Hey, some Apple humor! All right!

I get it: the iPhone has a touchscreen, but lacks other spiffy features. (Wait a sec: they forgot "removable battery" on the list. Put that in too!)

"Microsoft just, you know, copies everyone else. Especially Apple."

Yawn. We've heard it before; it's not news, and it's pretty dull stuff by now too. Not much fun to be had in beating that horse.

But I swear... Sometimes, it seems Microsoft is just demanding to keep that horse a-flogged. Witness:

Earlier this year, the people from Redmond crowned a queen in the "Microsoft PC Fashion Awards". (Stop laughing. This is real.) Here's the tearful recipient of the crown and bouquet, a laptop concept from design firm ego:

And does that remind you of anything? Think back to 1999:

Yes, the original "clamshell" Apple iBook, complete with roundish handle (though it's not visible in this photo).

Now, keep in mind that the Fashion PC above isn't Microsoft's own design, and there's nothing wrong in their selecting it for tony design kudos... But doesn't the choice make MS appear to be begging for "Apple did it first!" rebuttals?

"All of this gear may have worked just fine, but it sure looked bad doing it."

http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=5551551&imagei...

Heh. Possibly the shallowest tech topic possible - right up my alley! 

To spare you the 10 pages of PC World's annoying slideshow format, I'll give you the Top 10 list here. But I still recommend you flip through the pages to see teh ugly for yourself; after all, that's the point here!

1. Acoustic Coupler Modems (still cuter than a Zune!)
2. Osborne 1 ("portable" computer the size of an aircraft carrier, with watch-sized screen)
3. Motorola DynaTAC 8000X ("mobile" phone; think Michael Douglas's Volkswagen-sized cellie in Wall Street.  It was actually the first mobile phone that received FCC recognition in 1983. But what the heck! It's still that darn ugly!)
4. Microsoft Windows 1.0 (the start of a legacy of teh ugly!)
5. Nintendo Virtual Boy (sorry, Nintendo, I'm not putting my eyes or anything in that)
6. Tiger Electronics Furby (true dat! Always a mystery to me: why was the Furby designed so ugly?)
7. iMac Flower Power and Dalmatian (hmm, see comment below)
8. Neuros II Digital Audio Computer (mp3 player; looks like a wall-mounted industrial controller)
9. Commodore 1541 Floppy Disk Drive (truly ugly)
10. Microsoft Zune Player (hey! They read my mind!)

About those iMacs: Dang straight, they weren't for everyone, but ugly? The designs were daring, and seen up close, are pretty interesting, IMHO – a nice silk-screen effect. Not deserving of inclusion on this list.

If the writer wants to put an Apple on the list, that's really not a problem. For all of the company's rep for "beautiful" computers, a look at Apple's pre-iMac line-up of Macs and Performas shows some of the ugliest, boxiest beige bowsers ever made. 

What would you say is the ugliest tech product ever?