While I did have a (very) brief affair with a Macintosh back in the 90’s, I was never really an Apple fan or fanatic, despite the company’s many innovations and rather, er… obsessed user base. I liked the design of their products and their ad campaigns were amazingly clever and clearly made to grab one’s attention. But for me, most marketing flies in one ear and right out the other because I’m all about the end result of all those billions spent and frankly speaking, prefer products where I as the end user have total control over how I interact with them. When the iPod was released, it baffled me because I knew digital music would never sound as good as vinyl or even the few steps down CD’s did. Nevertheless, people sheeped right on up to the bar and made the player a superb success for Apple, changing the way we bought music probably forever, and for the worse some would say. Why buy an album meant to be heard in its entirety when you could pick and choose songs you like and play them OUT OF ORDER, thus destroying any actual meaning their creators intended? Eh, no big deal, right? It’s ONLY music, right?

And don’t even get me started on not being able to change your own damn batteries…

Okay, get me started. THAT was the NO SALE point for me, folks. It felt right away that by taking that away from the consumer, Apple was treating them like little kids packed off to school on a frigid winter day, mitten clips and all. Yuck. The same went for their overpriced laptops, despite all the cool features they had that made them simpler to use than anything with a Windows whatever sticker on it. I did my part in trying out a few Apple products, listening to friends evangelize and even spending time in a few Apple stores getting spieled to (or completely ignored because I probably didn’t look like I was interested in buying anything). I just couldn’t get myself to buy a product where I had no input in how I took care of it other than to bring it in if there was even the most basic of issues. Nope.

Anyway, here we are in this next wave of new Apple announcement and I’m even more apathetic about this so-called big news. The iPhone 6-ish? Bigger and wider and now like other too big phones (remember when they all fit in a NORMAL pocket?), full of stuff a boring guy like me has ZERO use for. Even better, after that big cloud photo hack, whee – now you can sync your credit card and bank account with your phone and make it buy stuff for you! Um, no thanks and let’s see where that goes after the next hack Apple will try to take no blame for by saying “have a better password!” as they roll out the next new product you’ll all pay too much for. Bleah. Oh, that Apple Watch above? The ONLY shock was Apple wisely NOT calling it what everyone else has been calling it. “iWatch” was dead in the water as soon as someone coined it and amusingly enough, sounded a bit pervy if you think about it too much. Anyway, $350 AND you NEED an iPhone to use it? Mitten clips, anyone? Yeah, it’ll sell like hotcakes and sell out, at that.

Of course, maybe I’m just jealous that I’m no longer hip and with it on the tech front when it comes to kissing the Apple Ring (wait, that’s NEXT year’s announcement!). On the other hand, maybe I need to shut up and plan ahead. I just saw on the news before I went out today that here in NYC at one Apple Store, two guys who WERE first in line (and had camped out since the beginning of the month) sold their places to the people behind them for something like $1,200. So they could be first in line. Yeah, I could use that kind of money. Maybe there’s something to being crazy about Apple products after all. Hell, I could start up a franchise of people to wait in lines in front of Apple stores, collect a 10% from them once their spots are bought and become a… thousandaire or more without lifting my ass from a comfy chair. Then again, given a few other competitors have already outstripped Apple on the innovation front, I guess I can always play for a few teams and see what happens, huh?