Apple has another public sense of humour failure

Apple has had yet another of its public sense of humour failures, this time relating to comments made by US comedian and talkshow host Ellen DeGeneres about the iPhone.

The company, which seems to be getting increasingly prickly and prima-donna-ish, demanded an apology after DeGeneres aired a mock iPhone advert which gently poked fun at the device, implying that it was tricky to use. The advert went out on the Ellen DeGeneres show on Monday (and is still available on the show's website now); but Tuesday's show saw the host apologising for the ad.

On air DeGeneres commented "I thought it was funny. A bunch of people thought it was funny. Do you know who didn't think it was funny?" She went on to add "I just want to say that I'm sorry if I made it look like the iPhone is hard to use. It's not hard to use. I have an iPhone, I just learned how to text on an iPhone, it's the only phone that I can text on. And I love it."

The company's humourless attitude will of course only lead to more comedians being drawn to make jokes at its expense. As new site The Register points out, Jon Stewart also took a pop at the Jobs Mob on The Daily Show with the comment "Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one. But now you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes!"

Meanwhile the rest of the world looks on and wonders what's going on with the company which was once the golden boy of the media, and now mainly hits the headlines for high handed app store decisions, aggressive developer terms and conditions, attacks on other companies and demands for apologies.