Why The XDR Stand Sells Apple's Change of Focus

I grew up with Apple, my most cherished possession when I was a middle schooler was an iPod Nano followed by the iPod Touch. In High School I was jazzed to get my Mom's handmedown iPhone 4 and subsequently when I graduated I got a iPhone 5s as a present. I spent a long time in College on a Macbook Pro from 2012 and when I moved onto Windows Laptops I still had a love for Apple. But when Apple announced that the iPhone would go headphone jackless for the iPhone 7, I was out. I made my next phone an S7 Edge and haven't looked back since. To me, it seemed that Apple was removing features for BS reasons... probably to sell Airpods if we're honest.

For the longest time I have left Apple alone largely, I'd talk shit here and there but for the most part I left things alone. Heck I even encouraged my Dad, who hates smartphones, to go iPhone X. iPhones, in my mind, were for more simple people, yeah you couldn't do as much as Android, but chances are you didn't care and I understand that, even if I think $1500 for a phone is insane. Heck, I even respect Apple valuing privacy, it's one of the few points I give to them vs Google. Apple had positives, in spite of what I saw as it's faults. But today, well there's no defending the shit they pulled, it's simply inexcusable.

For those not in the know, yesterday Apple had it's WWDC event and announced some new things, mostly software related and frankly I just glance and move on. But when they got to the hardware, i got pissed. Now Apple charging $6k for a Mac Pro that can be built for far less even though they're playing to the profession al market? Fine, whatever, it's not for me and I won't pretend to understand the Apple premium or it's cheese grater abilities. $4k for the 6k XDR screen, my limit is 4K display so again, don't care much, I'll leave that to people who get it. No, what gets me riled up, pisses me off and makes me want to scream "WHY?" to anyone who wants to support Apple is this....

That is the stand for the XDR display and it costs, wait for it, $999.... for a monitor stand, fucking what? $999, for a piece of metal that just holds your monitor... the kind that, while plastic, came free with my $300 monitor from ASUS. What kind of rip-off scam artist bullshit is this Apple? It's just a hunk of metal that goes vertical and swivels... for $1000? And it's sold desperately from the XDR monitor? My initial response was rage, just pure unfettered rage at Apple's greed, it's sheer greed. But once I caught on and thought about it I realized something important that changes everything.

Apple doesn't sell tech, it sells fashion.

Back in the early day's Apple was all about technology and in the 2000's Apple hit their stride revolutionizing tech while also being pleasing on a aesthetic level. From the iMac's with their colorful and compact look, to the iPod being stylish while being a great MP3 player, Apple was great at making new tech and marketing it. If Apple didn't create it, they sure set the standard for it, and that gave them the edge over every other tech company, the iPod, iPhone, iMac, and iPad inspired a lot of tech companies, making Apple a true leader.

And then Steve Jobs died.

Suddenly Apple began to lose the edge and it feels like the people in charge began pushing for more fashion as opposed to tech. Think about it, removing USB Type A in aptops, losing the headphone jack on iPhone, the entire Core i9 debacle with their Macbook Pro line, refusing to allow the user to customize their computers on the inside and upgrade specs. It makes sense that Apple tech isn't really meant to be used for any tech work, it's meant to be used as a fashion choice; because Apple is "sleek" and "trendy." I'm not against something based on aesthetic, I put RGB L.E.D's in my PC for example, but it did force me to change how I think of Apple, because I used to think they sold tech until they dropped this damned stand, silly me.

No, they don't sell to people who want the best tech, they don't sell to the discerning customer who think iOS or OSX is good enough to suffer the premium or respect Apple's stance on privacy compared to Google. No, Apple sells to the iJustine's of the world, the people who replaced their brain with an iPhone 7 ad that just repeats the word courage over and over. The people who bought that i9 Macbook even though it was proven worse than the i7 Macbook. People who buy into more expensive higher capacity iPhones that only exist because you can't use an SD card with the phone unlike most Android phones. People who don't mind owning 20 different dongles just to do shit my Android and laptop can do out of the box.

Why do I say all this you may ask? Well because it's the only way that spending $999 on a fucking monitor stand that should come with the monitor makes any damn sense. If I believed that Apple would genuinely sell that as a real tech product and not some trendy bullshit "fashion statement" I would black out and wake up 24 hours later in the custody of the Cupertino Police Department.

PS: Fuck Beats, they go on that list as well. $200 for a hunk of plastic that easily collapses and sounds like shit? Fuck that noise.