one step ahead of Silicon Valley hounds desperate to discover his identity -- nobody was writing funnier tech copy than Fake Steve Jobs. See, for example, here and MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 23, 2010 7:23 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Dan Lyons, Daring Fireball, Fake Steve Jobs, John Gruber, Newsweek

• Newsweek hates, then loves, the iPad

  The author of Newsweek's glowing iPad cover story sang a different tune at the unveiling

  "Some say the iPad heralds a new era of computing, and I'm inclined to believe them," writes Dan Lyons in the lead story of Newsweek's April 5 cover story. "The interface is so intuitive — navigating with your fingers rather than a keyboard and mouse — that it will change what we expect from our computers."

  That's MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 27, 2010 2:31 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Dan Lyons, Fake Steve Jobs, iPad, Newsweek

• AT&T survives Operation Chokehold

  Ma Bell's wireless network is still standing after Friday's grassroots iPhone attack

  The appointed hour -- Friday, from 12 noon to 1 p.m. PST -- came and went and AT&T's (T) 3G cellular network had not been brought to its knees, despite the best efforts of thousands of Apple (AAPL) iPhone users.

  "As far as I can tell, there's been no impact at all," wrote Dan Lyons in The Secret Diary of MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 18, 2009 4:24 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, AT&T, Dan Lyons, Fake Steve Jobs, iPhone, Operation Chokehold

• Can the kids bring AT&T to its knees?

  A smartphone protest begun as blogger's joke catches fire in the high schools of America

  The most interesting thing about Operation Chokehold -- a grassroots denial of service attack against AT&T's (T) data network scheduled for Friday at 12 noon PST (3 p.m. EST) -- may be who has signed on to take part.

  You can see their shining faces on Facebook's official Operation Chokehold page, which by Friday morning had attracted MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 17, 2009 8:34 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, AT&T, Dan Lyons, Fake Steve Jobs, iPhone, Operation Chokehold, Randall Stephenson

• 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 MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 19, 2008 12:34 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Cancer, Dan Lyons, Fake Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs