There are certain standard reactions that occur when Apple makes big announcements. The first is to explain how those announcements doom Apple (even if that explanation completely contradicts an argument you’d made previously). The second is to throw a bunch of religious references into your piece. Everyone loves those. The third is to just write some clickbait.
Bigger. Bigger. Nope, too big.
You guys. You guys. Hey, you guys. You’re not going to believe this. Business Insider has made an astonishing discovery. It turns out (turns out) that larger phones are…
Are you sitting down?
…LARGER.
I know, right? You’d think Apple would have checked into this before forcing the entirety of Punditland to scream “APPLE MUST MAKE A LARGER PHONE!” at them. Very inconsiderate of Apple.
Jim Edwards has the shocking details.
“A Lot Of People Are Saying Women Should Not Buy The iPhone 6 Plus” (Ha, link, yeah, right. Tip o’ the antlers to Rajesh)
Huh. Trying to remember Business Insider‘s big exposé on the Galaxy Mondo 3X and how it was no good for women. Must have missed that one. Which is strange because the Macalope does love their writing so.
[eye roll]
Because Business Insider is so helpful, the photo accompanying this article is a picture of two young women in jeans walking away from the camera. In case you didn’t know what women’s butts look like.
“Here,” says Business Insider. “Here you go. Here are some butts.”
It really helps to understand the content.
So if women feel the iPhone 6 Plus isn’t for them because they don’t have hands or pockets big enough to hold the thing, it could theoretically retard sales.
Once again we see that doom is a one-way street leading only to Cupertino.
I’m told that in one Apple Store right now, all customers are asking is, “Will it fit in my pocket?”
That’s it! That’s all they’re asking! They’re not asking “How does iCloud storage work?” or “Can you replace this cracked iPhone screen?” or “Is there lead in the drinking water at Business Insider?” No! Just “Will it fit in my pocket?” They’re not even specifying what!
But InfoWorld complains that the iPhone 6 Plus is too big for some men, too!
It’s just too damn big is what you’re saying!
Which is weird, right? Because here’s Jim Edwards in January, opining about how Apple was toast because he saw so many big-screen phones at CES:
Lesson: big screens rule.
Huh! If only we could, a la Star Trek, get the Jim Edwards of January 2014 and put him in a corridor between worlds with the Jim Edwards of September 2014 and have them fight it out.
And seal the corridor off for the rest of eternity. Really, that would be the main point. Locking him out of our universe. Let’s be clear about that. No one cares who wins the fight. When someone so blithely turns on a dime like that, they obviously haven’t put a second’s thought into their argument anyway.
Gimme some of that old-time religion
If there’s one thing we know for certain it’s that any time Apple holds an event it’s a great excuse to bust out some tired old religious clichés. Actually, let’s face it, anytime Apple does anything is a great excuse. If Tim Cook orders a Subway sandwich you can say “New Pope of Apple receives Holy Communion” or something.
Really, why not? You’ve got articles to write! You don’t have time to wonder if something is trite and played out!
Writing for Salon, Andrew Leonard describes “The scary Apple Watch future” (tip o’ the antlers to Hugo Kessler)
Ooh, is it a dark, dystopian landscape ruled by killer cyborgs? That’s what the Macalope hopes. He’s got a lot of robot frustrations to take out.
When CEO Tim Cook uttered the legendary “One More Thing” mantra for the first time since the death of Steve Jobs, a good third of the assembled audience appeared ready for instant Rapturing.
Yes, that’s right. Any time anyone likes anything related to Apple, they must be having a near religious experience that is a disturbing look at their troubled psyche, one that Apple has stoked through its careful manipulation of marketing and fluoridation in our drinking water.
OK, so that was pretty trite and tired, but let’s see if we can really turn the triteness and tiredness up to 11. Batter up, John Naughton of The Guardian.
“How the iPhone 6 literally pays for itself” (tip o’ the antlers to Ellyn MacNamara and @cdf1982)
On Tuesday, the church of Apple held its annual convention in San Francisco.
Mmm, that’s good cliché. You can feed a family of five for a week on a cliché that size.
