Apple 进入“粗制滥造”时代：折叠屏 iPhone Duo 开裂、触屏笔记本发布

My ears perked up when I heard Apple’s new foldable phones were cracking. I licked my lips when the company announced it’s releasing a touch-screen laptop. This was a company that once charged $19 for a polishing cloth, asked $200 for a VESA mount, and sold $700 wheels for the Mac Pro. Now it’s borrowing tired ideas from its competitors and launching hardware its previous leaders rejected.

The once dominant company is struggling to find its feet in an AI-driven post-Tim Cook world. John Ternus is the new CEO — a 25 year veteran of the company with a track record of pushing harebrained hardware schemes like the much reviled Touch Bar and lawsuit inducing butterfly keyboard. 

With Ternus at the helm, I feel there’s a good chance Apple’s best days are behind it, that it will have to make do with less, that it’s déclassé. Apple, blindsided by AI and relying on crowdpleasing hardware gimmicks, is downwardly mobile. It’s in its slop era. The company that once asked consumers to “Think Different” is now releasing hardware that’s just like everything else on the market.

Apple is not adjusting to this new position well. AI boosters agree that Siri AI is awful. Apple HomeView is a $300 Apple Watch meant to replace the family hearth. The iPhone Duo has only been out for a few days and all people can talk about is the cracks, yet Ternus is on the cover of Time Magazine this week holding the folding iPhone Duo and staring at the camera. “The other examples in the world felt kind of cheap and crappy,” Ternus told Time. Many people holding cracked iPhone Duos this week are learning just what (not) cheap and crappy looks like.

Flailing from crackgate, Apple announced the launch of a touch-screen laptop, an idea Steve Jobs extensively tested and said “doesn’t work,” an idea Cook once compared to combining a toaster with a refrigerator. What’s next? What if the toaster-refigerator folded? Ternus has been trying to make an 18-inch foldable iPad happen for years. Maybe Apple will solve the screen cracking issues by then. Or maybe Ternus will continue to try to put a hat on a hat.

I have been waiting for this moment for more than a decade. I am relishing Apple’s recent trajectory more than I should. I confess I harbor a secret and petty grudge.

In 2010, when Apple released the iPhone 4 I was working as a floor manager at a Banana Republic in Dallas. I was interested in smart phones, of course, but Dallas is an expensive city and the iPhone was a luxury. I made do with my Motorola Razr. But the suit-wearing middle management retail psychopaths that were my coworkers saw my lack of an iPhone as a weakness. It was not, as they say now, On Brand.

I had started at the store in the stock room, working my way up to manage the backroom before ascending to a coveted position on the sales floor. The other managers made it clear that a Razr was a “backroom” phone and someone in a prominent position on the floor needed to be seen using an iPhone.

At first, I was not told to buy an iPhone. The message came in the form of subtle and not so subtle bullying deployed over weeks.

“Still using that old phone?” they’d say.“Didn’t you get a raise?” someone would ask a week later.

“Try not to use that thing on the sales floor,” one co-worker told me, pointing at my Razr. “We’re trying to project a certain image here.”

The social pressure had the opposite of its intended effect. I resisted. Eventually one of the friendlier managers pulled me aside. He told me that my colleagues thought it was weird that I didn't have an iPhone. He said I needed to buy one to fit in and he said the store could give me an advance on my paycheck to make it happen.

Ever the contrarian and pissed I was experiencing high school style bullying as a full grown adult, I threw in with Google instead. I got an HTC Dream. My coworkers weren’t happy, but they stopped bringing up the iPhone. 

I’ve been an Android user ever since and studiously avoided Apple products until I broke down a few years ago and bought a Macbook Air. Time heals all wounds and Windows laptops are garbage. I’d even been considering changing from Android to iPhone because the privacy features are more robust. I’ve never been averse to a fast food meal either and maybe I’m a little more comfortable with Apple now that the cracks are starting to show in the foldable phone.

About the author

Matthew Gault is a writer covering weird tech, nuclear war, and video games. He’s worked for Reuters, Motherboard, and the New York Times.