After any Apple announcement, the haters make the following complaints:

1. Apple’s new product is just a tedious rip-off of stuff that’s already been done, with a few curves slapped on.
2. Also, Apple’s new product is too weird and unfamiliar and nobody’s going to want something that strange.

And the fanboys launch the following defense:

1. Shut up, you.

And finally, Apple retaliates with the following press release:

1. We have so much money. How much money do we have? All the money.

Personally, I’ll probably end up using iCloud, the new iOS 5 and the also new OS X 10.7 Lion, all unveiled by Jobs at this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference. I’m getting a little tired of liking Apple’s products so much, because I don’t particularly like Apple as a corporate entity. Remember when we thought Bill Gates was the Antichrist and the Purple Pieman rolled into one because he wanted to bundle a browser with his operating system? I think now that Gates is retired, Jobs is trying to prove he can design better software, build better hardware and be an eviller evil overlord at the same time.

And yet here I am, surrounded by a load of things beginning with “i.” I feel like I’m building my own Matrix coccoon.

Nonetheless, as a pundit it’s my job to sit here at my Mac Pro, listening to music on iTunes and occasionally checking to see if it’s my turn on Words With Friends for the iPhone, and poke holes in Jobs’ gleaming, lacquered armor.

So here goes. These are the big mistakes hidden in the latest announcements coming out of Apple.

OS X Lion

Yes, full-screen programs are what we were desperate to get rid of back in 1988. Yes, a built-in App Store is the Apple equivalent of getting your spouse a birthday present that’s been on your own Amazon Wish List for six months. But here’s the real problem: the name. Where do you go from Lion? Apple already did Tiger, which is the only big cat that could conceivably be considered cooler than the lion. What are they going to call the next one, OS X 10.8 Kodkod? If consumers don’t trust your arbitrarily assigned OS version names, they’re not going to trust your products.

iCloud

This past week, while Sony was admitting that it was the victim of yet another data-compromising hack, Jobs announced iCloud. That’s a bit like announcing your new SUV in the middle of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I think we should just cut out the middlemen — the corporations and the hackers — and upload our personal data directly to BitTorrent. That way it’s backed up all over the internet, and you can just ask what your banking password is on Twitter.

iOS 5

Notification Center will soon be able to send you notifications without interrupting your game of Angry Birds. There’s one huge, gaping, mucus-dripping hole in that plan: How are people going to stop playing Angry Birds now? The only hope for civilization is people who don’t play games on their phones, and they’re all playing Minecraft. Soon we’ll all be doing nothing but trying to figure out how to use the damn green bird, and periodically uploading our money directly into Steve Jobs’ wallet.

Photo: JD Hancock/Flickr

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Born helpless, nude, and unable to provide for herself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a hater, a hatter and a hatcheteer.