Why Apple Product Announcements Are Insane
Full Disclosure: I’m writing this post on a $1,400 laptop (2010 MacBook Air — just before the Thunderbolt upgrade, god dammit!), listening to a $10 premium AAC-encoded version of Kanye West’s opulent rap album, through $350 Sennheisser headphones, via a $300 headphone amplifier (cheap, I swear, in comparison to the decent models!), sitting in my expensive New York City apartment, wearing, oh yeah, a $50 American Apparel heather gray hoodie, $90 Brooks running shoes (not even for actual running! I bought a great pair of Nikes that treat me knees better), and $50 Levi’s 501 pantaloons (with a $599 iPhone 4 in one pocket).
I noticed something about today’s Apple announcement, and the waves of disappointment the company’s latest, shiny bauble made across my various timelines. (Unlike the Doctor, I guess I can have a few…) People are kind of disappointed with the iPhone 4S’s apparent non-upgrade-y-ness. It doesn’t have a new case design (ie, for normal people, how the outside of the phone looks). It doesn’t do any hyperbolic ‘cures cancer’ stuff. It doesn’t have real 4G speed, nor interchangeable camera lenses. It doesn’t come in any new colors. And, as the semi-canny among us will note, an iPhone 4S won’t look different than an iPhone 4, an eighteen-month-old model that now only costs $99 (with contract), and which is basically worthless as far as cultural capital goes.
The mass disappointment among tech geeks and non-tech-geeks alike is absolutely insane, and I will tell you exactly why: This disappointment is insane 1 because I, B Michael Payne, has had enough of this shit. Really no more, no less. I think the whole tech miasma stinks to high heaven with evil. Let me tell you why?
