Thinking Inside the Box?
The Future and the White Pill. Part Twenty-Three.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
— Steve Jobs, 1997
Every year for decades I’d look forward to the keynote speech at Apple’s WWDC (world-wide developer’s conference) but this year’s version left me with a huge feeling of disappointment.
Why?
Okay. There’s the usual Woke bullshit. Let’s get that out of the way so we can move on to more important stuff.
As usual, Tim Cook was standing in front of that rainbow arch sculpture thing. Hubba hubba. Tim is saiid to be “gay” and the rainbow is all about being a homosexual, even if it wasn’t in Genesis 9:16, which says And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
And, is it just may imagination (I don’t think so) that they are checking boxes by a steady parade of folks from various ends of the earth so as to make it crystal clear that Apple is not just about white guys from Alabama who happen to have enjoyed sex with their fellow man?
Okay. I got that Woke stuff out of my system. Now let’s move on. Let’s talk about changing the world.
Is Apple still changing the world?
When I was growing up, there was Westinghouse, General Electric, RCA, and other electric companies who made stuff before the Japanese, and then the Koreans and Chinese took over the electric appliance industry. Has Apple become the new General Electric? Is that it? They go out, not in a blaze of glory, not in a bang, but a whimper.
There’s a lot of criticism of the fancy-shmancy icon thing, with transparent icons— what do they call it?— Liquid Glass. Me, I thought it was cool when they started it, though there was a huge outpouring of hatred which followed. Apple’s most recent annnouncement is that you’ll be able to set your own desired level of glassiness, that is, transparency, when the new update comes out “This Fall.”
So, is that it? Transparent icons, with user-defined degree of transparency. Is that what Steve Jobs meant by “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules?” The rule, apparently, was that icons must never be transparent. And now the world has changed.
Well, technically, that’s true. Icons never were transparent, and now they can be, if that’s the way you want them. The world has indeed been changed. Not a big change, but a change.
But what if Apple really was a misfit, a rebel, a troublemaker? Then what would they be doing? That’s the 64 trillion dollar question for late spring 2026.
No, I don’t work for Apple. I was born in the USA. I don’t have an engineering degree. So what gives me the chutzpah to imagine Apple doing something to change the world again? Maybe being born in the USA has something to do with it, although Elon Musk wasn’t born in the USA and he has chutzpah too.
What does the world need to be changed? Right off the bat I can think of one thing. Human beings normally speak to each other face to face, or via other customary established devices such as lecterns, pulpits, judicial benches, and throne rooms. Now they don’t maintain the face-to-face thing any more. It gets interrupted by the smartphone screen, with or out beeps and boops from Notifications.
Nope. The smartphone ban doesn’t work. If you really want your smartphone banned, you’ve got to commit some kind of crime and get yourself locked up in jail. Otherwise, the phone is going to be there. With satellite bandwidth everyone on the planet will have one except for people in jail. In the most remote deserts, islands, and mountain hideaways the locals will have smartphones. I’m old enough to remember when such people were called “naked savages.” Now there’s no such thing as a naked savage. There’s just remotely located smartphone users who prefer to avoid overdressing.
So, Apple, how about it? How about a device which allows people to talk face to face again without either being interrupted by beeps and boops and having to look at the phone screen?
No Apple, not VisionPro. Not “smart” glasses. Just good old-fashioned human interaction, with all the goodies available to all participants. Zoom and whatnot, while chatting with whomever. Watching TikTok together on a date before leaning in for a kiss. And so forth,
I know you can do it, Apple. You gave me the MacBook Air upon which I’m typing this. You gave me great cameras on a gadget which I can swagger around with in a cross-body thingie. Even a build-in flash instead of bulbs that had to be gathered up after a single use.
Yes, you can do it. Change the world. Be a peg. Square or round, or whatever. Triangular. You can do it, Apple.
Think different.