Legions of the faithful, carefully vetted, were assembled in a darkened auditorium. The atmosphere was not quite as hysterical as it used to be when His Steveness was due to take the stage, but the frisson of excited anticipation was nevertheless palpable. The entire event was recorded in the highest definition so that the faithful could catch some of the buzz from any corner of the globe, and so many tuned in that Apple’s servers occasionally wilted under the strain.
Wait. It gets even better.
And by “better” the Macalope means worse. Grotesquely worse.
The celebrations were led by His Steveness’s representative on Earth, Tim Cook.
See, Steve is dead, so it works on so many levels. And isn’t the least bit in bad taste.
He was there to unveil marvels such as have not been created in all the Earth, nor in any nation, in all of which the people would see the work of Jony Ive, for it is an awesome thing that he has wrought. Etc. (See Exodus 34:10 for the analogue version.)
A bible reference?! Aw, snap, you just got Sunday-schooled, Apple fans!
Note to pundits: comparing Apple to a religion got old around the time the New Testament stuff was actually happening and you guys said to Matthew, Mark and John, “Could you put more ‘apple’ references in? That would really make our jobs easier.”
Tales of the bizarre
Some stories of the oddities of nature are, while completely true, almost too fantastic to believe. The giant squid. The coelacanth. The, uh… raccoon? They’re kind of weirdly smart. They wash their paws. Kind of creepy.
Anyway, join the Macalope as he uncovers the strange and unbelievable tale of…
THE COLUMN THAT FORBES TOOK DOWN.
Yes, while the world digested the announcements at Apple’s 9/9 event, Brett Arends quickly keyed a piece that, for whatever reason, was hastily removed by an editor. Assuming Forbes has editors. The Macalope has heard that it actually just has an angry coelacanth that bangs on a keyboard to approve stories.
Now, because coelacanths do not speak English, we may never know why the piece was taken down (Arends claims “too much Apple”). If only we could read the piece, perhaps we could gain an inkling to its insights.
“Is The Apple Watch Already A $30 Billion Flop?” (tip o’ the antlers to Rob Wensing)
Hey-oh! Yes, thanks (ironically) to the power of the magical Google webcache, we can still read Arends’ love note to Apple! Which we are doing apparently because we’re filled with self-loathing? It’s always that part that confuses the horny one.
Why do we do it?
Hard to believe, but $30 billion is the value that was wiped off Apple’s market value in the few hours after CEO Tim Cook unveiled the latest iPhones and the company’s “next big thing,” its Apple Watch.
Hard to believe that this is your standard for evaluation. But surely this is an unprecedented slide, the likes of which has never been seen after an Apple event and offers nothing but ill tidings for the Apple Watch.
At 1.58 pm on Tuesday, moments before the big Apple event began, the shares were as high as $102.91. By the afternoon’s close they were down to $97.99, a loss of $4.92.
From the high, not from the previous day’s close. Apple’s shares were down just $0.37 for the day. Oh, and what’s the stock trading at now? Around $100. Devastating.
To put this in context, the amount wiped off Apple’s market value was twice as much as the entire market value of Tiffany & Co.
Yeah, Apple is a big company with a huge market cap. This is how math works.
Are these calculations silly? Sure.
THEN WHY ARE YOU DOING THEM?
But most financial “experts” these days—probably including your money manager—believe these movements in paper values have great meaning.
Ah, so Arends doesn’t believe this claptrap. It’s a delightful skewering of the foibles of modern society!
Pull the other hoof, Brett. Your history as a repeat offender is well documented.
Meanwhile isn’t it extraordinary that Apple still drives so much attention?
Says the guy who wrote a link-baiting article about the company.
Despite his protestations that this was an example, Arends can’t help himself.
…if I want something to count my steps I don’t need a $350 watch with a fancy “accelerometer.” I can use a $10 pedometer from a drugstore. Call me a Luddite.
Oh, the Macalope wouldn’t call you a Luddite, Brett. Luddites at least have the virtue of not going online and writing silly articles about Apple.