Apple on iPhone 5: You'd be mad if we'd changed it TOO much
In a video already live on Apple's site, Jonathan Ive explains that people love their iPhones so much that ANY changes have to be truly thought through. Really?
When you're in love, really in love, change is not something you should believe in.
Well, not too much.
This appears to be one of Apple's rationales for its new, taller, but still really quite the same iPhone 5.
In a video already posted to Apple's Web site (but sadly not yet embeddable), senior vice-president of design Jonathan Ive explained that your iPhone is "probably the object you use most in your life."
Yes, more than your shampoo for greasy hair. More than your car, your sofa and your exfoliating cream. More than your bed and your cooker and your mailbox.
"With this unique relationship people have with their iPhone, we take changing it really seriously," he added.
Some might see this as a touchingly self-serving set-up for a new item that is a little less magical and revolutionary than the impassioned had hoped.
See CNET's full coverage of Apple's iPhone 5 event
Still, Ive insisted that Apple didn't just want to make a new phone. "We wanted to make a much better phone," he said.
He isn't the only performer in this video.
The newly-unretired senior vice-president (of something currently unspecified) Bob Mansfield promised that with LTE, I would notice a big difference in download speeds.
Bob, Bob. I have AT&T. Can you promise me that will happen? Bob your head if that's true.
And, wait, isn't Samsung going to sue you for this LTE thing? I'm just asking. They might sue you in Wyoming or somewhere, and juries might not be so friendly there.
Oh, and Bob, you said the new technology "increases frame rates." Bob, I'm a real human being. This is on your, you know, Web site. Real people go there. I don't think they know what frame rates are.
Then Scott Forstall, senior vice-president of iPhone software wants to sell me, well, a larger screen.
But, Scott, won't Samsung sue you for that? They've had one for a while. Just kidding. Your phone has rounded corners, doesn't it, so you'll be fine. Because you own rounded corners.
At least Forstall used the words "fantastic" and "awesome." I can relate to that.
At the end, Ive came back. He used the word "aluminium." I can relate to that too, as I grew up in the Europe place. "Aluminium" is a much nicer word than "aluminum." Just like "Apple" is a much nicer word than "Samsung" or "Asus."
Ive finished with a flourish. "Simple, clear and truly extraordinary," he whispered. Because he speaks like a hypnotist who's about to make your believe that you are a french fry in search of the perfect ketchup.
What's simple, clear and slightly extraordinary is that your iPhone can't go as far -- in the dreams that Apple has set up for you -- as you wish it could.
Love is kept alive by endurance, commitment, mutual knowledge and understanding. Excitement tends to take a lower place, just above movie-watching and just below the once-a-year trip to a Larry Flynt emporium.
You still buy into it, though. Of course you do.
Until a really exciting alternative comes along, of course.