Apple, Schmapple…

There is always the fear that this will become yet another one of those blogs that just links to other blogs. If so I’ll at least try to make it interesting by making comments or taking my own spin on whatever I’m linking to. Anyway, I’ll begin with this:

http://www.theinternetnowinhandybookform.com/schmapple/mysteron.html – The Apple Mysterion from the Schmapple Store. A great little device that is, rather sadly, fictional. Merely created, like everything else on the Schmapple Store, for satirical effect. Though this is where I personally see technology heading; Simplistic things that don’t really require any human interaction, or even understanding, at all. They just sit there looking pretty and doing something vague that somehow improves our lives… according to the laminated two page manual.

I don’t like this of course, because I’m a bit of a geek and like lots of buttons and functions and things I can explore, but anyway, back to the Apple Mysterion (see I’m trying to avoid this stream-of-consciousness thing. It’s getting old. Notice how Eddie Izzard isn’t funny anymore? Hmmm.)

What this really needs is the single LED on the front to be linked to peoples moods, at least the moods of those around it. Within a certain radius. When these people are happy it’s a bright blue. When they are subdued, sleeping or out¹… various dull greens. Then when people are having a blazing violent row it will be bright red and flashing, which will be the technology equivalent of a child sitting rocking and sobbing and covering it’s ears in the broom closet, so someone can stop and go “Look what you’ve done! You’ve upset the thing! Are you happy now?!”. And they’ll rally together and try to sooth and placate the Apple Mysterion (maybe play games with it by linking it up to their McMini, via a cunningly hidden USB port) and in turn find themselves putting aside their differences, al thanks to the mystical Steve Jobs and his team of hardware wizards. They’ll be deserving of all your money, sure it only brings you misery anyway.

Maybe this is what we need? What mankind needs… a thing that brings us together through a kind of confused guilt. We’ve broke our own children, they’re all playing GTA4 and giving blow jobs to each other in the back of the school bus. Maybe this could be a replacement? An USB box of innocence?

Sometimes satire brings us the most serious notions…

¹ Of course you don’t switch it off when you are out, it needs to do updates and… stuff. You don’t need to worry about it being on stand-by all the time. It’s obviously good for the environment anyway, I mean… it’s made by Apple for christs sake.

Something to say?