In humor, timing is everything. And death just ain't that funny. That's why Dan Lyons is quitting the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog. True, he's planning to turn his Fake Steve Jobs schtick into a second book. And his new job as Newsweek's gadget columnist may require more decorous relations with Apple — note that Newsweek, usually the object of favored treatment by Apple PR, didn't get an early iPhone 3G to review. But the real reason why Lyons is dropping Fake Steve? Because the state of the real Apple CEO's health had Lyons scared.

With Fake Steve Jobs on sabbatical, Fake Jerry Yang has picked up the slack to chime in on Joe Nocera's scathing open letter in the New York Times. Shortly before the vulgarities is this little gem, which says more about the New York media landscape than it does about the Microsoft-Yahoo-Google three-way:

Newsweek, along with Time, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, is on the short list of publications that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will actually deign to meet and speak with. Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs, is taking over as the lead tech reporter at Newsweek. That leads us to a tantalizing conclusion: It can't be long before Fake Steve Jobs and Real Steve Jobs meet in person. Like the attempt at discovering the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, the unintended consequences could involve the earth folding in on itself. We wait with bated breath.

Public concern over Apple CEO Steve Jobs's health has not gone unheard. . He writes:

He invented The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Have you friggin' heard of it? Dan Lyons, the Apple CEO impersonator whose identity so bedeviled us until he was outed last year, is leaving Forbes for Newsweek, taking the place of Steven Levy as Newsweek's house technophile. So much for a brave leap into the unknown world of the Web. Lyons had made no secret of his discontent at Forbes, where the website is run separately from the print magazine and the two sides hate each other; high-level strongarming was required to get Forbes.com to link to Lyons's blog, which he will now take with him to Newsweek. (Photo by Mark Coggins)

Wired editor Leander Kahney went up against Forbes editor Dan Lyons's Fake Steve Jobs character in a three-round mano-a-mano debate about Apple. Lyons completely wipes the floor with Kahney. Did Wired ever think this would be a fair fight? This utterly unlevel playing field shows why we're glad we were wrong about Leander Kahney being Fake Steve. This short excerpt really sums it up:

"Facebook is a vehicle through which a bunch of investors in the Valley hope to turn a small pile of money into a much bigger pile of money by selling shares in the public markets. That is Facebook's core business." [The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs]

Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf has upgraded Apple to "Strong Buy" in a research note, basing his optimism "chiefly on the prospect that the current migration of Windows users to the Mac platform is likely to accelerate over the next several years." His target for the stock is $235, nearly $100 above today's closing price of $139. We wonder if Charlie's feelings were enhanced by sitting next to Forbes editor Dan Lyons, the Fake Steve Jobs blog rogue, at the Macworld keynote? Wolf told us he was a big fan of Fake Steve Jobs — so are we, Charlie.

Poor Ars Technica and Gizmodo. The gadget sites invited San Francisco's thirsty class over for some pre-Macworld booze at Harlot in SoMa last night, and the assembled crowd drank the hosted bar dry in 35 minutes flat. I ran into a host of familiar faces there, including a certain Farker who goes by the unforgettable login of "catbutt." So unforgettable that I called him ... well, something else instead. And no, I'm not throwing David Ulevitch the shocker — just a gesture that looks a lot like it. Fake Steve Jobs blogger Dan Lyons, making his Macworld debut, drew a tight bubble of fans around him everywhere he went.

Fake Steve Jobs has confirmed our very special correspondent's spoiler: The Apple lawsuit Dan Lyons blogged about is as fake as his blog. Some of you may feel duped or even a bit angry. Don't.

Folks, please stop emailing us that either (a) Valleywag is afraid to run the story that Apple is trying to shut down Fake Steve Jobs, or (b) Fake Steve author Dan Lyons is perpetrating a hoax to — I love this — to get onto Techmeme. Let me spell it out for you: LYONS IS KIDDING! He's trying — and failing — to illustrate that the legal settlement between Apple and Think Secret is a bad thing. Two reasons: (1) It's corporate thuggery from Apple, which once compared itself to friggin' Gandhi in an ad. (2) By shutting down and probably taking a payout, Think Secret's publisher has done himself a favor, but set a bad example. How much should Apple pay Valleywag to shut up? Ok, don't answer that, but you get my point.

Ziff-Davis senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a publicist's dream. As documented a dozen times here and here and just now here by Fake Steve Jobs blogger (and sharp-minded Forbes editor) Dan Lyons, Vaughan-Nichols copies large swatches of press releases from Novell and other tech vendors into his articles on eWeek's Linux-Watch site. You might think this amounts to blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement, but you'd be wrong.

Since I first noticed that Fake Bono had taken over Fake Steve Jobs's blog, I've been wondering who Fake Bono really is. We had a number of guesses: Dan Lyons was taking on a second alter ego; Bono himself was writing; Marc Bodnick, cofounder of Elevation Partners, where Bono is a partner, was taking a turn; and Bono-wannabe Valleywag contributor Paul Boutin. After carefully reviewing the Bono posts, we're ready to reveal the identity of Fake Bono.

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, Forbes editor Dan Lyons's Fake Steve Jobs blog was taken over by Fake Bono. As the story goes, Bono was spending Thanksgiving at Jobs's house and found El Jobso had left himself logged into Blogger. He got drunk with Googlers, flew on Marissa Mayer's jet to meet the Pope in Uganda, introduced the U2 Edition iPhone, and wouldn't shut up about his RED campaign. Really, who is this guy? Send guesses my way. After the jump, an apology of sorts from Fake Bono to Fake Steve.

Talk about spoilers. Bloomberg News reports that Judge Jeremy Fogel has dismissed a lawsuit claiming Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his executives lied to shareholders about backdating 6,428 stock-option grants issued from 1997 to 2002. With apologies to Fake Steve apologists, there's no longer any reason to read Dan Lyon's Options, a fictionalized account of the legal troubles Jobs faced over the backdating scandal. (Except for the fact that it's howlingly funny.) Even Lyons's ending is less of a letdown than this.

Why is Adeo Ressi smilling? The serial entrepreneur, now CEO of Game Trust, has pulled one over Sand Hill Road. Through a forwarded Skype phone line, Gmail account, and proxy-registered domain name, he's hidden his secret identity as "Ted," the creator of VC-ratings discussion board TheFunded.com. Now, at a time of his own choosing, staged in sync with a Wired profile, Ressi has outed himself. Which tells us one thing: He's much, much smarter than Fake Steve Jobs blogtard Dan Lyons.

The slight case of sniffles and coughs making the rounds in SF has been dubbed the Woz Cold. Urban legend has it that Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak appeared to introduce Fake Steve blogger Dan Lyons on the Peninsula a week ago despite a nagging head and/or chest cold, depending on who you ask. Woz shook hands and buddied up for photos at the event. Now we're all snuffling and Apple's stock is ... oh wait, it's back near 170. Never mind.

The dirty secret behind last night's book-tour party for Dan Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog? Rumor is it almost didn't happen, thanks to a little tiff over who was going to rep him. Flack fight! After the jump, the real battle over Fake Steve.

The Q&A session at the Computer History Museum last night was billed as a talk between former Apple evangelist turned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki and former anonymous blogger turned book shill Dan Lyons, better known as Fake Steve Jobs. But it quickly turned into a sordid three-way. Brad Stone, the New York Times scribe who outed Lyons as Fake Steve joined the two on stage, and what was billed as the "Confessions of Fake Steve Jobs" turned into a celebration of Apple, blogging, and Dan Lyons's massive mancrush on the real Steve Jobs.