Dan Lyons, who once wrote the "Fake Steve Jobs" blog, criticized Silicon Valley bureau chief Jim Goldman for withholding information from sources inside Apple about Steve Jobs' health.

The sparks fly in this video around the 3:30 mark.

Lyons, on CNBC Reports, said Goldman had become the kind of reporter that gets "played and punked" by Apple, and that he should have released the information he knew on Monday, before Apple's announcement yesterday. Lyons also demanded that Goldman apologize to Gizmodo, for criticizing their December 30 story about Jobs' declining health.

Goldman said that he had contacted two individuals on Monday who have personal contact with Jobs, but don't know the intimate details about his medical treatment. Goldman wrote yesterday:

What struck me was that both felt compelled to come to me to tell me that they had "serious misgivings" about the state of Jobs' health. One said, based on his contact with Jobs personally, that he was in "serious denial" about just how bad the circumstances had become. The other explained to me that he was "deeply concerned" about Jobs, and the sudden lack of communication, the non-return of emails, ignoring chat requests, unreturned phone calls was a strong indication to him that Jobs was in "dire" shape.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, a source close to the matter said that Lyons had been banned from appearing on CNBC again, though CNBC spokesman Kevin Goldman (no relation) said "Real Dan" had not been banned.

In related news, Joe Nocera, the New York Times journalist who Steve Jobs called a "slime bucket" in an off-the-record phone interview about his health, said that the medical problem Jobs confessed to in the call is different from the "hormone imbalance" mentioned in Apple's press release just before Macworld. Nocera called for greater transparency from Apple about how it discusses Steve's health.

[Via MacDailyNews.]

On a personal and editorial note, I wish Mr. Jobs and his family all the best, and this is the last story I'll be writing about yesterday's announcement for the foreseeable future. I was conflicted about even writing this, because Jobs deserves his time to recuperate, free from the spread of rumors and half-truths. Perhaps the less I write about it, the healthier he'll get. In theory. Maybe. We can hope. - RP

First the good news. Dan Lyons, the man behind Fake Steve Jobs, has suggested that his fictional alter-ego may be ready for a return. Earlier in the summer, Dan left his job at Forbes for Newsweek, and stopped writing as Fake Steve in the process.

However, this week he starts that Newsweek job, and told Mac Soda that Fake Steve is to be a part of that. Which is great, as Fake Steve is very insightful and funny.

Now the bad news. In the same interview, Dan says that Steve Jobs is ill. Speculation over Steve's health has been a topic of discussion this summer, while Apple has been quiet and respectful of Steve's privacy.

We expect to see Steve during next week's press event. We hope he's doing well.

Dan Lyons, the real Fake Steve Jobs, is leaving his editor's job at Forbes to join the staff of Newsweek, where he'll take over for outgoing columnist Steven Levy. (Levy left Newsweek for Wired in April.)

Lyons is leaving Forbes on good terms, with associate managing editor Bruce Upbin writing, "Saying we wish him well is an understatement." No details surrounding the financial aspects of the transition were immediately available.

Since Lyons owns the FSJ property himself, Silicon Alley Insider says he'll be bringing El Stevo with him, but it remains unclear what will change about the vast FSJ media empire.

Fake Steve, I honor the place where your funny and my bone become one. Namaste.

[Via Daring Fireball.]

The other day, I posted a little summary of the latest attempts to discover the identity of anonyblogger Fake Steve Jobs. At the time, I thought finding FSJ's identity out would be a good time, a fun mystery to solve. Many of you (most of you, I'd say) disagreed, saying that it didn't matter who FSJ was-- as long as he wrote strong, insightful (and often hilarious) pieces about what Apple was up to, you were willing to let him have his anonymity. And after hearing your good points, I have to tell you (because this doesn't happen very often): I changed my mind, and decided to agree with those who wanted FSJ to stay FSJ.

Then, today, FSJ decided to post this, his first thoughts on people trying to discover his identity. With FSJ, you can never tell when he's joking, but he makes it pretty clear that he's had an experience he doesn't want to have. And the finger is pointed directly at Valleywag, who respond as you'd expect them to, calling the post a set of "rambling accusations."

So here's what we're going to do at TUAW. We've heard your opinions. We've talked it over as a staff, and we've agreed: FSJ is much more fun as FSJ himself, not some writer pretending to be him. And so we're pledging, to you, not to write any more speculation, ever, about FSJ's identity. You're exactly right-- it's much more fun having him anonymous, for both him and us. He's a great insight on Apple's comings and goings, and if he doesn't want us to know who he is, we don't want to either. Here at TUAW, we're going to leave Fake Steve Jobs fake.

Everybody's favorite anonymous Mac commentator might be a little closer to becoming not-so-anonymous. If you checked out Fake Steve Jobs's site yesterday, you might have seen a short post about a marginally funny iPhone Haiku site. I've still got the post in my Google Reader, as you can see in the pic. Seems harmless, right?

That's what FSJ thought. But apparently, the link was sent to him by the guys at Sitening (who also created the Haiku site as a lark), and the link he was sent was a specially created link, made up just for FSJ by the Sitening guys. See where this is going? When he clicked the link, they tracked his IP, and here it is: 68.160.21.224. That IP traces back to a Verizon service, which the Sitening guys say is in Boston, MA.

And then the story gets even stranger. Diego Barros at the Radio Active Code Blog posted a comment on FSJ's post about the tricksey linkses, and then the post itself was removed completely. FSJ usually seems pretty easygoing about this stuff, so the fact that he actually took it down gives credence to Barros' suggestion that FSJ is on the run.

So who does all this point to? So far, this evidence all says Andy Ihnatko, who lives near Boston, has written for both MacWorld and Playboy, and has worked anonymously before-- apparently he wrote parts of Roger Ebert's movie guides. TUAW dropped him a note asking him about the rumors, and we'll let you know if we hear anything back.

Thanks, Diego!

You're a busy person, we here at TUAW know that. You don't have time to sit through the whole stream of this year's WWDC keynote (and judging by the reaction it might not be worth it). There is one thing that everyone in attendance agreed on though, the video that started the keynote is well worth a watch. Check it out for yourself (either embedded in this post, or on YouTube). Watch as 'Steve Jobs' shares some important news.

Thanks, Karim.

[via Long Zheng]